I love my dad. I loved my mom too. But I’ll quote what a dear friend wrote…A friend who had lived with both parents for over a month, heard them talk about me, and been lectured about me.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, sis. I know you loved your mother though your mother never loved you…”
That is the essence of narcissistic parenting. They love you as long as you are following their own agenda for your life. You are extension of them, you are not your own person. And so, when I became an adult and followed my own agenda, I became a pariah. And the scapegoat.
My dad was violent but also had moments of softness and tenderness that I never got from my mom. I think that’s what stopped me from objectively telling myself, “This is abuse!” as an adult. Yes, as a child I did. But when it stopped being physical violence, I didn’t realise it was still a form of violence.
To again reiterate what my friend said after having spent time with my parents, “I can see why you wanted to escape when you weee young.” So to those who like to excuse the behaviour as “old age,” and somehow diminish the responsibility my parents have..That’s hogwash! It’s always been like this. And I know many old people who are NOT like this.
Let’s start in 2013. My mother was retiring. We decided to take our bonus and pay off her debts so she’d have no debt once retired. We did for MOST but had to keep paying her Truworths and Edgars accounts with our normal salary each month as her debts were greater than the bonus. We finished off the Truworths and then my sister moved in with her husband, and told me they had the Edgars bill under control so we could stop paying it.
That’s when everything went wrong. The data we used to buy my mom to go online, finished within two days when it used to last a month. Her bank cards would suddenly go missing and she’d have less money in her bank. Her laptops started disappearing too, and her cellphones also joined in. I wonder what changed!🫣
My poor mother in law sent phones three separate times till she realised that the problem would never end while the inhabitants lived there.
With our own funds, as a gesture of goodwill and love, we had been giving my parents (and now my sister and her husband) grocery every month. In the beginning, my dad was grateful. He was the only one who said thank you.
But in the past few years, things went crazy when we decided to save my mom her money and I took signing rights over her banking. (We went to the bank together and she willingly told the banker that I should have access to her banking even online.)
We started feeding them from the money from my mother’s pension, AND continued giving from our own pockets as well. This continued till my mother died. And that’s when my dad showed exactly where he stood.
I’d noted it. But I hadn’t clicked! The friend we hired to care for them was only meant to work Monday- Friday BUT lockdown started just as she was arriving. I told my sister the rules. After all, my sister is young and able bodied. Of course she could take care of the household during the weekends!! And I stated that the helping lady should have leave as well.
After four weeks of non stop working, day AND night, their caregiver told them in advance that she was going to go collect a mask, and just visit with a friend. When she got back, my father told her not to listen to me. The ‘Me’ who was paying her measly salary!😫He said I was “poison”🥹and that I was leading her astray. He said that she had to work all the time, as my sister had her five year old to care for.
Wow, wouldn’t it be nice to only have one child to care for and forget all other responsibilities? Of course, I reiterated that her salary was low, what we could afford was little. And that she deserved a rest. My father then asked her (or the neighbour) to take a photo of a letter he was sending me. He was telling me I am a Pharisee and failing at my duty of caring by allowing the poor worker to have a break. That God is angry with me etc.
Guys, this is not old age. My dad has always been like this, ask church members. Always publicly loudly correcting them, telling them they don’t study the Word…It was hurtful to know he could turn his venom on me. It was the first time that I could read for myself what my friend had told me- though I had believed her anyway!
One time, we brought grocery. My husband was putting the sugar my dad had demanded, into a cupboard. My dad yelled at him to open the packet and pour it into a container. Never has anyone thought of how long it takes us to shop for them. How it kills my body. How long it takes to drive to their township. The fuel spent. And how we’d left our children to their devices in all that time. Never! Instead, they’d complain about what we brought. It was hurtful, very hurtful. we didn’t do it for acknowledgment, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you!
But worse was to come. As my husband told my father that he would leave the sugar in the cupboard and my sister could open it, my dad went ballistic, yelling at him, telling him to leave my sister out of it! Huh!? She lived there!! She was eating the sugar too! We had to get home to our children! Then my father asked my husband to phone my sister and tell her to come back home as she’d been gone for too many days.
We’ve played that game before. My dad’s phone calls in the last five years consisted purely of him telling me the extra things I should buy for them, telling me to go look at some mess my mother had made, telling me on weekends to phone my sister and tell her to get back home. Note what was missing when he phoned? Asking how we are. Asking after the children. Phoning just to show he loved me. When my husband told him that every time we phone, my sister never answers so he doesn’t want to phone, my dad said, “Fine. I’ll tell the church people that my son doesn’t help me.”
🥹💔He would sully the name of the only one who was consistently feeding him? Just because he left to the resident, a duty that was hers? And it’s true, my father did indeed sully our reputations to church members and to relatives. It was the worst few years of my life. It was bad enough knowing my parents didn’t love me. But when relatives in other provinces started phoning me when I’d never given them my number, ordering me to sort things out in the home while I had Covid… It was hard. Very hard. My parents were telling people that we weren’t feeding them.
The betrayal hurt. Seriously!? I used to wish the people who were being lied to would go ask the neighbours. The neighbours saw how often we brought food, even commenting that it was a lot of stuff.
Fast forward after my mother’s death. We tried to save HIS money from being misused as it was the only income he’d now have. He then said that he’d heard from the news that workers like my mom had big pensions, so it was clear that I had been stealing my mother’s pension payments and only using a little for the home.😭
Me. ‘Me’ who’d even given our bonus for her. Who took our fuel to give them food. Who used our own money to buy electricity and food and personal care items. Who broke my back shooing for them. I was the thief. Not the one living right there causing cellphones to disappear.
So let’s recap. I’m a hypocrite Pharisee for letting a worker have one morning off after four straight weeks of working day and night. I’m terrible for not phoning my sister to return though I’d phoned multiple times before and been ignored. And I was being lied about to people when I was the only one consistently HELPING.
💔
And the family believed it. I didn’t even want to attend my mom’s funeral even though I’d paid for it. She can’t see me. And I can grieve at home just as much as in a service. Why sit with people who without ever asking neighbours etc, would believe that I was the neglectful daughter? (Though again, the income was enough even without our help, had my parents been living alone or with a caregiver.)
Then, a cellphone went missing again. And my dad blamed my children. Even telling social workers a relative had tried to involve given the poor care and disappearing monies. My eldest is over 18. Start accusing them of crime and things become VERY dangerous.
So I’m done. It’s one thing to constantly be phoned just to be used. It’s a whole other ballgame to accuse my children of theft. Next time, the accusation will be against ME! After all, I was accused of stealing a pension already.
Knowing that your parents are destroying your reputation when you’re sacrificing for them, is painful. Knowing they are defending the real thief is horrendous. That’s not a father. Well, not a father to ME. Only to the one being defended.
And so there it is. I don’t have parents in the sense I think of when others miss their deceased dad or mother. I have people who have used me, not cared at all about my declining health, abused the workers I hired and who now accuse my children – to a social worker!!- of stealing.
As my daughter said, “But grandpa knows the thousands of rands we spend every single month helping him and have spent for YEARS. If we wanted a cellphone, surely we’d have bought one? It’s obvious we could afford it!”
The final call I received from my father was December 31, 2023. He told me he was disappointed that my children (who were constantly in each others’ presence and that of their father who had driven him there!!!!) had stolen his phone.
I asked him if he saw them touching it.
He said no, but it went missing.
Before I could remind him that he lives with someone who makes phones disappear, the line cut. I didn’t call back.
The next day, I got a text from an unknown number, from someone who didn’t introduce themselves by name. They said they got my number from a neighbour. (I’ve never given my number away except to the one neighbour who wasn’t the one who shared my number.) The person said, “You better come fix what’s happening in your house. Your father is being mistreated.”
I told the person that I didn’t know them. That the abuse is by choice as my father refuses any other options we’ve given – caregivers, frail care centers and handing over his card to someone who would keep it safe and go shopping with him or for him. I told her that my house is the one I live in with my husband and family. I asked her never to contact me again.
And I changed my number.
When your father shares your number while making you look neglectful, never telling the things I’ve done despite my poor health, never even acknowledging to us that we paid to bury his wife and express gratitude for that (entitlement?) and hiding the truth about the true abuser, it’s time to acknowledge that the love is one sided.
I have a Heavenly Father. And that’s OK with me.
They said I should write a book 