Your job is to protect your child, not to torture and not to damage.
I’m going to continue from last week the discussion that we had about protecting your children’s essential self. Several things came up after that last YouTube video, so I really want to take the time to expand on a few things.
First, I want to say that in the discussions that we’re having, I’m coming from a woman’s perspective, but this goes both ways. There are many men who are single fathers and are dealing with an absent mother, and with circumstances in which the absent mother is basically also causing trauma and damage to their children. So although I’m coming from the perspective of a daughter without a father, and from a woman’s perspective in all regards, this and the things that I say all go both ways.
The other thing is — and I think I say it pretty frequently, but I want to be clear — this is not about talking negatively about men and talking negatively about fathers in general. I have been very clear. It’s clear in the book, For the Love of My Father, available on Amazon, and I’ve been very clear about the fact that I adored my father and basically always have adored him.
Like the ice cream truck was coming
In fact, in the book, there’s a story towards the end about a dream that I had after he died. And so I never stopped, despite the ugly, the bad, the sad, the pain, the drama, everything that happened. I was still very much enchanted by my dad, just simply because he was my dad.
And there’s a very old Eddie Murphy joke. Eddie Murphy used to be a standup comedian, used to be on the road. And some of my younger viewers probably don’t know who he is, or Mr. Murphy wouldn’t be happy to hear me say that. But maybe he’s not as well known. He used to have a joke about the ice cream truck. And again, the ice cream truck is not even popular anymore. But there was a time in which we had ice cream trucks. And the ice cream truck would drive through the neighborhood and all the kids would lose their minds and run.
Well, that’s kind of how I describe my relationship with my dad. Like if somebody said “daddy,” that was like the ice cream truck is coming and you lost your mind, because daddy is coming. And that was just the excitement. And that was very much to the extent that even many, many years later, 30 years later — and that story is also in the book — when I see him, before he died, the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Daddy.” And daddy with that sense of innocence and that childish admiration. Daddy.
And that continued to be the case for my entire life. When somebody said daddy, it was like the ice cream truck was coming. And I remained hopeful, despite the fact that things were very, very bad. And many phases, I was always hopeful, because there was a part of me that recognized that this was my daddy. So this continued to be the case until the very end. And I think that that was probably part of the dance and the drama between my dad and I.
The very man that we picked
Now, one of the points I want to focus in on today is that we as women pick a man to be the father of our children, consciously or unconsciously. And then what happens is, things don’t go well — not for everybody, obviously, but for those of us where things don’t go well. We sometimes then decide to speak badly about the father of our children, the very man that we picked.
And the worst part about it — that’s not bad enough, because you could talk to your girlfriends about what you think this guy is doing wrong, or what’s wrong with him, or whatever you want to say. I mean, we know women can sometimes go off and it’s like, you dirty dog, I can’t believe it. And he’s low down, and all the things that we say, right. And we do that. And that would be one thing, to do that with your girlfriends.
I’m not suggesting that if the father of your children is a low down dirty dog, that you can’t say that to another adult. What I am talking about is that you cannot and should not — I mean, you can do anything you want — you should not torture and damage your children by talking to them about the person that you chose, generally speaking, consciously or unconsciously, to be their father. That is where the problem lies.
All of us have issues. All of us will have issues as we live on the planet. And as a woman, and a woman in this particular circumstance where you are a single mother raising a daughter or even a son with the absence of a father, why would you add additional baggage to the burden that this child is going to have by being fatherless or by growing up with an absent father? You have the potential ability to save your children from this additional damage by not speaking negatively about their parent.
Now, I always think that we are very fortunate, because in this day we can discuss and talk about these things. I mean, maybe even the fact that there’s a YouTube video that you could go look at about something like this. We have the ability to get information. Maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago, this information was not available, nobody was discussing it, and therefore people just behaved however they behaved.
It took intestinal fortitude to say it
Well, what I promised was that I was going to tell you how I resolved this issue for myself. I told you before that my dad didn’t have particular words, but it was clear that he was not, let’s put it lightly, liking my mom. She spoke openly about what she believed about him. She spoke to her friends in my presence, and she told me what she believed about whatever was happening. There was just no question about that, and I listened. I had no choice as a child but to listen, and that continued through most of my life.
I have to tell you that I was way past my 30s when I finally developed the intestinal fortitude to say to my mom, this was your choice, this was your issue, you picked him, and we are not going to have any additional conversations about him. I literally had that conversation and had to say it in those words.
I say intestinal fortitude because you could say something like that — and if you said that when you were in another time, if you said that as a child to your mother, you could lose some teeth, you could have some other signs of physical violence that would have come towards you. Even though as an adult my mother probably would never have smacked me or hit me or anything along those lines, you got that programming where you know that you could get a smack for what would be considered to be rude.
But this is the bottom line of it. You do not have a right to torture your children by speaking negatively about their parent — a parent that you chose, and a parent that you have the responsibility for managing. Your job is to protect your child, not to torture and not to damage.
Fortunately, after I said that to my mom — it’s been many years since that happened — I saw that there were certain circumstances in which she was getting off the track a few times over the years. And I guess that’s how the universe works, because it kind of tests you, like, are you serious? Do you really not want to do that? And over the years, I had to say, no, I don’t want to do that. We’re not having a conversation. That’s my dad. You picked him, and therefore you have to deal with this conversation. You can have that conversation with your friends. That conversation you’re not going to have with me.
Now, that’s difficult for a child to do. I would never have been able to say that to my mom as a child, and that’s why I’m telling you from my experience, you can avoid putting your child in this situation.
Nobody ever gets away with anything
Now, the other thing is that I speak about the fact that you need to develop the capacity to not speak negatively about your child’s father, despite the probability that he might be speaking negatively about you. And when I say develop the capability or the capacity, I’m not just talking about personal will, like, oh, I’m going to develop the capacity to not speak badly, or to withstand the fact that he’s doing it. I’m talking about how you develop yourself spiritually so that you are able to know better and to do better. So that you know, listen, first of all, nobody gets away with anything. Things take a long time to play out.
If you are raising a child — and it takes basically 20 years to raise a child — and you’re able to understand that you are attempting to protect that child, and it’s going to take a long time for that to play out, but that you are willing to make sure that you don’t add additional damage, and you apply all the spiritual principles, and you get all the spiritual understanding that you need, then you would be able to withstand. If your child’s father decides that he wants to speak negatively about you, he will bear the consequences for whatever he’s doing. You can only bear the consequences for what you’re doing.
And the one thing that I want you to remember is that it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Because when your children become adults, and they begin to suffer because of the trauma that their parents have created, it won’t matter whose fault it was. Your children will suffer, and you will suffer watching them suffer.
So if you’re able to develop a long-term perspective, to understand spiritual principles — nobody ever gets away with anything on the planet. You understand that doing the right thing is the right thing in and of itself, that you’re not going to get kudos because you didn’t speak badly. The only thing you’re going to get is to know that you’ll be able to go to bed at night, because your children will not be having one more weight added to their bag of life.
Start where you are
And there’s so many different things that we can do. None of this is easy. I always say that, and I always talk about the fact that we need a lot of different resources. In the book, I talk about the fact that I’ve had all kinds of therapy — spiritual therapy, psychological therapy — and I think therapy is just like going to the emergency room. If something’s off, there’s nothing wrong with getting the help you need. Whether you get psychological therapy, whether you get spiritual therapy, or whether you just find the tools that you need — because towards the end of the book, I talk about the tools that I use that were helpful.
But the thing about all of this is that there’s no set rule. Each and every one of us has to find the tools that really work for us, but you have to be willing. That’s the one thing. If you know that you need help, if you know, for example, that you need help because it’s driving you crazy that this guy is probably talking crazy about you to your children, and you’re going to need some help, you need to decide, listen, I really need some help, and I’m going to go look for it. Because otherwise, I’m going to make my kids crazy, and they will ultimately suffer as a result of this post-traumatic stress that their father and I are creating for them.
So you go get help. A lot of times people say, well, I may need to go to therapy, or whatever other thing I need, and it costs a lot of money, and I can’t afford it. Well, you start where you are. Whether it’s reading a book — I mean, this is a book that talks about daddy issues. If you know you have daddy issues, and you’re not in a position right now — by the way, the book is For the Love of My Father, and available on Amazon — and if you know that you’re not in a position to go to therapy, there are books that you can read. There are YouTube videos, such as this one, that you can get, to get started, to get yourself on your way.
But if you know you need help, today we have the ability to go out and get help for virtually anything. And this issue, protecting our children, protecting the purity of that essential self, that pure being that comes into the world, to keep them as clean and pure and as unburdened as possible — that’s a responsibility. And if you need to work on yourself to be able to be a better parent with regards to that, start where you are. Start with what you can afford. Read a book, look at a video, go to a counselor, a spiritual counselor, find resources that are within your reach.
I’m willing to do the work to be whole
And if you go to my website, OliviaSBenson.com, we have products, and one of them is — this is a cup, it’s also available as a t-shirt — and it says, I’m willing to do the work to be whole. And that’s the whole thing. Are we willing to do the work to be whole?
My website is OliviaSBenson.com. I’m Author Olivia S. Benson on Facebook, I’m on Twitter, and of course — I think that’s, is that everything? Twitter, Instagram. Yes, also on Instagram. Check out my products, because this one, “I am willing to do the work to be whole,” is a good summary of what it is that we need to do sometimes in order to really be able to advance in our lives.