| EQI.org Home | Pseudo Choices Suzy (Originally written January 26, 2003) Parental advisory: This story contains very harsh language. It may be upsetting to parents. It may trigger feelings of hostility, vengeance, defensiveness, guilt. Therefore, please read at your own risk. Please also don't "shoot the messenger." -- This is based on a true story. Suzy is 5 years old.
Now I wonder, who decided that the mother, who has no training to be a mother, who simply is a mother because the condom broke, can say what the options are? To me that is bullshit. It is not respecting your child. Then I hear Suzy say:
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| I wrote this story to show how some strong willed
children become rebellious and defiant. And how they
learn to swear to express their strong feelings when no
one has listened to them for years and years. When the
child is five, they can't express themselves this way of
course. And they can't articulate what they see and
perceive. They can't see that their parents are using
them to fill the parent's unmet emotional needs, or
sometimes unmet sexual needs. They don't understand what
is going on. But if they did, this is how they might
sound. In the real story, the mother actually did a relatively good job of talking with Suzy later and getting her voluntary cooperation. But some mothers would have hit their child. While I wrote this I was thinking of a teen I know whose mother has hit her all her life and who tried to kill herself last month - S. in England. |
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| More background and true facts
about this story. I had known the mother and daughter for several months and stayed with them for a while. The mother was studying psychology at the University of Canberra and had responded to a notice I put up about volunteering to help me in my work with teen suicide prevention and raising awareness of emotional intelligence. When I wrote the first version of the story (which was much harsher than this one) I was using the mother's computer in the living room of her apartment, early in the morning while she was still in her bedroom. I had slept on the couch. Then I left it on the screen had gone downstairs to the parking lot and was having an emotionally intelligent discussion with her daughter who had gotten up before the mother and wanted to go with me somewhere. I didn't want the daughter to go with me and we had just about come to a mutually acceptable decision, which was that I would spend some time with her when I got back. The mother saw us talking and joined us but felt the need to take control of the situation. I was teasing her a bit too much and supporting her daughter too much. I was coaching the daughter on what to say to the mother, for example when the mother was trying to get her daughter to go back upstairs and the daughter wasn't obeying her the mother got very frustrated. Admittedly her daughter was a real challenge, but I had always treated the daughter with the highest respect I could and this had helped me earn her respect and cooperation in return. So as the mother was showing her frustration I whispered hints to her daughter, who was standing close to me for protection, which was very symbolic and an obvious threat to the mother's power and control. At one point I said "Ask her how she is feeling." When the mother replied, "Like I want to strangle you," I whispered loudly enough for the mother to hear, "That's illegal." Her daughter and I thought it was funny, but the mother, being very insecure and emotionally needy felt so threatened, mocked, rejected and out of control that she literally walked off. Then, unfortunately, when she went back upstairs she saw what I had written on her computer. She then came back and said something like "I saw your story on the computer. I want you to leave now." I just said, "ok" and went into the storage room to start to pack up my things. Her daughter followed me. She then ordered her daughter to go back upstairs. This time she didn't even pretend it was an option. Or actually in a way she did, she said something like "Either go upstairs or I will carry you." The daughter started protesting loudly. Not only was she being bossed around and threatened, but she felt afraid of losing me as her best friend and ally. Sadly, the mother did literally pick up her daughter and carry her off. It was such a low point in her life that I truly felt sorry for her -- that such an intelligent person, and when I saw intelligent I am not exaggerating, she was a member of Mensa -- would have to resort to using physical power with her daughter in a situation which was not at all dangerous for her daughter and not life-threatening for her. |
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| July 2013 Update - I am looking at
this story again. It is literally painful for me to think
about. Tears are starting to form in my eyes. I want to
share it with the people in Jane Steven's ACES group, but
I am scared.. scared they will feel uncomfortable with
the strong language, the strong display of emotion and
independence that "Suzy" showed. I don't want to be rejected by the people at ACES, rejected and ostracized, as I have been so many times before in my life. Yet I think I am going to post this, or a link which leads to it, in the hopes of finding perhaps one more "enlightened witness." I really need emotional support, but I don't know how much I will get from the ACES people. I am still new there. I feel cautious, reserved. Afraid. Afraid of more rejection of my work. I don't even know what Jane, who has been very supportive of me, would say to this story of Suzy... Do I roll the dice? My heart says yes... My intellectual brain says no. I must follow my heat. Tears are now filling my eyes... S. Hein Note - this story is about the same mother in this article called "The Good Mum"
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2011 - I thought of this one day "Your choice my ass"
There is more to this but it is mostly for me. it is in suzy2