Before I became a mother and would tell older colleagues and friends that I’d never trust my parents with my future children alone, many of them scoffed at me and said I was just saying that. They insisted that once the reality of how expensive daycare, nannies, and babysitters are had hit me that I’d relent and give in — to allow my parents the pleasure of having “quality” time with their grandchild, and also to relieve my bank account from paying exorbitant sums for mediocre childcare.
Kaia is over 3.5 years old now, and I still have not relented. And the few moments I do, I regret it because she gets exposed to all kinds of dangerous things just in my parents’ house. Their pills, both vitamin supplements AND prescription medications (who the hell can keep track of which is what?) are scattered all over random surfaces and tables and benches. My mom leaves sharp knives and scissors in her reach. My dad has razor blades and high blood pressure medication just inches from her little hands as though it’s no big deal. And the place is just filthy with mouse droppings everywhere. She got her hand and foot snapped in mouse traps. And to make things even worse, my mom refuses to listen to me when I tell her not to give her any candy. My parents’ house has so much candy in endless forms in every nook and cranny of the house that I cannot even keep track of it all!
I got so mad at the cob webs all over the walls and ceilings of the bathroom — these have been there likely since the pandemic and no one has made any attempt to clean them up. So, this morning just before 8am, I took out my dad’s old vacuum, climbed up on top of the sink, and started vacuuming. Both my mom and Kaia were confused as to why I was vacuuming. I looked at my mom and said, “Do you think these cob webs are clean? A spider will come bite and kill you!”
Shortly after my vacuuming stint, my mom said she was leaving for her JW Sunday morning. So I figured we’d have some quiet time in the house before we left to meet my friends and their kids for a morning at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. But then Chris came over and asked, “Why is Hoj outside with your mom?” Confused and annoyed, I went outside to see that my mom was standing in the driveway, and Kaia had already run up half the block on her own, completely unattended. I could actually feel the blood rushing to my face to see her just standing there, looking down at me. I ran up to her, grabbed her hand, and walked her down with me. The driveways are small and narrow on this block, and the visibility is low when cars are backing out. A driver could easily miss someone of Kaia’s size when backing out. Not to mention that at the top of the block is Fulton, one of the busiest, high traffic, and high speed streets in the Richmond District. What if she had run all the way up there on her own and gotten hit by a car? So many awful, deadly incidents could have played out if the timing were all wrong.
My mom stood there, looking at me helplessly when I brought Kaia back down to the house. “My leg hurts!” She cried in defense of herself. “I have a dislocated disc! If I ran after her, that would be it for me and I’d be dead!”
I could barely contain myself. It was like fire was coming out of my mouth. “Anger” didn’t even describe exactly how infuriated I was. “WHY DID YOU TAKE HER OUT OF THE HOUSE?” I screamed at her, knowing full well that this was in public in the early morning and could easily wake up the neighbors, but I truly did not care. She needed to hear how stupid and irresponsible she was. “SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN HIT BY A CAR COMING OUT OF A DRIVEWAY AND DIED! SHE COULD HAVE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE WHAT YOU DID WAS WRONG?! YOU WERE JUST GOING TO STAND HERE AND LET HER GET HURT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
My mom proceeded to protest, but nothing mattered at that point. If I got any closer to her, I would have wanted to bash her face in and inflict serious bodily harm on her. The idea of my little daughter, my only baby, dying on the watch of my mom was far too much for me to bear or think about. All I could think was, first, you let Ed die, and then, you want to let your only grandchild die, too?! I slammed the gate and then the front door so she would realize how badly she fucked up.
Well, that was naive of me. After 39-plus years of dealing with her twisted logic, her lack of rationale, her constant victimhood, her holier-than-thou attitude, apparently I refuse to accept that she will never admit wrongdoing in any situation where she was, point blank, in the wrong. Of course, my mom wouldn’t acknowledge she did anything wrong. When has she ever admitted fault in her life with Ed or me even once? Instead, she spent the rest of the day thinking… how dare her daughter raise her voice and yell at her, her mother. How dare she be so cruel to me. When Chris brought Kaia back to the house before I came home from my spa afternoon, my mom confronted him about the situation to try to “explain” what happened — all defensive, zero remorse. Regardless, he wasn’t going to deal with her; that was my job since she’s my mother. He simply told her to keep Kaia in the house and walked away.
Then when I did laundry this evening, once again, she tried to defend herself, saying she would have died if she tried to run after Kaia (the cripple sob story because she just let her 3.5 year old grandchild out of the house, completely unattended where cars could potentially hit and kill her — no big deal, right? If she ran, she’d push her disc further out of alignment, and thus her back would be ruined and she’d die, etc.). My mom said she was upset because the real problem was that I actually had the guts to yell at her. “What kind of child speaks to their mother this way? What kind?!” Refusing to admit wrongdoing is a theme in my family – and something I want to break the cycle of.
“You can talk to your husband or your mother-in-law like that, but never to me! I will not accept it!” she hissed.
I insisted she was wrong, that she put my child in danger, that I could never trust her to care for Kaia, that neither of them could ever be trusted with her unattended; and how insane that she would ever suggest I leave Kaia with her at home while I went out with my friends. “She would be dead by the time I got back!” I yelled at her.
I ended the conversation by walking away. I refuse to normalize stupidity and irresponsibility. I refuse to accept child negligence and constant verbal abuse and gaslighting — even of adult children. I will not.