Tough exteriors
When I was a younger woman I had many emotional wounds. I was the child of an alcoholic father and I carry those scars to this day, although they have lessened. My parents did the best they could with the tools and development they had. So this is not a blame the parents blog. I appreciate my mother in particular for working with what she had to work with! She made traditions and structure for all of her 10 children. We had Catholic School (grades 1-8), church, regular meal times, and a large extended family that we saw weekly, a regular cleaning schedule, bath times and my mother baked every Saturday. There were routines I could rely on that helped to sustain me. My father worked a factory job for many years 20 plus ; way beyond what I would have the fortitude for. His alcoholism prevented him from a bigger future after he got out of the military, and I know it was a huge loss in his life. But he was a very difficult man to live wi...