It’s just an apple mum!
Tags: Parenthood, Positive Attitude, Domestic Abuse, Single Moms, Parenting

I woke up today feeling like it is going to be a great day. I made an extra special effort even put some make up on and brushed my hair. I look at myself in the mirror and take in how different I look to the wreck that once stared back at me. I was in an abusive marriage for years, I lost myself completely, gained weight and lost all traces of self-confidence. Now, I have lost the weight (thank you divorce stress) and wear a smile almost every day. “Hello you” I say to myself. I put some music on to suit my mood, its sexy and smooth and makes me want to wind my hips. I escape for a moment; I have to reign it in as I remind myself there is home-schooling to be done and my actual job for a secondary school.

Mum spends way too much time getting ready in the morning, she never used to take this much time when she was with dad. She has music blaring from her room, I have been in twice and all she is doing is smiling at herself and trying to dance like a popstar. She dances a lot now; I sometimes catch her trying to twerk. She cannot by the way, twerk that is. We laugh about it but its totally inappropriate, if I were to do that, I know I would be in trouble. I do not understand why it takes so long to get ready, I really want an apple, but I need mum to cut it up for me.

“You ok?” I ask my daughter who keeps walking in and out of the room flashing me odd looks. Most likely because I am trying to twerk. I just want to be able to move my body like those girls in the video. I see it as a form of exercise, I think back to when I was so sad, I just existed. Dancing was something you did at a wedding to fit in with everyone else, to seem……normal. Now, I like to dance whenever I can, even when there isn’t any music, I move my body because I love my body. She tells me she wants an apple. I don’t understand why she doesn’t pick up an apple from the fruit bowl and eat it. “Just like your dad, bet you want me to cut it up for you and peel it like he used to” I think to myself. That is exactly what she wants me to do. I take the moment to explain that she should eat the skin on the apple as its good for her and that this is her home if she wants to eat an apple its something that is already washed and sitting in the fruit bowl for her to eat whenever she wants. She does not need to wait for me…. she is 10 after all.

Everything is so different when I am at dads. Before I think of eating my fruit my grandma peels a plate of apples and cuts it up for us all including daddy. That is the only way daddy will eat fruit she says. I am not like daddy I like my fruit. At mums if I want fruit mum tells me I should simply eat it. She talks about how we should eat the whole fruit including the skin, she says we are spoilt when we go to dads and that we should eat the skin. It is just apple skin mum chill out.

Here we go, a battle over an apple. I just want my children to think for themselves and not be needy like their dad. He was spoilt by his parents and even as an adult still expects to be waited on by his mum and sisters. I used to always tell his mum not to peel the skin of the apple for the kids as it was the best bit…it was a control battle I would have daily with him and his family. Throughout our married life we spent most of it living with his family, I could not breathe, and they took over everything. I can feel myself getting worked up over this apple and look at my daughter who is over the conversation already. I calm myself down and tell myself it is just an apple. But it’s not though, is it?