I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She was from a big family and her father was a coal miner. He was a hard drinking and hard hitting kinda guy. He worked all week in the pits got his wages and headed to the Miners Welfare to spend it. He would frequently come home drunk and take his frustrations in life out on his wife and children! Beatings were common place and because my mum began to stand up to him she was always singled out for the worst time. It left her with a very odd way of how you should being children up. She hated her father for everything that he did but unfortunately she ended up becoming him.
In Scotland alcohol is the most socially acceptable drug and if you DONT drink people ask what's wrong with you?! When she married my dad she found a new kind of freedom! She could do whatever she wanted without having a beating for it. Unfortunately it almost ruined their marriage before it had even really started! Dad, a quiet man who liked his own company and wasn't a socialiser was her total opposite. He wanted to settle down and build a life with his new wife, not go out drinking every weekend. Mum struggled to adapt to married life and work because of her upbringing. The sad thing is that my grandfather was a product of HIS childhood and how his father treated him. It's been this horrible cycle of neglect and abuse for generations. One that I have thankfully managed to stop. My dad managed to show my mum a new way to live. It wasn't easy for them and we never had a lot of money but we got by.
I was a born 12 years into their marriage. A much wanted child they never thought they would ever have I "completed them". She has always wanted to be a mother and must have built it up in her head a LOT as the reality was far from what she had expected and at times wanted. My early life was filled with being sent to my auntie's for the weekend. When I was about 5 or 6 a Saturday consisted of mum putting her music on while sang and danced round the house! In the afternoon she listened to the football on the radio. Whatever the score was determined how the rest of the day went. A loss meant she hit the vodka hard and was either laughing or crying. When it was the latter she was volitile and you never knew what to expect. It resulted in explosive outbursts of pure rage where I was genuinely terrified of her! This was my life.
As I grew older and grew up things got much worse. Any "back chat" resulted in a skelp. By the way her idea of "back chat" was to question ANYTHING she said or to disagree in any way. One particular incident stands out. I was 12 and in town with her one day. We met an old friend of hers and they were chatting away. I accidentally dropped the bag I was carrying and she roared "fuck sake, that's her dropping the rolls". I said meekly " I didn't mean it". Her face was filled with anger. The friend made her excuses and left. As we went to walk away she grabbed my arm and violently threw me into a shop window. I bounced off it like a ball and landed in a heap on the floor. I still remember the noise. A security guard came over to ask if everything was alright and she fobbed him off with a " aw she just fell!". Bear in mind this was the 90's and it was still perfectly acceptable and legal to hit your child! The look of pity on his face was awful! He knew he could do nothing. If it had been now she would be charged and I would have been in foster care!
Another time my friend who I grew up with was placed to stay with her grandad. She had been "cheeky" to her mother who had lamped her and given her a black eye. The high school got social work involved and so she was taken to live with her grandad. I remember telling my parents at dinner what had happened. Rather than being sympathetic mum was actually annoyed that my friend hadn't LIED to the school about her injuries! The look on my dads face when she was sitting saying how selfish my friend was for "getting her mother in trouble" was one of shock horror! It was at that point that I said "just because my grandad battered you, doesn't mean that's alright or normal!". She flew off the couch at me and my dad roared at her to stop! It was the first time I'd ever stood up to her and not taken a skelp for it!
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