Laura

I've been struggling with some family stuff lately, which explains my previous blog. My parents are good people, they really are, but some of their conflict resolution tactics are downright dreadful. They are upset with my little sister right now for planning to move out of their house after she graduates and are applying their standard techniques to manipulate the decisions of their children. My father is doing his ignore technique. You know, like when you were mad in grade school so you stopped talking or even acknowledging whoever you were mad at. When I moved out of my parents house after high school my Dad not speak to me for an entire year...365 days. He didn't say "hi" or "bye" or "Merry Christmas"....nothing. My Mom's way of handling it is to basically instill fear into my little sister, making her doubt her abilities to do something so much that she will loose her confidence in it and give up. They did this to me for years and still do. For example, buying a house. My parents didn't think we should buy a house. The never came out and just told me that, but they never do that because being direct is rude... So, they do the ignore it technique...

Laura -"Hey, we met with our bank this morning and got preapproved for our loan."
Dad- "Ginny would you pass me that salad dressing. Man this is good lettuce."
Mom-"Oh yeah it's from the merc."

Laura- "Hey, we made an offer on a house last week."
Mom- "Is that right? Well, I was going to tell you that I looked though the classified ads and there is a nice house for rent over on Prairie Road."
Laura- "We don't want to rent a house Mom."
Mom- "Don, would you pass the salad dressing, man this lettuce is good. It's from the Merc."

Then when the ignore technique doesn't work they do the fear tacktic. ..
Mom- "I read in the paper today that foreclosures are at an all time high right now."

Dad- "When you girls were little I had to work 3 jobs just to pay the bills. I missed out on everything because of all the time I spent at work."

Fear isn't working...next step, appear to be supportive while offering solutions they are more comfortable with...
Mom- "Laurie there is a house down the street that is for sale."
Laura- "Mom that house is way out of our price range."
Mom- "Oh really? It's small."
Laura- "I'm sure it's 4 bedrooms and your neighborhood is expensive. Besides, you know we like to be on the other side of town, close to downtown and KU and our jobs."

The next day-
Mom- "Wade did you see that place down the street."
Wade- "Yeah, it's too expensive."
Mom- "Oh, really? It's pretty small though."
Wade- "Yup, out of our price range."

The next day-
Dad- "Laurie did you see that house down the street?"
Mom- "Don, Wade says that house is out of their price range."
Dad- "Oh really? Huh. Seems small. Sure would nice to have Henry so close."

About two weeks after we made the offer on our house my Mom decided to let me show her the details of the house on-line. 2 weeks later we drove by. She was not that impressed and I was pretty sure she had already checked it out herself. That house fell through and the next one we made an offer on they liked even less- bad side of town, may have to get flood insurance, such a far drive to get to their house.... I am not sure if they think that we are going to not be able to pay the mortgage (the bank is generally pretty particular about who they give hundreds of thousands of dollars to but hey, what do they know?) or that something is going to break and they are going to have to bail us out, which has NEVER happened before and I will probably never know. Unless something does break and I have to ask them for help when I will certainly hear a very polite "I told you so".

So, the crap that they are pulling on Kelly right now is really upsetting for me because it is the same stuff that they did to me and it left me with some pretty serious emotional wounds that I am still trying to heal. Kelly is bright, beautiful, talented, kind, free spirited, open, loving, a great person and she deserves to have people in her life that have faith in her not manipulate her decisions so that they are the most like their decisions. My parents told me "If you major in textile design you will have no support from us whatsoever. We will take your car, not call you or talk to you, not help you with school, nothing." My Dad said "Get used to asking "Would you like fries with that?"" So, I floundered and tried to find a place for myself outside of what I really wanted. They are doing the same thing to Kelly. She is way more talented than I have ever been and it breaks my heart that they have this bright light here just needing a little guidance and support but they won't give it to her because it isn't the choices they would have made. It is so interesting, raise your children to think independently, appreciate art and music and strive for the best and then they turn into adults and you freak out, try to stifle them and fill their heads with doubt and insecurity. My Dad loves music but I married a musician, ehh gad, we'll be in the poor house for sure. Wade is such a committed father. He pays the bills AND he is there for Henry. He isn't missing it. My Dad is retired and he is still missing it.

I would love to know my parents and I would love for them to know me. I just don't know if they want that.