Neglect is a team sport

When my father destroyed my family and my mother, my grandparents didn’t do a thing. I didn’t have a nuclear family like every one of my cousins. I desperately needed one. I needed more than they did from my extended family. That was the simple fact of my existence that no one seemed to acknowledge or make room for. if I complained I was given a cookie cutter response that ignored my unique experience and pretended my life was like my cousins. It wasn’t. I would have been better off with 2 sets of close aunts and uncles than 8 sets of distant ones. My needs and my experience were lost in the shuffle or invalidated because no one took the time to think constructively about how they were different. My grandparents made absolutely no effort to help my mom or cultivate a relationship with me or or my sister to make up for what we were missing. I never got Christmas or birthday cards or presents. I barely knew them and the lived 90 miles away. My family has explained that they had 9 children so they weren’t interested in being grandparents. My dad wasn’t interested in being a parent. My mom was profoundly depressed and distressed. I watch my aunts and uncles and my parents with their grandchildren and see how it wasn’t just my dad neglecting me. I don’t care if they had a hundred kids. That’s their choice and responsibility. They cared more about the church than their grandchildren. It’s a hard truth to accept, but accurate. I finally have the strength to say I deserved more from my grandparents even though all my family members will just tell me why my feelings are wrong and invalid and I should be thankful for literally nothing. My extended family has been content to blame me for my life’s trajectory but when we look back honestly who the fuck was parenting me? No one. So either parents have no effect on a child’s life or every single one of the adults in my life as a child failed me and continues to be blind to the reality of how my life has played out. It takes a village, but apparently I was supposed to do it alone. Having the illusion of a family but none of the real world benefits of one is worse than having no family at all. At least then you what time it is.