Well, let me clarify, my immediate family that includes Chuncho, Sweetman and the baby, previously known as Bundlekin, heretofore referred to as Brumby, (yes Brumby, no, not that I want him to take on the characteristics of feral Australian horses, it just suits him so well) is not fucked. The rest of them…talk about DYSfunctionAL. Jebus help us all.
First of all, my mother decides she's gonna get all up on her high horse and tell my brother that he ought to get back into contact with my dad (my step-dad) because he hasn't spoken to him in nearly a year. And she informs me that my dad hasn't bothered to contact my brother either, and that I should encourage him to do so. Fair enough. So, when I was home visiting my dad over Easter, I bring it up, and lo and behold, my dad a) sent my brother a Christmas gift, b) sent him a birthday gift, and c) called and left my brother a message on his birthday as well. None of which my brother has acknowledged. Quel surprise.
So, then of course I set my mother straight on the matter, and all she could come up with was that my dad was "always rude" to my brother when he was a teenager and never wanted me or my brother to have any friends over when we were growing up. First off, I'll admit, I wasn't around when my brother was a teenager; he was only eleven when I moved out. But I don't remember my mother needing to fight with my dad in order for us to be allowed to have friends over. What I do remember is never being allowed to go anywhere as a teenager because my mom had so much faith in me she figured if she let me out of the house I'd get myself knocked up like she did. Selective memory I guess. But between my dad not wanting friends over and my mom not wanting to let me out of the house it's fairly amazing I had any friends at all????!
And then, my mother has the good sense to drag my aunt (my dad's sister) into the whole situation, asking her to encourage my dad to seek out contact with my brother. And then my mother informs me that my aunt said she doesn't blame my brother for not wanting contact with my dad thanks to the influence his new fiancée has on him????! I don't know what the fuck that is supposed to mean, but first things first: my dad is no different, for better or worse, than he ever was; his new fiancée has not changed him. Secondly, the new fiancée could not be more like my mother unless she was my mother. Red haired, opinionated, dominating over my dad, just Irish instead of Scottish. And my mom spells and understands the processes of written grammar and punctuation better.
So, apparently my dad was so terrible to my brother that my mom eventually told my brother to stop listening to what my dad said to him. That couldn't possibly have anything to do with things, no. Nothing like one parent undermining the other. So much for presenting a united front. And, if she thought my dad was so terrible to my brother and all the while she was also so fucking unhappy, why, then, did she not just pack the two of them up and get the fuck outta dodge? That's what I'd like to know. But, I wasn't there, so I don't get to have an opinion. I'm stuck down in the trenches, the sole line of defense of my dad's parenting skills and parental love. Seriously. This is a guy who, when he was only twenty years old, took me in and proceeded to treat me like nothing less than his own kid. This is the guy who treated his actual kid so poorly? I'm pretty decent at math, and I'm sorry, but this math just don't add up. How much you wanna bet my dad said shit like, "Son you gotta man up and stop playing so many effing video games, get out and do something with your life!" Yeah, poor parenting, wanting his kid to grow up and become a contributing member of society. Again, only conjecture on my part. And my brother might not have contacted my dad recently, but then, maybe he hasn't had any car trouble recently…
I'd like to put my brother and Chuncho's dad in a room together and see what happens. That would be a fun social experiment. It would amuse me; maybe not my brother. "What's the matter? Are you mute? Do you have the power of verbal communication?" Don't get me wrong here. I love my brother. I basically supported the guy for the better part of a year until he got his shit together and found a job here. Sure, I had to give him some tough love, but the fact of the matter is that is what he'd been missing. My mom has basically handed him everything he's ever needed on a silver platter. She even borrowed money from my grandfather (my dad's dad) while he was still alive to help pay my brother's bills when he couldn't support himself in Vancouver. All without my dad's knowledge (while they were still together). And now my brother has this horribly unattractive expectation that he is owed something from the universe without working for it. I want to slap that attitude of entitlement right off his face.
Hey, I'm no angel. I made probably more than my fair share of mistakes when dealing with my parental units over the years. I used to go home and visit my boyfriend and not tell my parents I was in town, and then someone they knew would see me on the street and tell them I'd been home. Classy, I know. But by the time I was twenty-eight years old I had my shit together: I no longer blamed my parents for the mistakes we ALL made when I was a teenager, and I made concerted efforts at maintaining positive relationships with my parental units (which is considerably more difficult for me than for my brother given that I have twice as many of them). Sometimes that meant forgiving and forgetting when I really didn't want to. Sometimes that meant keeping my mouth shut when I really wanted to yell. Loud. Sometimes it meant hearing things I didn't want to hear from one parent or another, and agree or disagree, recognizing that whatever they said was borne out of a place of love for me. That being said, also at age twenty-eight, I was well along a career path, married, and about to start a family. My brother is none of those things. Maybe he's just taking a bit longer to mature. Maybe there's hope for him yet. I hope so.
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, before I forget: the RCMP are not above overt obfuscation in their attempt to bust you for speeding! On our way home from Easter, we saw a ghost car with a new driver "N" in its rear window with a speeder pulled over. Now, somehow, I highly doubt that good officer was actually a new driver. Just FYI.
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