Ma and Pa

Well, apparently I was shown on the MTV casting special, and I had no idea. With cigarette and martini in hand, I figure now is a good time to blog about my relationship with the man and woman that brought such a beautiful life as mine into the world.

My mother and father are both very good people, very religious and conservative. The picture perfect idea of what a mom and dad should be. They sent both my brother and I to a Baptist Private school my entire life. They worked hard to provide for us and sheltered us from all the evils of the world (homosexuality, MTV, hip hop music, etc...)

Despite how everything on the outside looked, my parents have had a very unhappy marriage. My brother and I have always been pulled into the middle of their arguments. Their relationship has been a very verbally and sometimes physically abusive one.

My father is a good man. He's a farmer and a machine shop owner, because of his own parent's marriage, he is a very jealous and untrusting man. He has constantly kept a watchful eye over my mother and ruled the household with an iron fist. If my mother just ran to the grocery store without telling him, then he accused of her cheating on or trying to leave him. My older half sister (my dad's daughter from a previous marriage) has also been a very malicious influence in many of their arguments. She has constantly told lies about my mom to my dad, and never once has he sided with my mom. He's always taken my sister's side. My dad never spent a lot of time with me growing up. He was always working, and when he wasn't, he opted to go out fishing or hunting with his friends.

Because my father was away a lot, I have always been very close to my mom. She practically raised me all by herself growing up. She played with me, came to all my school functions, took me everywhere she went. My dad never came to any of my school functions, and he was never a real emotional wall in my life. Obviously, because I spent all my time with my mother, I am very close with her, and she sees me as a best friend more than a son at times. Instead of a son, I have felt more like my parent's marriage counselor and had to take on and deal with a lot of their emotional baggage.

As much as I love them, it's hard not to resent them for what I have seen them do to each other, and it is especially hard for me to not to be angry with my father, not only because of how he's treated my mother, but how I was ignored and thrown to the wayside growing up. The other little boys always had their dad around, and I didn't.

Funny thing is, my dad has always been there for my brother. My brother is the perfect son for him. My brother hunts, fishes, likes to build things, he's athletic, shares my dad's views, everything my dad wanted his son to be. I never had any of the qualities that he wanted his sons to have. I was an effiminate little boy. I enjoyed playing with My Little Ponies and running around in my mom's high heels and pretending to play house.

I am very much my mother's son, and my brother is my father's child. This created a South vs North environment in my home growing up. My brother would side with my dad, and I would with my mom. My dad would talk shit about my mom to my brother, and my mom would talk shit about my dad to me. I have a very low opinion of men, and my brother has a low opinion of women.

My dad hates my mom's side of the family, and my mother hates my dad's side, so my brother and I were never taken around our extended family much. We stayed within our own borders and never got emotionally attached to any other family members beside our mom and dad. We were never even taken around our sister much growing up, because of the jealous relationship between my sister and mother.

I am not out to either one of my parents. If I came out to them, I know I would run the risk of losing them forever, because of their strict religious and ignorant views on homosexuality. There are parts of my life they can never be a part of, and I have to deal with that every single day of my life.

Through it all though, I love my family dearly. I love them for all their negatives and positives. My mom still to this day will call me threatening to leave my father, and I'll listen and deal with her and their situation the best way I can. My father will call me and tell me how stupid my mother is acting, and I will silently listen to him scream about her on the phone.

I can only hope that we'll all be happy oneday, and that our love for each other as a family will keep us together, and that my brother and I will be able to move past the hurdles our parents have built for us when we start to build our own relationships and families.

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