Hammy/Carol
“Collateral Damage”
Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side so I don’t get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid
- Kelly Clarkson, Because of You
They say as children, we are sponges. We learn language, etiquette, skills, and behavior watching the world around us and turning observation into mastery. I was a precocious child who spoke in complete sentences by two years of age, and could read before I entered school. I was also well versed in fear, apprehension, and worry.
My parents separated when I was four, and my mother and I moved in with her grandparents. My maternal grandparents lived around the corner, my father’s parents were across town, aunts and uncles, cousins abounded; I was surrounded by people who loved me even though “Mommy & Daddy” no longer existed as a united force in my life.
Both of my parents came from families where home life was less than rosy. My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic who had difficulty holding jobs and habitually lost his license for DUI. Mom’s brothers and sisters were a collection of public-school dropouts who were into drugs, sport-sex, and ducking the local authorities. They considered her an uptight prude. It also became apparent early in my life that my mother had undergone some type of physical abuse (whether this was a rape or something else was never clear). Basically, my parents married to save each other from the lives they were leading. My father had graduated university and all their friends were getting married, why not them?
Well, because my father was more interested in partying and spending money, than being a father and making money. They stayed together long enough to have me.
My mother began dating a man she had known in high school, named John. He was everything my father was not: settled, frugal, successful. They were married just before my sixth birthday. John liked things to be his way. I was instructed not to touch his things, because I would damage them. I was instructed not to eat his treats; they were not for me. (I told my mother in later years, “He was never interested in being part of a family. He treated me like a liability from the beginning. And she would say, “Oh Carol, you were so jealous of each other.” “I was six,” I said. ”What was his excuse?”)
They had two children in quick succession, first my brother P and then brother B. My mother was exhausted and John wasn’t much help. After all, he worked all day, didn’t he? John was not equipped to handle the antics of two young boys. Toddlers are traditionally against rules and ownership, and John would become livid when they made messes or things got broken. He would grab them, shove them, spank too hard. Not beatings, not bruises and blood, but sheer manhandling of small people. I remember following him when he would drag one or the other to their room, nine or ten years old myself, hoping that my presence would make him ease up, leave them alone. (Not a hand on me; I wasn’t his and I made sure he knew it. My father, for all his faults, loved me unconditionally and the sky would have fallen down on John the day he laid a hand on me. Did my young self try to translate this into safety for my brothers?)
John and my mother would argue about the boys. John would say he didn’t bother to help, to be a parent, because anything he tried to accomplish with P&B, my mother would undermine. So why bother? She couldn’t leave her sons with their father, even to go to the grocery store. One day, fed up and exhausted, she tried. Told John she’d be back in an hour and to keep an eye on the boys. When she returned home, he was at his desk playing solitaire, exactly where she’d left him. “Where are the boys?” she asked. “Not sure. Haven’t seen them since you left.” They were three and five and we had an in-ground pool in our backyard. Nothing like risking your own sons to make a point.
The house lived in low-level anxiety, due to John’s propensity to fly into a destructive rage when things didn’t go his way. He would tear doors from hinges, throw anything he could get his hands on, leave destruction in his path. Afterward, there would be no apology and he would not lift a hand to clean up his mess.
I remember the day my heart broke. My brother P had had a birthday; not sure which one, just that he was small and needed assistance to put the stickers on his new GI Joe combat vehicle (He was five? He was four?). Just the job for a big sister. P and B were getting out of the tub that night when their father entered the bathroom in a rage. Someone had broken something of his; children had disobeyed and John had lost something. I watched as he took the new toy, the shiny new thing that belonged to his son, and smashed it under his foot. “That’s how it feels when someone breaks your things.” he said, and left the room as the chorus of screams and cries echoed after him. Small, wet bodies sobbing together. My mother trying to console them–so much pain in P’s eyes and in his little heart. Not a lesson, but a deliberate act of cruelty perpetuated by a father on his sons.
And so the lessons of my childhood were about fear. My grandmother told me about her alcoholic grandfather and how he pulled a shotgun on her father. She taught me to lock doors and to jump at sounds in the night. My mother taught me that security has its price if you can’t provide for yourself. That if you allow yourself to be identified by what you’ve endured, it becomes who you are; a rut, a hole, a trap. My stepfather taught me that money is power.
This story is for all the women who endure because they think the children won’t see, and if it’s not happening to them, the children are protected. It’s a lie you’re telling yourself. We see you. My brothers treat my mother the same way my stepfather does. They are dismissive and condescending; they learned from the master. They have issues with anger; I see his stamp on their personalities, hear his words coming out of their mouths, and it breaks my heart all over again. I am not without scars of my own, and I still carry the responsibility of my mother, who leverages my love for support in her choices and her woes, and then berates me for pushing her for change.
From the outside, I am a success story. I have a bachelors and a masters degree, a successful career and marriage. A small son. “Ah!” you may say “Your mother endured so that you could be free.”
Is that what this is? This isn’t free; everything has a price.
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Hammy/Carol blogs at Hammy’s Wheel.
22 Responses to “Hammy/Carol”
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I could have seen this happening in my now ex. All too easily.
I’m sorry for you and your brothers. I hope they too are able to thrive.
My heart goes out to you and your mom and your brothers; you said it perfectly when you declared that everything has a price. Keep believing, keep hoping… your son will thank you some day for the price you’ve paid to be who you are.
This is an important post, and thank you for it. Children see everything. Every. Little. Thing. Good and Bad. I wish for more good for the little ones.
this so reminds me of my childhood. which is odd, because i don’t remember anything specific.
blessings to you.
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The saddest part, the truly heartbreaking part of this story is that the cycle is propagated for another generation. And the security was only an illusion. It was leverage. It was control. But I question whether there was any real security in it.
I suppose if there’s no tangible, quantifiable abuse it’s easier to dismiss it, to excuse it, even to defend it. At the very least not recognize it for what it is.
I ache for that girl and her brothers, and yes, her mother as well. But I celebrate the woman she became. Despite — or perhaps because of — everything you had to witness and endure, you now have the fortitude to bring this to light. I hope it’s helped you. I’m sure it has helped another, a mother wondering if the security is worth the price.
Much love.
Oh this breaks me up inside. I’m so sorry.
So true. And so well said. Thank you so very much for sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing. It broke my heart to read about the abuse to your brothers, and then to hear that they continue on the emotional abuse with your mother. I am so sorry.
The lesson you share here about what children learn is so, so important. Thank you for sharing it. Your brothers may be continuing the cycle (b/c that’s all they’ve ever known), but you — your son — will not and that is such a tremendous gift to the world. Best wishes to you as you make peace in your heart with your growing up family.
Thank you so much for sharing this perspective – of your childhood memories. It’s such an important lesson and I am so grateful to have read this post. Thank you.
This is so so sad, perhaps more so for the beauty of the writing. Poor little boys. And poor you, for all that was endured.
Thank you for sharing, Hammy/Carol. It is so important that we talk about what children witness, and how that leaves an imprint forever.
I wish you and your mother and your brothers much peace.
I’m so sorry that you were in that position. It’s hard to watch those we love be abused and be powerless (by being a child) to do anything about it. Fear should not be a childhood requirement. It has ramifications that you know all too well later on.
It’s sad that those early experiences damaged your brothers as adults. Prayers that they will seek help and find peace (though they may not even know what has affected them or why).
Best you can do is to make your own peace with it and ensure that your child never experiences what you — or your brothers — did.
My heart is breaking. For her, for him, for them, and for you.
Some of the best lessons that I learned from my father was what not to do to/in front of my children. I trust that you understand that with your child. Of course, I’ve made a few doosies of my own, but growing up in a dysfunctional household can make some of us more aware of our actions with our children. All too often, children are condemned to repeat the mistakes of their parents without ever realizing what was done to them. It is true more often than not that the apple falls next to the tree. Blessings to you. Thank you for sharing a painful story.
I’m so sorry.
Huh. Made me cry again. Who knew that seeing your own words in a different venue can make them echo?
Thank you everyone for reading and for your comments. As Arby mentions above, I learned what I didn’t want in life. The power of negative role-models; a case study in 37 years eh? I’ve spent my whole life buiding myself into someone who had the knowledge and the resources to make choices. And one of the most important choices I’ve made is to not pass the fear along.
Not saying that I don’t lose my cool, but it is somewhat devestating to my heart when I do. You would probably see a Mom getting frustrated and yelling and being less than patient with her clever 4-year-old. My minds-eye sees shadows of yesterday, and I fear again…that I am more like them than I want to be. Deep breath. Start again. Love, and humour, and truth and light.
So that my son understands that all the things to be feared in this life come from the outside world. And that in our home and in our hearts we stand together against those fears.
I am grateful for every moment I get with my two older children, because it means they are not with their father, and my husband and I have a chance to help balance out the things they see.
Thank you for sharing.
We are blessed by your honest sharing of a painful past and the scars you bear. Peace to you and yours.
Thank you for posting this. I know of a child in a similar situation, and perhaps if I can get the child’s mother to read this, maybe, just maybe the similarities will awaken something inside her.
I think that you have chosen to be a survivor, in spite of, not because of, your mother’s choices. Thank you for sharing, and I wish you continuing strength on your journey. Well done!