My Mother's Parenting, For The Next Generation

Ever since my niece was born I thought that my parents have mellowed out.  (Well, actually that's just Mother; Father remains very hands-off whenever they get to babysit her, although he apparently loves to get pictures of her.)  It would make sense; they can be nicer to her because they don't have to raise her.  It's so weird to see Mother (and Father to a lesser extent) smile, laugh, and act goofy around her -- basically to act like a grandmother.

I know that she didn't act that way around me.  The few memories I have of her (and that's only partially because I was young; I am sure that she worked so often at their businesses that she obviated parenting responsibility to Grandmother) are bad.  I remember my brother and I playing in the front yard and she would come out, screaming either at us or Grandmother to yell at us.  I remember her slapping my hand when I opened a lighter.  And she beat me.  A lot.  I mean, a lot.  Really, whenever she didn't beat me she was yelling at me.  She was so bad that I grew up fearing her -- and, when I got a little older, hating her.  She's mellowed out in my early adult years as Father turned into My Fucking Father, but I will never, ever forget nor forgive what she did to me when I was young.  She's half the reason I'm not going to have kids.

The parenting "skills" Mother exhibited on me, I'm afraid, came to the fore last (Saturday) evening, when my brother and sister-in-law left their daughter at home for us (mostly Mother but I sat and looked at her a long time too) so they could do some stuff around this part of town.  Mother was her bubbly self as we ate dinner and my niece was grabbing things.  After Mother got finished eating she sat her granddaughter on the couch to feed her; I was too tuckered out walking around the lake and watching babes, then watching this baby, so I retreated into the bedroom.  While I was tweeted about tomorrow's party I hear, "What?  You're not going to eat?  I'll beat your ass!  Your mother and father aren't here, so I'll beat your ass if you don't eat!"

Oh no.  Then I thought, Oh, hell no.  And then I thought, Oh, fuck no.  As tired as I was, I got up off of my bed and marched out to the living room to make sure she doesn't slap her, and I didn't give two flying fucks if she wasn't eating.  But she was, and because of that, Mother turned all happy and smiling and making coo-coo noises again, because her niece obeyed her.

I wonder if Mother understands how two-faced she just became.  Was she raised that being sweet to a baby, then threatening her, looks weird to a third party?  It seemed fucked up to me when she was doing that to me.  That's why I've grown to never truly love her like a child is supposed to love his/her mother.

My niece didn't finish all of her food, but instead of beating her, Mother relented and took her to the bathroom to wipe her face.  Phew, she didn't go completely crazy.  So I went back to my bedroom to tweet stuff.  Then my brother and sister-in-law came home, and so I sauntered back out to say goodbye to them and to my niece.  But for some reason they sat down in the living room and just hung out while Mother continued to play with my niece (and Father was all the way in the dining room, just admiring his granddaughter).

Then Mother started to do this thing where she would "scare" her, or at least throw her hands at her and scream.  Eventually my niece started to yell, loud, every single time Mother did that.  Man, she can scream.  But while she wasn't crying, like I probably would if I had some stranger I only saw at night try to come at me, I never got the feeling that she was yelling in exhortation.  I think she was scared.  And Mother kept doing that, without stopping once to consider what my niece might be going through.

What happened next floored me.  As Mother kept frightening my niece and my niece kept screaming every time she did that, my brother yelled his daughter, "Stop yelling!"  It's the first time I've ever seen him act nasty toward her.  But she didn't tell his mom, Mother, to stop.  He was telling my niece to shut up.  Why?  Couldn't he see that my niece was yelling only because Mother kept scaring her?  I don't think Mother has the self-awareness (or maybe even the intelligence) to comprehend what she is doing, but my brother is college-educated.  What's his fucking excuse?

I have one theory: He likes being "old school."  I'll tell you guys a secret: I think Mother has always liked my brother more than me.  Growing up I can count numerous times where she came down hard on me while giving my brother a pass.  (My Grandmother was the complete opposite.  I don't know if that was in reaction to how Mother treated the both of us, but that has to be the reason why I gravitate and continue to be loyal to Grandmother even after Mother has put her out of mind.)  So if that's the case, he will endorse Mother's "parenting skills" and incorporate them into his own.

That, to me, if true, is absolutely despicable.  That would mean that, to paraphrase the famous axiom, the sins committed by the mother is continued by the son.  Now I have even more reason not to have kids: I don't want them raising them, at all.  And I fear, I really, really am frightened, how he (and by extension, I'm afraid, his wife) treats my niece behind closed doors, without me around.