May 10, 2000

     i wonder if the hurt of my childhood will ever really go away?  Other than needing a bit of polishing, i finally finished the project that i promised my daughter, about growing up in a dysfunctional family.  And even after all these years, remembering still has the ability to make me cry.  There was so much violence, so much unhappiness, that i wonder how we managed to get through it all.  We did, but not without a certain amount of damage.  Some of the bandaids needed were large.  

     i hear the next-door neighbours fighting every day, yelling and screaming at each other.  Constant and loud.  Then i watch their son take a hockey stick and beat on everything he sees outside.  i wish i could make them understand what they are doing, yet i know my interference would not be welcomed.  It brings back all the memories and i cry again.  The mother's voice, raised in anger, reduces me to a child again, and my stomach knots.

     i wish i could take back every time i had yelled at my own two children.  Take the yelling back and replace it with hugs. 

     Maybe i am pensive right now because it is so close to mother's day.  And i am remembering how sad a day it was last year, when i was trying to resolve my feelings about my mother with the fact that it would be her last one to enjoy.  

     And this will be my first one, without my children near me.

            shadoe

i'm not sure i should be posting this, but something in me says i should and Master is encouraging it ... the following is the essay i wrote for my daughter:

One memory that has stayed with me over the years, is of being about 9 or 10 (I'm not positive of the exact age, but I do know I was still in lower grade school) and late one night, I had to call the police for my mother. This became the first of many times. I remember feeling embarrassed as I stood there, wearing a long flannel nightgown, my bare feet getting cold. My baby sister pressed up against my legs. I'd started to cry when the officer asked me what I had seen. To me, he was enormous and frightening. My mother had an angry face and had prodded me to talk and to stop crying. The officer finally made her stop and we were sent back to bed. I shared a room with my sister and I brought her into bed with me. Eventually we fell asleep again. The next morning I went into the kitchen as quietly as I could and cleaned up the broken beer bottles and ashtrays.

This pattern continued during most of my childhood. Our family became very well known throughout the small to town of 5,600 people because of the violence. There were quiet times, times when it seemed everything was fine. We would go for Sunday drives during the summertime and get ice cream. We would have a nice supper together. But then it would be the weekend again, and the drinking would start. Sometimes my father would be gone for the entire time, carousing with his buddies and sleeping wherever he landed. In truth, I almost preferred that because there would not be fighting. Except that then mom would be upset and drink by herself, and we would experience the results of her anger.

The police were always there. After awhile they just took my father away with them, giving him a place to sleep until the alcohol wore off. It was easier than trying to mediate between the two of them. It was also physically safer. My mother wore bruises continuously, on her legs and arms and eyes. She suffered some permanent damage to her body. Scar tissue in one breast, and back and neck problems were some of the longer lasting effects. She was very angry most of the time, and that anger would manifest itself in a violent manner. They would fight, dad would hit her and she'd hit back. I'd call the police; they'd take him with them. She would then destroy things of his, venting her anger. This went on for years.

My life became a pattern of trying to hide from my friends what was going on, and trying to survive. School was the only place I felt happy and safe, but I still had to go home each day. Most of the violence I experienced was from my mother, although I do have issues with my father that are best left alone at this time. Mom became very exacting in her demands, and often it felt like everything I did was wrong. When she wasn't satisfied, she would hit. If I didn't put an ashtray back on the table correctly, I was hit. If I wasn't wearing what she chose for me, I was hit. If I tried to express myself in any way that was not the same opinion as hers, I was hit. Especially if she was drinking. More than once, she'd be drunk and would wake me up late at night. She would start telling me I was worthless or selfish or sucking up to my father. She would start beating me, and I'd run out of the house and sleep at the next door neighbour's. One morning I returned to find my bedroom totally destroyed, some of my clothing cut up.

As the unhappiness and drinking escalated, my mother became more adept at defending and protecting herself. One night my father combined diet pills and beer. He ripped the frame of a door off the wall and begun hitting both us. My mother and I ran out of the house and stayed with my aunt. The next day, my mother returned home. I didn't. I was seventeen and refused to go back, deciding a job and a boarding house would be better. About a month later, I received a phone call from the police. Could I come and get my mother out of jail? They had started taking turns on who they would remove from the house.

I guess it was inevitable that the anger they carried would eventually be directed at their children. I can't speak for my siblings, as I don't know some of their reality during these years, but I do know that their experiences were much the same as mine. My older brother left the house before he finished grade twelve, opting for the security of the armed forces instead. I recall some very loud and violent fighting between him and my parents, including dad hitting him. Once he was gone however, it became my "turn."

The last time she beat me, I hit her back. It was three weeks before my wedding and I was 21 years old. She got drunk, and became angry with me because my future husband and I had felt it best that we not be godparents to my brother's daughter. They wished her raised in the Anglican faith, and we are Catholic. My brother and his wife were very understanding and we all agreed that a practicing Anglican would be a better choice. My mother disagreed and felt I had been rude.

When I arrived home that evening, she'd already had a lot to drink. She began to berate me, then threw a drink at me, and started hitting. I ran for my father, who was already in bed and asleep. His foot was in a cast however, and he was unable to move quickly. He said, "hit her" and I did. I can't find the words to describe how awful that felt. But it was the last time the violence was directed at me in a physical way.

I've spent a good part of my adult life trying to understand why things happened as they did. I alternate between being very angry and trying to forgive. I try to at least be empathetic to the fact that they didn't have the skills needed to be parents, or husband and wife.

My father was placed in foster home after foster home, until at age 13 he ran away. This was in 1949 and a large percentage of foster parenting was done as an extra income for the household. He used to tell us a story about being given a pair of skate laces for Christmas, then sent off to church while the rest of his foster family celebrated their gift giving. His mother had left him and two other siblings on the steps of the foster care agency. He was 9 years old at the time. Her husband had left her because of her infidelities and she wasn't able to provide for five children by herself.

My father ran from Kingston to Perth, with no money, clothing, or place to stay. He went into one of the few restaurants there and asked for work. The owners correctly assessed the situation and offered him both a job and a home. He stayed with them for 4 years, until at the age of 17 he married my then three-months pregnant mother. She was 16. In 1953, being young and pregnant before the wedding was a very shameful thing.

My mother grew up in a home that consisted of an ailing mother, four other siblings, an alcoholic father and very little money. Her mother ran their home as a boarding house, and combined with her poor health, had little time for her children. She died shortly after my mother turned 17. In all the years of listening to my mother talk about her mother, there was always an edge of resentment in her words.

My parents became babies raising babies. They had four children by the time they reached the age of 27and 28, respectively. They didn't know how to be a family. They didn't have a lot of money, although in later years that improved. It meant that my father had to work from dawn to dusk, which in turn meant we didn't have much quality time with him. And he played as hard as he worked. Fixing cars and alcohol became a way of life.

If I remember correctly, alcoholism wasn't widely recognized as a disease back then. Social agencies were sporadic at best, and certainly not available in a town as small as Perth. There was no such thing as a women's shelter. Kid's Helplines did not exist. What went on behind closed doors was only whispered about; it certainly wasn't discussed openly, and there was great shame in admitting there was something wrong. Anyone trying to help was labeled as being interfering or nosey. The false pride of "don't tell" are words that I took into my adult life with me.

There is a lot more that I could relate, but I hesitate on the wisdom of sharing it with my daughter right now. Perhaps when she is older, and if she feels she needs to know. What has been shared with her already is hard because these are her grandparents we are speaking about and this is a side of them that she did not see. There is a good and bad side to everyone and I worry that she will forget the good side, or feel let down somehow.

How did growing up this way affect me? I didn't learn how to be a good parent. I didn't know how to interact within a marriage in a good and positive way. I fell into the same pattern of drinking as my parents did. I carried a lot of anger inside of me. It has only been in the last few years that I have learned to channel the negativity away and get over my own sense of false pride.

I tried to be completely opposite to my parents in how I raised my children. I made a lot of mistakes because I didn't have a role model in my mind to refer to. I only knew a role model that I didn't want to repeat. On a positive note, I broke the pattern of abuse, but I will always be grateful to their father for adding the stability that I lacked. I wish it could have been better, but the past can't be changed. I do have the ability to make a better future, however, and perhaps sharing these words with my children helps them to understand. Allowing my daughter to share this story with her class might help someone else. That's important.