May 9, 2010

Mom Liked My Sister Best

Really, she did. Growing up I didn't really care, I didn't like her anyway. The funny thing is, she and my sister fought all the time. They'd argue and scream at each other and finally my sister would yell, "I hate you!" and my mom would say, "I hate you too!" I'd cover my ears and run from the room. It made me crazy. (that's me on the left) But next thing you knew it had blown over and they were fine. I never fought with my mom, I never said much of anything to her. And if I had I would never have told her out loud that I hated her cuz if she'd said it to me I would have been totally devastated.
Not that many years ago I said to my sister, "Remember when you and Mom used to scream at each other when you were little and she would say she hated you? I've never forgiven her for that," and my sister said,
"Really? Why? I knew she didn't mean it."
Whew! All those years I held a grudge on my sister's behalf and it didn't even matter to her. Maybe that's why they got along? Cuz they understood each other? Cuz they could fight and forgive each other?
For sure, my mom and I didn't understand each other and couldn't forgive each other anything. Once I wrote in my diary that I hated her (oh, more than once, I'm sure) and she found the diary (obviously it levitated out of its hiding place when she was cleaning my room) and read it and then told my dad. Tattletale. And my dad (whom I adored) had a little chat with me about respect and understanding. Which of course backfired since it gave me another reason to hate her:
invading my privacy.
Looking back I'm sure she felt terrible about what I'd written and I feel bad about that, but what kid doesn't hate their parents at some point?
Do most parents have a favorite kid, do you think? They don't admit it but I'm thinking they always do. Just like kids have a favorite parent.

So I don't feel bad that my sister was Mom's favorite. Cuz I was Dad's.
Happy Mother's Day!

3 comments:

Scarletgrey said...

You are totally wrong, Sam! Mom liked you the best, in fact, both Mom and Dad treated you as their favorite. I was the one who was always in trouble. I was so jealous of you, did you know that? Every time I got something you would too even though you were younger. I remember getting my first bike, can't remember how old I was, but then you got the very same one too! You got to wear nylons when I did. It was not fair I had to wait, yet you didn't. Mom once told me they thought they were doing the right thing! Sure, you have no idea how upset that made me, or did you? Do you remember all that? I do remember that she would make you cry, I think they both did. You were very sensitive about things, and so was I, but I think you cried more and I yelled more? I do remember one time in particular when I told her I hated her, she was ironing. She just said, "I hate you too". I actually hated her for saying that. Yes, kids say that to their parents, but you don't expect your parents to say it back. I know dad liked you better, he was always admonishing me for something I supposedly did to you. I know I was a brat and I think it was because I was jealous of you! Does that make sense to you Sam?

I still love you! xoxoxo Bun

Samantha Hoffman said...

I know you were jealous of me. And that whole thing about letting me do things when you did - that was bad. I'm wearing nylons in my 6th grade class picture because you got them in 8th grade, so I got them too, and it looks so stupid. I was the only girl in 6th grade wearing nylons. I think she did that because she was afraid of showing favoritism and that's exactly what it looked like when she did that kind of thing. But it wasn't because I was her favorite. It wasn't fair to you altho of course I was happy about it at the time.

Scarletgrey said...

Glad you called, that was fun. We really had a good laugh, even though some of the stuff brought up memories we didn't like. You're right, we did have a pretty good childhood. We were lucky. We had a cool dad, who liked to take us places like Kiddyland, and like you said we would go on trips too. But sometimes you would spoil it because you would get car sick, which you couldn't help. Back then though, I was so mad at you when that happened. What did I know, I was a kid, and I would get mad about something that couldn't be helped! Thanks for the laugh tonight! Bun