Keeping Mom in Your Heart and Learning to Forgive

Today is a day we honor and celebrate our mothers. We buy them gifts to show our appreciation, take them out to dinner or make them breakfast. Sometimes we leave them with more mess to clean up once the celebrations are done.

Next month, we celebrate fathers in much the same way. However, for some people, whether they are adults or children, these two days, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, can be difficult.

If your parents have died, you miss them as the world around you takes the time to spend the day with their mothers or fathers. For children who grew up in an abusive atmosphere, honoring their parents can be difficult when they’ve proven they do not deserve the accolades.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mom, but she was flawed. In some ways, she was just as abusive as my dad. But, she was also a victim.

I never blamed my mother for what happened in my childhood because she was abused by my father as well. He would beat her for seemingly nothing. I had always thought it was only when he was drunk, until I turned about 13 years old and saw him hitting her when he was stone cold sober.

I wasn’t in the same room at the time, but I saw what happened on the shadows of a wall. She had been lying in bed reading a book before going to sleep, as she often did. I don’t remember what their conversation was about, but I do vaguely remember him asking a question and she answered it.

It was a simple exchange with no animosity. However, I saw the shadows of him looming over her while she was in bed and proceed to beat her with his fist. It is a memory that is forever etched in my mind and on my soul.

My dad was a big guy, he may have only hit her two or three times, but he was strong and he never held back. So, knowing my mother had been beaten by my father, I never blamed her. At least, not until I was about 24, had moved to another state and was staying with my brother and his family.

They were living in the San Francisco Bay Area and I had moved out there upon his invitation. My brother said I needed to leave Kansas and see more of the world, expand my horizons. He was right, so I moved in with him, his pregnant wife and son.

Two months after moving in, they had their daughter. I was enchanted by this little baby. She was so beautiful and so dependent on everyone. It was then I started to become angry with my mother. I would have done anything to protect my nephew and niece, anything. So, I began to question why didn’t she protect me and my brother?

She was the breadwinner in our house because my dad would drink away his paycheck. She basically supported our family, made sure the house payment and utilities were paid and even made clothes when we were young so we could have something new to wear. She was my hero in many ways, but heroes generally have feet of clay. They are human too.

I was angry and resentful in many ways and still am in some respects. One day when we were alone, I finally asked my mom why she didn’t leave my dad and take us away. She asked me in return if I didn’t think she had been depressed and felt powerless to do anything and I realized she would have had to have been. Some of my anger dissipated, but not all of it.

She too had her moments when she was physically and verbally abusive. I won’t go into detail, but there are deep scars from both of my parents. I turned 54 last week and those scars still linger, I still feel anger and wonder why didn’t she do more to protect her children. To me, there are few satisfactory answers to that question.

The Bible says to “honor your father and mother” and I’ve always wondered how to do that when some parents do not deserve to be honored. When the Bible speaks about honoring your parents, it means honor them as you would honor God. It is a commandment which holds the promise of life going well and a long life if you obey this commandment (Ephesians 6: 1-3), which is the fifth out the 10 commandments.  

People always say respect has to be earned, but I disagree. I think you show people respect until they prove to you that they do not deserve your respect, but you still show them the same respect you want have shown to you. “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you” Matthew 7:12. In other words, be the bigger person and live your faith. While abusive parents have demonstrated they shouldn’t be respected, show it anyway.

Small children still love their parents until they start growing up and realize their parents may not be such great people. They start meeting friends whose parents don’t yell or hit them, which can be surprising when abuse is a “normal” part of their household because that’s all they’ve ever known.This realization may take a few years to understand, depending on the child’s age, and when they do, it can destroy their image of their parents.

It’s important to get to a state where you can forgive your parents, even if they are still abusive, for your sake, not theirs. However, that does not mean you are obligated to visit them or put up with their abuse, just don’t sink to their level. This is where forgiveness comes into play, but to arrive at a point where you can forgive your parents, you must start by forgiving yourself!

Abused children carry a lot of guilt because they have wondered what they did to deserve such treatment. As we get older, we know intellectually, that we were not the ones who were wrong. However, emotionally many of us still think there is something within us which deserved to be beaten, called names or told we would never be loved by anyone.

Forgiving yourself is the first step in the long process of healing and being able to forgive your parents. You need to realize you were not to blame, that you were a child who should have been protected and cherished. Even if your parents were raging alcoholics or drug addicts, that doesn’t excuse them for being abusive, it is never a reason to harm a child.

Forgiving yourself, realizing you were not to blame is so freeing because it allows you to move forward with your life and, someday, you will be able forgive your mother and/or father too.