 Helicopter parents seem to have a microscope turned on their child. Wait! Take a second look. That isn't a microscope they're holding. Well, I'll be danged! It's a mirror. They think they're seeing their child, when actually, they're seeing themselves!
My parents were both helicopter parents, and I think I know why. You see, my father is a narcissist. That means he has no self-esteem. He compensates by confusing me with himself. He buoys his non-existent self-esteem by attaining higher and higher levels of excellence as a parent. My successes are his successes. Logically, it follows that my failures are his failures. With zero self-esteem to fall back on, he couldn't tolerate the pain and shame of any failure on my part. Hence the helicoptering. To protect himself more than me. And it nearly ruined my life. Click here for the "reverse engineering" of helicoptering parent to see how it ruins children's lives! http://www.psy-ed.com/wpblog/helicopter-parent/
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 It was Mom who taught me the Granny Two-Step. She’d been polishing her dance steps since her birth. She had to…if she wanted to be loved and accepted by her mother.
Disclaimer: The Granny Two-Step is predicated on lying, clairvoyance, being intimidated, greed and “to thine own self being untrue.” Dance at your own risk! Want to learn it!? Okay, okay! You twisted my arm! Maestro? Music, if you please! Up on your toes now. Step forward gracefully, one step at a time, threading your way gingerly through conversation with Grandma. Your clairvoyance at fever pitch. Your intuition trembling like a cat’s whisker, sensitive to the most subtle (but usually blatant) judgmentalism emanating from Grandma. Ooops! Said the wrong thing! Hit a Grandma Land Mine (GLM)! Quick! Take two-steps backwards, bowing from the waist, clumsily backtracking and trying to convincingly eating your words to get back into Grandma’s good graces. Her opinion of you is paramount. Authenticity be damned! Now, up on your toes again. Take another step forward. Damn! Said the wrong thing again! Hit another GLM. Two steps backwards, kissing Grandma’s ass. And that, my dears, is how you dance the Granny Two-Step! To read the whole article, click here! Believe me...it gets better! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/02/narcissistic-granny-dancing-the-granny-two-step-pt-2-of-3/  When I think back on all the thousands of parental criticisms made "for my good" over thirty years, my blood boils. Hundreds, nay, thousands of 'em. It sta, not because I was bad, but because I was 15 and that's the time narcissistic parents start feeling nervous because their kid is growing up and they might, just might, lose control. I was 14 and shocked by all the criticisms suddenly blind-siding me. They ranged from making me believe I was an (almost) slut to something as vague as, "Shake my hand and commit to 'try harder.'" To this day I wonder how much harder I could try. I already had a 4.0 GPA. And the blind-siding hurt worse than the criticisms themselves. But no one (except my husband, Michael, and God), and I mean no one, is going to criticize me, lecture me nor shame me anymore. It's done. Over! I'm damn near 40 years old and frickin' fine the way I am. In the words of Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!" Or in the words of comedian Eddie Murphy, "It's my [blog] and if you don't like it, get the frick out." Click here to watch that hysterically funny moment! To read the full article on Huffington Post, click here!  Narcissists have mean, nasty tongues. Duh! Unfortunately, the social convention of “niceness” puts a cramp in their style.
Plan B: Couch the meanness in humor. It’s called teasing. Now they can be as mean as they want, with plausible deniability. They ain’t dun nuthin’. You’re just too sensitive. Click here to read the full article!  I’m never alone. Denial is my constant companion. She wakes me in the morning, stays close by my side all the day and sings me to sleep at night. I’m never free of her. Never alone. Never totally at peace.
Click here to read whole article!  Maria von Trapp sang, "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start," in The Sound of Music. So I figured, the place is to start is to define what a narcissist is, from my viewpoint and experience.
To read what I came up with, click here! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/01/what-is-a-narcissist/  Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Your daughter isn't human. This belief is central to driving her bat-crap crazy. Never, and I mean never, acknowledge your shared humanity.
Once you nail that down, the rest is easy. And the Golden Rule need not apply. Oh, and it helps to keep repeating the famous line from USA Network's Chrisley Knows Best, “There's no normal here.” Chant it. Post it on the bathroom mirror. Set it to music. Now we can get down to brass tacks. Start when she's young, very young. Punish the smallest infraction. Let's say she's three-years old and refusing to eat those nasty, disgusting canned peas. You lose this one, baby, you lose the war! If you don't force her to swallow every pea, next she's gonna be stealing cars, doing drugs, you name it. So serve those peas and nothing but those peas to her for every meal until she chokes 'em down. If she gets mad at you, nip that in the bud! Anger isn't allowed. Comprende? When schooldays roll around, make sure your girl is the odd man out. The “weird” one. You might arbitrarily order her never to speak to her #BFF ever again. That works great. Forbidding all field trips will get her cross-examined by her peers. Teach her to lie, make excuses, try to please everyone. That way, she'll never learn boundaries nor a backbone with them nor with you. Undoubtedly, like all girls, her appearance is central to her self-esteem. Of course, it shouldn't be, so make sure she never looks like the other girls. Whatever hairstyle is “in,” give her the opposite. I heard this story once about a girl who wore those ridiculous “mall bangs” in the 90's. As soon as she'd get her gravity-defying bangs curled, teased and sprayed into place, her father would crush 'em flat with this hand. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!  Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net I only have one New Year's Resolution. Just one. To Learn to Live...Really Live But it's not quite that simple. In fact, it took 929 words to explain it for the Huffington Post. Click on "Subscribe" in the column at right OR subscribe my RSS feed to be notified the moment the HuffPost publishes the blog! In the meantime, here's an excerpt to pique your curiosity. "Last night, my husband spoke the three most terrifying words in the English language.  Do you remember your first home? Remember the golden glow that surrounded it, no matter how humble it was? Oh, I remember it well. For the first time, I was free to live the completely hedonistic life of a single woman living alone. And by hedonistic I mean leaving all the lights on all night. Cooking dinner at midnight and vacuuming at 5 a.m. Swagging every room with Christmas lights timed to come on just as I arrived home from work. Keeping the condo at a comfortable 72º year-round and draining the hot water heater to the last drop as often as I wanted. After my previous rigid, austere living arrangements, oh, it was bliss!
But after a month of solitary blessedness, a fly crept into my ointment. Could it be that I was...lonely!?! I adored living alone but the condo was too quiet. But when I mentioned my intentions to adopt a puppy to the family, you'd have thought I'd announced plans to build a submarine in my basement. The extended family erupted in the usual vacuous cries of “You're going to ruin your life!” Relatives came out of the woodwork. A dog-loving uncle I hadn't seen for over a decade relayed a message through two relatives, and I quote, “A dog will ruin your life and your condo. Don't do it.” Welcome to my world.  The older I get, the more I'm convinced that most of our problems in this cockeyed world result from one simple factor.
We can't leave each other alone. Simply can't do it! We're compelled to meddle. Wars. Riots. Murders. Assaults. Toxic relationships. All meddling. Boiled down to their lowest common denominator and they have one thing in common: someone is messing with somebody else. One nation invades another nation. Wars erupt. One ethnic group ticks off another ethnic group. Riots ensue. One human being attacks, even kills, another human being. Relatives can't keep their grubby mitts out of each other's lives. Drama, drama, drama. Click here to read whole article! Don't forget to Like, Share and Comment! Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net |