Suzy Says

It might be a reflection on my parents’ parenting skills that of their four children, only one has children, and they are very nearly grown up. Doesn’t look like the rest of us are going to reproduce either. I know for a fact that I won’t, and unless my brother hurries up and finds a girlfriend soon, he’ll be 40 before he has any. Though he would be an outstanding father. He’s probably the only one that has reproduction potential. My little sister has been married for nearly 10 years now, and if she decides to have children, they’ll be adopted, like our mother was. Our grandparents always told our mother, “Other parents have to take what they get, but we chose you out of all the children in all the world.” Needless to say, my mother was never traumatized by being adopted.

She has, however, been traumatized by recent events. For those of you joining our program in progress, the short version is that her second husband left her and his employers, the US Marine Corps, simultaneously and without warning (see the archives for more about this). I don’t think either party even got a note. But what else can you expect of a guy who dumps his wife when she is facing an extremely radical mastectomy by asking her to pop the trunk of the car and then taking out his bags and announcing, “I’m leaving you”? The only thing more incredible than his exit was his return, which my mother allowed because she didn’t want to be alone. Even though he flat out said he only came back because he couldn’t afford to live on his own in non-military housing. Hmmm, this isn’t really the short version, is it?

Anyway…she is penniless but for an annuity she received in the divorce settlement from my father and the money she gets from the state to care for two worthless kids, one of which is a total psycho. She wants to move north to where my brother and sister live, but she expects us to drop everything NOW, regardless of our jobs and other obligations, and go and get her and fix everything. She further refuses to get a job, sell the unnecessary crap she has bought, get rid of the kids, etc. So even though she has overspent her way into the mess she’s in now, she doesn’t want to help herself get out of it. She’s just looking for someone to give her money and solve her problems.

I feel like a bad daughter because my pity for her situation is mixed with anger at her poor choices and refusal to deal with them. I think that if she expects us to save her ass, she has to give us power of attorney to control what little money she has and give up the foster kids and most of her pets, get a job that makes little enough not to jeopardize her welfare payments, and face up to reality. Guess my inner and outer child are BOTH bitches.