How I Got Ostracized by Half of my Family
— What to do? What to do?
My parents divorced when I was about 8 years old. I spent time with each side of the family, because my dad’s parents lived down the street from my mom’s next oldest sibling, my aunt, who is 13 years older than my mom. This is how my parents met.
My dad is the oldest of five and my mom is the youngest of four.
I enjoyed my mother’s side a little more, because my aunt is very creative and crafty and she was always doing something and things were mentally healthy. My mom’s brother that she kept in touch with owned a plant nursery and I always loved it there.
My dad’s side had more issues: drugs, alcohol, bad behavior, et al. I was uncomfortable a lot of the time with them, and my dad’s mom didn’t seem to like me much but I did adore my dad’s dad, who was kind and loving.
All that being said, there is a thirteen year age difference between my aunt’s daughter, we’ll call her “L”, and me, just like there is a thirteen year age difference between my mom and her sister, who we’ll call Aunt A.
For the most part, I have always liked L. I was the flower girl in her first wedding. She was fun to be around even though we had different ideas about life and such.
Time passes…
I had my son alone. The father walked away when I was 4 months along. I kept on and had a beautiful baby that I took to a family gathering when he was about 3 months old, so everyone could ooh and ahh over a new baby. I got a break from mothering for a minute.
Not long after, and with L and I being friends on Facebook, she and I had a disagreement about something, I think it was me stating that going to the social services office was really trying on my emotions and such.
She posted something on my feed that was kind of mean. Trying to be more polite about it and being a kid of the 80s who grew up without the internet and being taught not to air my dirty laundry, I took the conversation to a private message.
There, she let me have it.
She made it known to me that she had zero respect for me and that she thought I was a “piece of shit.” <- Her words. Needless to say, I was a bit shocked. I always thought we got along well. I never realized she had such a low opinion of me.
She was horrified that I was on social services and wanted to know why didn’t I just work harder, getting a full time job and blah blah blah.
She was embarrassed that I had a baby out of wedlock. (She, Aunt A and their families were all Catholic.)
She was just generally disgusted with who I was as a person, my life choices and therefore had no respect for me at all.
Wow.
That’s a lot to process.
Firstly, I had to be pushed to enroll in social services, mostly for health insurance for my son. I was raised firmly on the right and that you got what you worked for, you earned it. My parents, especially my dad, didn’t believe in handouts.
I suspect this is because of my father’s immigrant mother and hardworking 8th generation American father. You got what you worked for, full stop. Nothing more.
Up until the birth of my son, I was working hardcore. I was a self-employed real estate title abstractor, and I worked hard. I worked a lot.
I hid my pregnancy. Once my clients discovered I was a new mother, they did me a “favor” and stopped sending me work, because they assumed I would rather be with my son, taking care of him.
Yes, that was true, but I still needed to feed and shelter him. I needed to work for that to happen.
My income dropped 70%.
I went from making about $45k a year to just over $13k.
Shit.
I could no longer afford the life I had been living, which was not extravagant by a long shot.
As for having a baby out of wedlock? Well, that wasn’t part of my plan. By the time I was 35 and hadn’t met the “right man”, I figured that having kids just wasn’t part of my future.
At 37, I found myself accidentally pregnant and decided that my opportunities to have any other kids would quickly dwindle, so I decided to keep the baby. When the dad admitted that he didn’t want anything to do with either of us anymore, I said, “Fine, but I’m having the baby” and I committed to doing what I needed to do to provide.
With the world progressing and attitudes changing, I honestly did not really think that my beautiful baby would be such a horror to my cousin.
Leaving all that there for a minute, the problems this has caused is such: I love my Aunt A to the moon and back. She is aging and requires being close to family. She still lives independently but relies on them for transpo and such.
Aunt A’s youngest child is going to be a grandfather. My Cousin C, who is L’s younger brother, is going to be a grandpa by his daughter. She is due in September.
I keep in touch with these folks, but I can guarantee that L was the reason I was not invited to the baby shower. I’ve actually not been invited to many family events since that dustup and this is troubling.
I no longer have my mother to be the connection since she has moved to Florida and distanced herself physically from the situation. Meaning, that if she was still living here, she would have been invited and by association, I would have been, too.
Then I think, “If I had been invited, would I have gone?” I probably would have. Any reason to go see my Aunt A and some of the others would have been delightful.
L won’t have it.
There doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. L seems to be taking over the position of “Family Matriarch” while my Aunt A is relegated to a “Queen Mum” position.
I guess it is time that I become the Family Matriarch of my own.
