On why I can't talk to my mother (and tips on how to prevent your adult kids from shutting you out).

For more of a background story to this piece, click to read my blog post, "How to suck at parenting. Effing badly."

I didn't need to hear from my mother on the day before my 31st birthday.

Now hear me out, it's not often that I do hear from her (or from anyone else in my immediate family at that). Usually they'll call in the event of a tragedy or if a computer needs to be fixed, which I then ignore due to my work schedule. Most, if not all conversations aren't very positive after I see the dreaded number on my caller ID, and any sort of dialogue dissolves very quickly within a matter of minutes.

Parents who close their doors for all the wrong reasons. Disowning is douchebaggery.

Browsing on my Twitter feed again, I came across a segment on Huffington Post about a Caucasian woman who was disowned by her father because she was in a serious relationship with an African American man. To make this even worse, this pathetic "dad" shunned his daughter BY PROXY (a phone call via the stepmom) that although he was no longer in speaking terms with her, he still "loved" her.

LOVED HER? Unconditional love does not come with an asterisk or any fine print. And with the archaic world viewpoints that this father harbored for so many years and tried to drill into his daughter's head, it is a pity that he grapples to those beliefs even more strongly than that "love" for his daughter. Believe me, ma'am, you're better off without that poison in your life. If you'd like to watch the entire segment, click the video below.



We as humans all fear rejection. Some are lucky to get small doses of it, and some people like me get a cheap vodka-bottle sized serving all at once. Those parallels between this woman's relations with an interracial boyfriend are very similar in my life. Based on a simple choice of not practicing a religion that I had shoved forcibly into my mouth since my youth and chose to not continue to follow in my adult years, I was completely rejected from the gene pool that raised me.

Avoid the mistakes my "parents" made: Go to your kid's wedding. It's more than worth it.

I found this video after following a link off a Twitter feed and quite inspired it, one reason being that I'm a videographer who has done several weddings. But aside from that, I was intrigued by the backstory of this moment captured on film. The bride's father was obviously missing from this moment as he had passed away just weeks before the wedding of pancreatic cancer. In response to this, her brother recorded a rendition of their father's favorite song, "Butterfly Kisses" by Eric Carlisle, while she danced with several of the important male family members in her life, including her new father-in-law. I have to admit, it did bring a tear to my eye watching this beautiful moment unfold in gorgeous, cinematic videography (awesome camera and editing job by Michael LaFrance).

I myself have a bit of a common tie with bride in this video; we both have parents who did not attend the wedding.

How to suck at parenting. Effing badly.

In the last few years, society has been introduced to the many uses of the word "FAIL." Many examples of this from the point of view of child-rearing have made it to websites such as http://parenting.failblog.org and spread among e-mail to those with a sense of humor. As funny as many of those are, demeaning a child and then continuing to belittle them into their adult years is a common practice many know all too well. I myself am a survivor of those issues, and like anyone that's lived through traumatic experiences, they've left their scars.

Bad parenting extends far beyond outright lack of thought that makes Internet fodder for discussion. In many cases, the little negative things, what is said and done with repetition throughout a lifetime, can make an impact on a child long into their adult years. Although some of these thoughts may be trivial to some, leaving youth like me with way too much time and advanced critical thinking skills for their age to fester in these issues for years is just plain wrong. So, in lieu of venting to a therapist, here's a few things I've learned as the child of emotionally abusive parents.