The Search for Love and Acceptance
As people we all make mistakes. It is very human to err. There is a verse in the bible that says, “Why do I always do the things that I hate.” This I can identify with too. There are times when I frown when instead I should have smiled. I have a clear recollection of one of those instances. There was a young man that I had a major crush on. One Saturday I saw him along with another fellow fixing his bicycle on the sidewalk. He had literally come to mind a few minutes before I saw him. I wanted to run in to him so I could talk to him but I also wanted the situation to be ideal. Then to my joy there he was but disappointingly he had a friend with him. Instead of smiling at him, I frowned and gave him a dirty look. Needless to say, from that time forth his attitude towards me changed.
I first started blogging after having difficulty dealing with one of my teenage daughter’s rebellious behavior. I tried numerous interventions to get her back on track. At the present time she is taking the GED class at our local community college. It is my desire for her to continue on there after she finishes her GED. She is a very strong-willed child, therefore if my desire does not coincide with hers it may not come to fruition. In some ways she has been trying to make an effort to comply with our rules; in other areas she continues to be defiant.
I have noted a marked change after she appeared in court. After she was dismissed from the military program we enrolled her in, she continued to be openly disobedient. Prior to her court appearance the DA was saying that we would have to place her in a program. On the day of the hearing they changed everything they had told us and decided not to issue her any punishment. The judge told tell her that if she broke the law in the next two years then he would sentence her as a second offender, and detailed what her punishment would entail. This had a bigger impact on her than any consequence we had given her this far.
This whole situation has been extremely stressful for me. If I did not currently have one child in college and another starting in August, I would use our resources to send her to boarding school. The problem with such a choice is that I know for a fact that this child struggles with abandonment issues as a result of being given up by her birth mother. My wanting to send her away is a repetition of the same action that she is battling with. Personally, I cannot truly identify with this level of rejection. When she defies me there are times when I feel that she is rejecting me as she has been discarded. Yet I know that this is not true and she did say on one occasion, “It is not you.”
“I get anxious and feel that I need to take action,” she told me. Her wound is not the same as my being rejected by my peer. This is someone who was supposed to love her regardless. Even if I loved that fellow with “amore love,” that kind of love sometimes changes and that can be hurtful; but “agape love,” that sacrificial love, the way a parent should love a child, should always be. For that reason, I cannot rightfully compare her wounds to my being ignored by someone I cared about. It was well within that fellow’s rights to avoid me for being rude. In her scenario, she has life long scars where as I simply moved on with my life.
As a mother it is difficult not being able to give my daughter what she needs. It is extremely difficult to watch your child make foolish mistakes over and over. The easy thing to do would be to send her away or to walk away. That however, would only inflict more pain, and what would be the point of hurting someone who is already hurting? As a person I know what it is like to do the things I hate. I am also fully aware that in the end my daughter will chose to live as she pleases. If it is not what I would have wanted for her, it would sadden me but until then I can only do the best that I can do. I can also chose to love and accept her for who she is no matter what and to never give up on her, as opposed to doing what she has come to expect…repeated rejection.
I first started blogging after having difficulty dealing with one of my teenage daughter’s rebellious behavior. I tried numerous interventions to get her back on track. At the present time she is taking the GED class at our local community college. It is my desire for her to continue on there after she finishes her GED. She is a very strong-willed child, therefore if my desire does not coincide with hers it may not come to fruition. In some ways she has been trying to make an effort to comply with our rules; in other areas she continues to be defiant.
I have noted a marked change after she appeared in court. After she was dismissed from the military program we enrolled her in, she continued to be openly disobedient. Prior to her court appearance the DA was saying that we would have to place her in a program. On the day of the hearing they changed everything they had told us and decided not to issue her any punishment. The judge told tell her that if she broke the law in the next two years then he would sentence her as a second offender, and detailed what her punishment would entail. This had a bigger impact on her than any consequence we had given her this far.
This whole situation has been extremely stressful for me. If I did not currently have one child in college and another starting in August, I would use our resources to send her to boarding school. The problem with such a choice is that I know for a fact that this child struggles with abandonment issues as a result of being given up by her birth mother. My wanting to send her away is a repetition of the same action that she is battling with. Personally, I cannot truly identify with this level of rejection. When she defies me there are times when I feel that she is rejecting me as she has been discarded. Yet I know that this is not true and she did say on one occasion, “It is not you.”
“I get anxious and feel that I need to take action,” she told me. Her wound is not the same as my being rejected by my peer. This is someone who was supposed to love her regardless. Even if I loved that fellow with “amore love,” that kind of love sometimes changes and that can be hurtful; but “agape love,” that sacrificial love, the way a parent should love a child, should always be. For that reason, I cannot rightfully compare her wounds to my being ignored by someone I cared about. It was well within that fellow’s rights to avoid me for being rude. In her scenario, she has life long scars where as I simply moved on with my life.
As a mother it is difficult not being able to give my daughter what she needs. It is extremely difficult to watch your child make foolish mistakes over and over. The easy thing to do would be to send her away or to walk away. That however, would only inflict more pain, and what would be the point of hurting someone who is already hurting? As a person I know what it is like to do the things I hate. I am also fully aware that in the end my daughter will chose to live as she pleases. If it is not what I would have wanted for her, it would sadden me but until then I can only do the best that I can do. I can also chose to love and accept her for who she is no matter what and to never give up on her, as opposed to doing what she has come to expect…repeated rejection.
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