Over at About Damn Time there's a post about how the blogger's mother threatened to call social services on her. I had been mulling around in my head a post about Wednesday's episode of Angel. Wesley receives an unexpected visit from his father. Almost immediately, we see poor Wes become clumsy and unsure of himself around his critical and domineering father.There's an old adage that we never truly become adults until our parents have passed. In many ways, I think his is true.
I was amazed at how much this episode cut to the quick and how painful it was watching the manipulation. My mother was very manipulative and once threatened to call child services on me because I'd swatted my son on the behind for not behaving, mind you he was about 2 1/2 and had a diaper on no less. This was the same woman who called me at work and told me to come and get my son, who was about 6 at the time, she'd put him out to the curb. Nice.
The episode did a fine job of dredging up past hurts, but thankfully, they don't bother me now. Not as much anyway, I'd be a liar if I said they had no effect, of course they do. Television of the '50s and 60's presented wholesome families that were loving and able to talk about their feelings. Even a family that by today's standards would be called dysfunctional, like "My Three Sons", was able to share their thoughts without repercussion or ridicule. Unlike my own, which was shrouded in secrecy that was supposedly the way of the Irish not to air the dirty laundry. My mother was always so hrd pressed to make us see what a monster my father was for being a drinker that she missed the part where all of her pent up anger and hurt had turned her into a different sort of monster. It was naturally much easy when I was younger, when they at least had the prescence of mind to spare me the shouting matches, they didn't really escalate until I was in high school. Small wonder that I view many two parent families as being the truly dysfunctional ones. People should stay together for the children, not unless they're willing to win an academy award every day, if you're capable of burying your feelings and maintain a facade of happiness without it eating you up inside, all the power to ya then. Most people can't though and it's often the words that go unsaid that cut the deepest.
The same shows of the 50s and 60s put parents on a pedestal, Father knew best after all. I don't think I ever saw a child disagree with or have a difficult parent until "Bewitched". Sam did a wonderful job of loving her mother, but also keeping her at arm's length. Naturally, I wanted to please my parents, but what only made matters worse, was that I was particularly interested in pleasing my father, which naturally put me at odds with my mother, whom I could never please.
Wesley killed his father when his father threatened Fred (Winifred), his friend. Without a second of thought, he shot him as his father raised a gun to Fred. I didn't cut my mother off after she threatened me, I realized that she was sick, sick with jealousy, sick with regret. She was someone who was going to have to be watched with caution, because it's the "true believers" that are so very dangerous and mother was someone who truly believed that she was right and the rest of us were wrong. Needless to say, it was difficult to live up to these standards and I'm sure it was difficult for her to accept that I didn't intend to.
I have no moral to this "story" no conclusion even really, it's just a snippet of the thoughts that passed through my head this morning.
Posted by Mickey at November 14, 2003 7:08 AM