Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Another viewing, and a revelation
ednbarby:
That's so sad, Lynn. As scary as my childhood was, there were a lot of bad things that weren't done to me. I was never beaten in any way - in fact I don't recall ever being so much as spanked. And my parents weren't the type to yell at their kids. Yelling to this day still really bothers me because I grew up in such a non-verbal household. My Mom wasn't a mean drunk - she just basically drank until she fell asleep, and that happened earlier and earlier each day while I was in school. But she'd wake up again in the evenings, and we'd have a grand old time watching "Happy Days" and "Welcome Back, Kotter!" The worst thing about her being drunk was that she just wasn't present mentally or emotionally for any of us - we basically ended up raising ourselves and for the most part didn't do a particularly good job. I started cooking for my brothers and me when I was five. I could light a gas stove with a match by myself at six. I'm one helluva short-order cook - I can make grilled cheese sandwiches, eggs in a number of different forms, and BLTs with the best of 'em. I think I have the distaste for cooking I have now because I always saw it as a chore that I probably shouldn't have had to have been performing in the first place. When my Mom was with it, she cooked with me and showed me some things - she was a natural and cooked in that Southern style - her chicken and dumplings and sausage gravy were beyond compare. That was fun. Trying to do it alone - not so much.
When I got to college, some other kids there told me stories of the beatings and punishment they received as children that made me almost feel ashamed to have gotten by so easy. And one thing about my Mom - none of us ever doubted her love for us - it was unconditional. She just didn't love herself very much. Or at all. I think we all forgave her at an early age. My father didn't get the same privilege, though. We thought he should have known better - he had all the money and all the power, and he turned his back on us. I forgave him not long ago because he finally admitted it was all his fault. But he hasn't said that to my brothers. And even if he did, I don't know if it'd be enough anymore.
Do you know - I walk by a house here and there in my neighborhood sometimes and a chill runs through me. I know there's something wrong in there, I just don't know what. If anything, I think kids today have it harder than we did. Like I've said, we're even more isolated than ever before. We're prisoners of our own houses - even in Florida, where you can be outside pretty much every day, everyone stays inside. All the time. And sometimes when I do see some kids here and there, I see that wounded look in their eyes I've seen before in my own. I swear, I don't know how to fix this. I guess all we can do is just reach out to the ones around us and show them some kindness - it might just be that little push now and again from a caring adult that gets them through.
delalluvia:
Heavy heavy stories...I grew up with abusive cousins. One a girl, one a boy. Being more inclined to climb trees and play with trucks, I hung around with my guy cousin. He regularly beat me up, thought it was funny to piss on me, force me to do things. I had no where to go either. If I told on him, he would get punished, then come right back and make things even worse for me.
The female cousin was a controlling, denigrating, self-righteous self-esteem angel of death. My sister, now a grown woman, divorced and mother of a young child still has nearly zero self-confidence because of an early childhood of constant putdowns, insults and teasing from her.
Nowadays, we're all grown up. I see these cousins at family get togethers and I can't tell you how much I grind my teeth around them. If I make a passing mention of what happened, they laugh it off, 'Kids, you know!'.
I guess it's a lot easier to blow off when you're not on the receiving end.
It wasn't funny to me then, it sure as shit isn't funny to me now.
adrian:
Barb,
I just came across this thread, and it brought me to tears. I don't say much, unless I have to. Sometimes I wish I could protect everyone from things that hurt. You will be in my thoughts.
Adrian
Ellemeno:
I get really overwhelmed at this. I was in a store today and watched the mom in front of me in line being very hard on her son, ragging him about a mistake he had made a few minutes before. He was about 4 and he looked so miserable, and at the same time like he just wanted to please her so badly, not out of fear, but out of love. He looked like a sweetheart. So I smiled at her the best I could (because now that I'm a mom, I know how hard it can be to juggle shopping and children) and said, "He feels terrible about it." And she snapped, "Well, he should." Me: "It's tough, my little girl has taken important stuff out of my purse too. They just don't understand how important that stuff is to keep track of, they're so little." The mom was still kind of stomping and grabbing and speaking sharpy, but i saw her pull her son close to her too, on the way out to the car, and that the storm had passed, at least temporarily. She was (very luckily for him and for me) open to hearing my message.
About 20 years ago, I saw a mom in a store kind of droningly browbeating her kid, and I spoke sharply to her and clearly showed I thought she was a bad guy. She seethed at me, "Do you have kids?" "No" "Then mind you're business, you don't know what it's like." She was right, of course, that I had no idea how hard it is to stay courteous when overwhelmed with trying to get through the shopping with a little child. Nowadays, I try to muster a look of compassion toward the overwhelmed and grouchy parents I see, commiserating out loud with them about how hard it is that KIDS ARE TOO LITTLE TO KNOW HOW TO DO ANY BETTER (so it's up to us to be the grown ups, asshole). I try to somehow convey the part in parentheses without letting them know I'm thinking the last word. :)
ednbarby:
God, Del. That's awful. What makes some people such monsters? Are they born or made? I lean a little towards the latter but I'm sure it's a combination of a lot of things. My brother punished me a couple of times, too, when I threatened to tell, but nothing like what your (boy) cousin did.
That reminds me - I saw "Infamous" the other night, and there was a line in it - a soliloquy, really, and spoken by a solitary rancher no less - that was so beautiful. I hope I can do some justice to it. He was talking to Capote and Harper Lee about the murderers, and he said something along the lines of how being good to other people and doing the right thing in life roots you a little more each time to this earth - makes you a part of it. But for some people, a wind blows in that's too strong for them to ignore, and it pulls them out like they're as light as a feather (interesting how they used the earth and wind this time to symbolize similar and yet vastly different things). Once they're taken up by it, there's no coming back down to earth.
We can't fix the ones who've been taken up by that wind, but we can help the ones who are still holding on a little bit, like you did, Elle.
I was in the store a couple of weeks ago with Will and he was stomping on my last nerve, touching everything when I told him not to touch things, asking for everything he saw and not at all politely. I was looking at the drink boxes, getting him some for his school lunches, and he was carrying on about "No! I want the yellow ones! The YELLOW ones!" They were *all* yellow - he likes lemonade, and I was perusing that part of the selection. I just put my head in my hand for a second, as if to say "Give me a minute - I'm asking God to kill me" and I heard this very kind voice say, "I think he means this one." A woman about my age with her little boy, about a year older than Will, was directing me towards one of the seventeen yellow products. I said to Will "Is this it?" He says "Yeah! YAY!" I looked at my savior and said "Thank you." She just said "Believe me, I know." A couple of times I've seen a kid carrying on with his or her Mom in the store and walked by with Will and said, "It's a *fun* age, isn't it?" They've always given me such a grateful look. Just being reminded now and again that your kid isn't the only one who's ever behaved atrociously in public helps.
And thanks, Adrian. You are most kind.
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