Parents and Punishments

100/365

A little insight into my life. Why I'm so strong and stubborn, and enduring of pain. It has been both my greatest strength and my biggest downfall. The reason I am the way I am, and it all started with my momma…
-VQ

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Your upbringing has everything to do with your current character. If you want to know why you are the way you are and why you behave the way you do, take a nice long look at your parents. Also consider the environment in which you grew up in for there are outside factors that influence us that even our parents cannot control. If you did not have present parents understand that their absence was just as impactful. Their lack of guidance effecting how you reacted to the world and the people around you. Similarly, the parental style of the parents you have in your life determines your abilities, coping skills, and ultimately defines your personality.

I, for one, consider myself to be a very strong and independent woman which I attribute to being raised by one. My mother was an extremely solid person in both her physicality and her presentation of her mental/emotional state. My brother and I like to lovingly (at the present point in time) refer to her parental style as a dictatorship. Describing our childhood as being punished harshly and judged critically for what she deemed as inappropriate or unacceptable behaviors. There were two types of people my mother constantly preached to us about that she could not tolerate: liars and thieves. And she did nothing less than proving her words every single time.

As teenagers we were admittingly unruly children. I want to make it clear that I do not resent my mother for her punishment style, only that I can look back at it now and assess where it worked to teach us a lesson and where it failed to due to its extremity. I was about 15 years old with my mother in a supermarket one day. In my Goth phase of adolescence and wanting black eye makeup to paint my face with so that I could shock the neighborhood with my dark demeanor. We didn’t have much money in terms of spending it on anything but what was necessary like food, clothes, and shelter. I had concluded that if I asked her to buy it for me she would automatically refuse denying its relevance to my survival.

So, what did I do? I shoved all the makeup I could into every crevice I had. In my bra went the mascara, up my coat sleeve went the eye liner, in my pockets I threw the lipstick. All while she wandered through the aisles picking up food to make sure we had what we needed. When she was done she went up the register as customary, paid for the groceries and on our way, we went. We reached as far as the door when we were stopped dead in our tracks by security. My slick smile immediately wiped from my face the moment I realized I had not gotten away with what I thought was a pretty smooth swiping session. My heart sank in my chest when she shot me that menacing glare; a stare I could never forget.

We were taken to a back room where they made me empty my pockets of everything I had stolen. With every item I pulled out she became more and more infuriated. The security said something about not pressing charges because they could tell based on my mom’s reaction that I was “in for it” once I got home. I panicked at that point praying I’d get arrested instead of having to face her repercussions. She apologized to security and walked me out in silence. I tried getting in the back seat of the car, but she made me sit up front, so that I was within arm’s reach as she pulled my hair and slapped me with the strength of several men.

I thought that was it, but of course the consequences were not over. The embarrassment I caused her too heavy to forget that easily. When we got home she stormed into the kitchen grabbing a frozen pack of meat or vegetables (I don’t remember that part so clearly). She shoved it in my hands and commanded me to hold it. I was sincerely confused until she grabbed the duct tape and proceeded to bind my hands to the frozen package. Angry, she began yelling about thieves and how we shouldn’t dare take anything that doesn’t belong to us not even a grain of rice from someone’s home without permission, and how now I must think about what I did and never do it again.

The funny part is I don’t think I considered those things at all. I couldn’t help but feel anything but sorry for myself, especially after the belt lashings. I was whipped and then left in my room stuck to a stupid pack of I don’t remember what. I recall ripping my hands out of the tape for some relief not knowing when she’d be back. I was upset at her for the beating and of course annoyed that I was probably going to be punished on top of it by not being allowed to go anywhere or do anything fun. I learned that I was stupid for getting caught and how to do it better next time. When I heard my mother’s footsteps returning I shoved my hand back in the tape acting as if I had endured the frost the entire time.

She cut me loose still disappointed in me, but seemingly satisfied in her discipline. I think back now and feel more remorseful for her than I do for me. How hard she tried to teach us the right thing and how far she had to go to make her point. Why didn’t we just listen? Well, there were those environmental factors and outside influences that she knew nothing about. Those dark forces knocking on our door tempting us to disregard her lessons for the sake of mischief and fun that she would not allow us to have. And for our own good too, for had I known what the next few years had in store for me by continuing down that shady path I’d have run in the opposite direction back to the light and into her arms. But alas, as teenagers we don’t know a damn thing. The only thing I learned that day was that I could take a beating, so bring it on life! And bring it on it did…