When shit hits the fan I think its safe to say that EVERYONE in the room gets hit. You can never confront a problem without every person that's involved to get hurt . This happened to me today when I was just trying to study for my History Final. Let's start with the senario. I live with my brother. He has recently lost his job, been a victim of grand theft auto, and he has a seven year old daughter. Only one of these things bother me. Him not having a job. Every month there are these annoying little things called bills that come knocking at your door. Well this month is the first month since he got fired that me and my boyfriend will have to make wine out of water and pay our bills. So the confilct. I am at our dining room table and my niece is up stairs calling for her dad. She does this for about three times before I say, "Hey bro your daughter is calling for you." and then, this is where my temper shoots up, he response by saying "I know, its called ignoring." PLEASE TELL ME WHO IGNORES THEIR CHILD??!!! I get up then, furious at my brother, and I see what is wrong with her. She tells me she is hungry and I invite her to eat dinner with me. As soon as she goes down the stairs, my brother yells for her to go back up to her room because she is on punishment. About 30 secs later, he snaps at me saying "I don't know if it is sympathy or what you have for her, but we need to get on the same terms when it comes to raising the girl. "
First of all, I don't have sympathy for a child just becasue I feed them when they are hungry...I like to think that's called good parenting. Second, how is feeding her going against any punishments? Are you planning to starve her to death to insure she does what she is told? Yea...that thought you just had of "this shit sounds crazy and there is no way any living human being can put punishment and feeding their child in the same senario exept a fucking lunatic..." that was exactly what I was thinking. He goes on and yells at me for things that he has bottled up for sometime ( I will spare those details) but surpise! I have also been keeping things bottled up. I basically tell him he sucks as a dad and he should stop trying to do better...he should just do better. There's no "trying" once you have a child. You just get off your ass and make it happen. I understand being a single parent is tough and there's not a handbook called "How to Raise Your Child: A Step By Step Guide into Single Parenthood" because people are just good parents. They do what is necessary to make their child's life a good one. But keep in mind their are those bad parents who have good intentions but they can't seem to understand that things don't appear in the form of government assistance all the time.
Immediately, he seems hurt by me saying that he is a bad dad. I realize it is too late to take it back, but it needed to be said. Someone needed to tell him that. He needed to know that yelling at a child all the time does not constitute love or respect but fear and anger or maybe even hatred one day. It is our job to teach her how to love and do good things. But how can she learn that when the man she calls dad can't take 5 minutes without yelling or threatning her? It hurt me to say those things to my brother because I love him so much. But wasn't he the one that threw the shit to the ceiling fan? I didn't say a thing even though I have been dying to for months. So maybe next time he will realize when shit hits the fan, everyone gets messy.
