“I recognize that taking advice about discipline from a mother whose son is incarcerated might seem foolish.”
I couldn’t disagree more. I truly appreciate your insight. I’m a new reader, and as I work my way through your posts I am undoubtedly becoming a better man, father, and husband.
I’ve been a cop by trade for nearly twenty years, and I can say with certainty that accountability (love) is the way forward, while punishment (hatred/ rage/ resentment) only broadens the gap.
I can't tell you what this means to me. This, right here, is why sharing stories matters. I appreciate you and your heart and your work. You are so right that love is how we all find a better way for everyone. Thank you so much for being a part of that every day.
Thank you for sharing your story. I do not have an incarcerated child, whether by luck or grace I'm not sure, but I know the failed parent syndrome.
There are two injured parties when parents "fail." We DID NOT have a manual, but we had the spoken and unspoken advice of the many generations before us, along with the weight of expectation. And when nothing worked, we had the added, self imposed guilt of being a bad parent, unable to do it right. We inflicted trauma on our children—not only those who were willful and difficult, but also the gentler souls who easily complied yet equally felt the sting of expectation.
Black Sheep parents (love the term, btw) do, in fact, live the mirrored trauma of complete and utter inability to perform in the eyes of a larger authoritative body, being told every day in every way that we were hopeless failures.
For those of us with adult children who have been unable to forgive us, there is some comfort in knowing we did the best we could in a system rigged against us.
I can tell by your words and your heart that you truly KNOW. Breaking it all down in hindsight is so hard and yes, living with the limitations of what we knew *back then* is one of the biggest acceptance jobs of my life. I'm with you.
Thank you for linking arms with me, for making me feel less alone, for showing up with vulnerability and truth. Big hugs from here. 🖤
All I can say is my heart breaks for you both. In Australia America has always been revered but the last few years the cracks are showing and what’s leaking out is not pretty.
Thank you for sharing this - the parts you didn’t want to admit to, and also the other parts.
I am sorry that your son was a victim of a terrible dehumanizing policy like zero tolerance. My experience of schools is that they are some of the most rule bound, inflexible and paranoid institutions- or at least the administrators are like that. There are many good caring think out of the box educators who are laboring under these inhumane constraints and who see kids are rounded humans whose frontal lobes are still growing, and who need to feel they belong and they are cared about. For some reason it’s so easy to “other” the kids who are “too much” or who cannot regulate their emotions. Most adults have a hard time doing that, and if they are able to, I think for the most part they just got lucky. Putting pressure on a kid to conform, or to double down on the requirements for “good behavior” is in my experience, a good indicator that the kid will mess up, lash out, lose control or give up. I am so sorry that your son was let down by the system and then victimized and punished some more by the system. Please tell him and tell yourself too that there are people who care about him, and other young men like him, and who want to lift him up and give him strength and courage and self belief. I am sorry you had to deal with this in isolation and you had no or very few allies to walk you through the and to remind you that you and your boy matter and are loved and deserve to be loved. You’re a good mom, and I hope that when he gets out of prison - and I don’t know when that will be, that there are programs to help him process his trauma and stick to what is going for him. Maybe he has already started that work in prison? That would help the transition, for sure. Good luck, keep the faith, and again, your gift of sharing your son’s story is a really powerful one. Thank you and i I hope you keep sharing!
“I recognize that taking advice about discipline from a mother whose son is incarcerated might seem foolish.”
I couldn’t disagree more. I truly appreciate your insight. I’m a new reader, and as I work my way through your posts I am undoubtedly becoming a better man, father, and husband.
I’ve been a cop by trade for nearly twenty years, and I can say with certainty that accountability (love) is the way forward, while punishment (hatred/ rage/ resentment) only broadens the gap.
Thank you.
I can't tell you what this means to me. This, right here, is why sharing stories matters. I appreciate you and your heart and your work. You are so right that love is how we all find a better way for everyone. Thank you so much for being a part of that every day.
Sitting here in tears, I really felt this all.
Thank you for reading, and for feeling with me. Sending love. 🖤
Thank you for sharing your story. I do not have an incarcerated child, whether by luck or grace I'm not sure, but I know the failed parent syndrome.
There are two injured parties when parents "fail." We DID NOT have a manual, but we had the spoken and unspoken advice of the many generations before us, along with the weight of expectation. And when nothing worked, we had the added, self imposed guilt of being a bad parent, unable to do it right. We inflicted trauma on our children—not only those who were willful and difficult, but also the gentler souls who easily complied yet equally felt the sting of expectation.
Black Sheep parents (love the term, btw) do, in fact, live the mirrored trauma of complete and utter inability to perform in the eyes of a larger authoritative body, being told every day in every way that we were hopeless failures.
For those of us with adult children who have been unable to forgive us, there is some comfort in knowing we did the best we could in a system rigged against us.
I can tell by your words and your heart that you truly KNOW. Breaking it all down in hindsight is so hard and yes, living with the limitations of what we knew *back then* is one of the biggest acceptance jobs of my life. I'm with you.
Thank you for linking arms with me, for making me feel less alone, for showing up with vulnerability and truth. Big hugs from here. 🖤
All I can say is my heart breaks for you both. In Australia America has always been revered but the last few years the cracks are showing and what’s leaking out is not pretty.
Thank you for sharing this - the parts you didn’t want to admit to, and also the other parts.
I am sorry that your son was a victim of a terrible dehumanizing policy like zero tolerance. My experience of schools is that they are some of the most rule bound, inflexible and paranoid institutions- or at least the administrators are like that. There are many good caring think out of the box educators who are laboring under these inhumane constraints and who see kids are rounded humans whose frontal lobes are still growing, and who need to feel they belong and they are cared about. For some reason it’s so easy to “other” the kids who are “too much” or who cannot regulate their emotions. Most adults have a hard time doing that, and if they are able to, I think for the most part they just got lucky. Putting pressure on a kid to conform, or to double down on the requirements for “good behavior” is in my experience, a good indicator that the kid will mess up, lash out, lose control or give up. I am so sorry that your son was let down by the system and then victimized and punished some more by the system. Please tell him and tell yourself too that there are people who care about him, and other young men like him, and who want to lift him up and give him strength and courage and self belief. I am sorry you had to deal with this in isolation and you had no or very few allies to walk you through the and to remind you that you and your boy matter and are loved and deserve to be loved. You’re a good mom, and I hope that when he gets out of prison - and I don’t know when that will be, that there are programs to help him process his trauma and stick to what is going for him. Maybe he has already started that work in prison? That would help the transition, for sure. Good luck, keep the faith, and again, your gift of sharing your son’s story is a really powerful one. Thank you and i I hope you keep sharing!