I recently joined the Indieink Writing Challenge to help jump start my writing and Michael challenged me to write about denying someone something that they want. Here is my response..

I would throw myself on the floor full force and pound my fists into the ground. My screeching could be heard throughout Walmart and my poor mother looked down helplessly as I banged my head against the cement floor. Repeatedly.

I was an only child.

I asked for a lot of things and sometimes I got them–many times I didn’t. I remember the feeling that would well up inside of me when my mother told me no. It wasn’t a logical thought about maybe we can get this next time. Or possibly I should save up and buy this myself. It was the realization that I was helpless. That unless my mother bought this item I would never get it. That my fate relied upon my mothers decision to do or not to do.

This may seem like a dramatic response to not getting a new Barbie or a bag of M&M’s in the checkout line. But the feelings that came with being told no were hard. The idea that I didn’t control what happened to me is something that I still to this day deal with. I felt powerless.

And then I became a mother. I became a mother to an only child. I became a mother to an only child that is exactly like me. (minus the spastic fits, thank GOD)

It has become incredibly hard to tell him no. To hold back from giving him everything that he wants. It is not that I think he needs these things. It is not that I don’t have enough crap cluttering my house. It is the idea that my actions would make him feel powerless. I never want him to feel powerless. So I buy the quarter machine toy that I will throw away in a month when I discover it on the floor of my car. I save up and buy him the new gaming system and then regret it and then save up and buy him the next one.

And the entire time I know that my fear that he will feel powerless is going to ruin him.