Ladybug's field notes

 As I was reading about leaving a toxic relationship with one's mother and it brought back so many dreaded memories of the time that I was trying to get out of non-functional at best and abusive at worst marriage. As I read through the article by a psychologist talking about a client and came to these lines:  "She: I will lose all my relatives one by one. Nobody understands I am victim of a toxic mother. They will believe my mother and that I left her when I became independent ." ... it brought back the memory of my ex-mother in law shouting at me over phone! "You are such an ungrateful wretch! You are selfish beyond any imagination. I must say that you can't think of anyone else but yourself. Just because you now earn more than him now, you want to leave him!" I stood holding the phone in shock! I always thought of her as a well educated woman who clearly saw I had much more empathy than her own son as she clearly prefered me over him to take care of her wh...

Being a mother of a teenager is a regular lesson in humility!  You are made to enter and re-enter the class as your teacher fears you may not have learnt the lesson well! A teenager can not take a chance on that! Especially if you have a teenager who thrives on sarcasm (like, mine).    Today is a good day to start writing about us because today is one of those days when I barged into his room as his online classes were on, and said (ahem, shouted!),"Do not give me that look! I do not care if your teacher can hear me. Actually pass on her phone number I want to tell her how badly you do your house work! And I want to understand what she thinks about her students failing in basic house work and getting high marks in class exams! How callous was it to run the washing machine with clothes sticking out of the front door?" The boy stayed put on his chair. Only the look changed from, "What are you doing here, Ma?" to "Uh uh! I got myself in trouble!...