I never asked my father questions about his family, my grandparents or what he was like when he was younger.  I heard a lot of stories – my dad was not a man with the kindest heart or best intentions.  For most of my life, he made me feel inadequate and inferior.  I was never enough – was never smart enough, never thin enough, not white enough. I always wondered why he decided to remain in my life if he was so ashamed of me.  The issue, I came to realize, was more about him than me – he felt inadequate and projected his feelings on me. Back in the day (my father is in his eighties), anyone who had a slight drop of color was considered black and that was always a point of disdain.  But, that is another story to be shared at a later time.

The end result was that I shunned and rejected his side of the family because of the way he made me feel, completing the cycle of rejection.  I always wished my father and his family were like my mom’s family.  They were always so loving and accepting.  And, most important – they were proud to say I was a part of their family, not like my father’s side.  I remember being about 10 years old, running around my cousin’s house in Puerto Rico.  I spent almost every summer in Puerto Rico, as most old school Puerto Rican children did.  They had visitors at the time and I had no idea who they were, but they were sure curious about me.  My aunts told them I was the daughter of their grand nephew’s teacher.  They never knew I overheard this and I carried it around with me for years.  The humiliation and rejection was too much to bear.  I called my mom and asked her if I could come home early.  I missed her, for many reasons, but the most important was that she never was embarrassed by or ashamed of me.  She never denied me.  I blamed my father for what his family did and to this day, it still smarts.

My upbringing was not traditional in many senses.  I was a child born out of wedlock – my mother was a naïve girl, not more than 19 when she first came to this country.  My father was an older, more experienced man – he is more than 20 years older than my mom and he had a wife with 3 children.  Of course, he told her he was divorced and she believed him because sometimes love makes us blind.  By the time she realized the truth, she was already 3 months pregnant.  For many reasons that I cannot go into, my mom’s heart closed my father out and I became the center of her world.  She worked so hard so that I would not have to be in her position – so that I would be an educated, independent woman who would not have to deal with the shame and humiliation of bearing a child out of wedlock and of being the other, instead of The woman.

I thank my mom every day for who I am, what I have accomplished and where my future will take me and those I love.  I also thank my father and his family for helping me to grow a thick skin and to not let rejection get the best of me –in my career and personal life, this has been one of the most important weapons in my arsenal.  I have learned not to internalize rejection or to become demoralized by it.  In life, we experience situations that impact us, in both good and bad ways. The combination of both positive and negative experiences is what forms us to make us who we are.  It’s up to us if we become better or worse for it.

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Caridad Pellot is a corporate executive who just looks like she has it all together. In her blog, “Diary Of A Control Freak”, she lets us in on the lessons she’s learning along the way.