Standing "Outside" Looking "In" To My Early Life

Mom and I. Even in the darkest and most challenging times -- we were able to stay together. 

She married late. To a man who'd  been married before. He was Catholic. She was not.

She promised to raise me "in the faith" and kept that promise even when a Priest and a Nun called her a "whore" and me a "bastard". 

Children in my era didn't ask questions especially from those in authority. I knew it was a negative comment and over the years the sting of those words is still inside me. 

With recent events over the past nine years, the verbal abuse continues from "those in authority" who would rather turn away and let it continue than face the challenge of resolution. 

Interesting. Cause for thought. A religion requiring confession and forgiveness but does not believe in accountability?

Difficult enough "in those days" to be unmarried so late in life but to marry a divorced man with two children from the previous marriage? Major life error.

I didn't know about "them" until one day I saw a picture of Dad standing beside a woman and behind a young boy and girl who I think looked to be about two years apart in age but had then and have now no idea of how old they would have been. I was about five at the time.

Dad had asked me to get him something out of "his bottom drawer" -- perhaps he wanted me to see the picture--although young children were far more "obedient" in those days because it was the era of "spare the rod and spoil the child" carried forward to becoming a belt that could reach even farther than a "switch" from a tree used on the previous generation.

As customary -- I didn't question. It was "his" drawer, his "things". 

I would have done the same and did, over the years, with Mom. 

For example, I always took Mom her purse, I NEVER went into it to get what she wanted. And I didn't question -- even when she showed some signs of older life challenges.

I saw the picture but never asked who was in the picture. Children didn't question. The "rod" was used and in the case of my father, it was his leather belt and I felt enough of it as he often used it to gain "control" -- of me when I questioned, did something he didn't like---for whatever reason.

Respect. Courtesy. Consideration. 

We were "poor" but we had a roof over our head -- despite Dad's constantly losing one job after another. Never asked Mom how she did it; know we moved quite a bit Perhaps we "walked out" on past due rent and utilities -- I have no idea.

Mom worked at whatever job she could get when I started school. Dad had no respect for Mom's purse...always helping himself despite her pleas to leave at least enough to get bread and milk and a few groceries. 

Alcohol, not his family, was his primary need and primary focus.

What was His was His. What was Hers was HIS.

Alcoholism -- Whether from results of being in the War or for whatever reason -- damaged and destroyed but could not break apart my Mom and me.

Other Mothers were home during the day; mine was not; it was something I just accepted even with the verbal "name calling" from kids who overheard parents "disdain" for "our kind".

Women stayed home; men went to work. There were no "good" jobs for a woman who was married and most women married at or before 18; my Mom was 31. 

She was a "spinster"; actual truth was she worked to provide for her sister and brothers who were still at home.

Mom "came over" from another State to find work as a domestic in other people's homes -- people of means -- people who treated her like "white trash" and worked the 13 year old long, hard days keeping their homes "bright and shiny".

The kids where we lived knew they were free to throw insults my way and they did. This was not the typical neighborhood you can still see in the shows about the families of the 1950's -- those are the "ideal" families and not reality.

Those TV shows about the perfect families living in the friendly neighborhoods where the most challenging problems were so minimal were big in the 60's and the 70's but they were far from reality for many families who lived prior to that time.

Going to "a movie show" was an exceptional treat. 

Riding on a bus or on a streetcar, as inexpensive as it seems today, was also a "special event". 

Somehow Mom managed at least once a month to hide enough from Dad to provide a "treat" -- one we could never talk about in front of him or I would be subjected to his "discipline" and Mom would be verbally abused.

We usually walked to the closest major street where shops lined each side of what we thought was a "busy" street but pales in comparison to today's traffic.

Mom and I would walk and share time together. It was a way to be together. It was her way, our way, to "get away". 

Dad might have been sleeping; he worked the night shift. It's challenging as the years go by to remember some details; too many other life experiences (thankfully) replace them.

When he worked it was usually as a "night watchman". 

To my knowledge he'd been made to leave school at a very young age, never really asked (again, how we were taught)  to help in his father's business, who was a barber. 

That's supposedly where he "learned to drink" -- as this was common practice -- but I wonder also about how his serving in the War (WW1) affected him and may have led to his drinking -- PTSD?

And, he was probably "sleeping it off" if he'd been paid because money in his pocket meant he headed to the local tavern and he was always generous (to everyone but his family) buying drinks for whoever he happened to meet.

His "generosity" in the bar meant we went without: food, clothing, basics many take for granted. 

People in the armed forces have had similar challenges moving around and to some extent those who worked for companies who "transferred" employees to other locations -- but for me, it was accompanied by living in a volatile environment where one parent was protective and the other self destructive. 

It wasn't exactly conducive to having a friend "over to play" or being "invited" to another home.

When asked today about my "friends" from growing up, I have to admit I haven't many and still find making "friends" a cautionary step and one not to be taken lightly.

A cold water flat; moving every six months from 4th grade until 7th and changing schools twice a year. Some memories come back -- I have some good ones from Kindergarten through the first part of third grade.


Times were changing. Neighborhoods were changing. In our city people were moving "out" because"THEY" were moving in.

Mom tried having a Doctor talk with Dad; she encouraged him to go to AA. He'd stop for a while and then back he'd go -- having Neighborhood bars didn't help as he'd pass one when he walked anywhere and that meant he was "drawn in".

He took me inside with him. Sat me at the bar with him. 

Sometimes he'd buy me a soda -- a very rare treat. Guess he was "buying" my silence as he'd say, "Now don't tell your Mother I gave you that; she'll be angry with me for buying you that soda."  

Of course what he really was saying was, "Now don't tell your Mom I took you into the Bar again. Here's a soda which you can only get when we go here. So, think about that and remember we can only get one when we go here."

When you're a small child, and back then children were more "innocent" and less worldly for many more years than today, you accept more, dream more and generally don't realize how life "should be" or "could be".

Many men drank and they drank to excess. Again, think their being in the Wars of those times and trying to escape the memories had to have an effect. Also drinking was more excessive than it is today for many people.

My Mom planned, she saved nickles and dimes; she went to Beauty School to get a profession she felt could provide for the two of us -- and it did.

It took years. We left with the clothes on our back. With one of Mom's brothers we went back to pick up a few, a very few things, but left behind our lives and for me that was toys and games and my beloved dog who went to stay at the Uncle's.

Children today have so much more. My children had so much more. And, they had love, two caring and devoted parents who both worked so their lives could include great educations and amazing opportunities.

Looking back I do not see the person my oldest son paints me as -- incompetent, incapable, not planning for life well enough and an abuser of his Grandmother and Father.

We've exchanged emails and had email "discussions" many times -- it always ended in his "picking up his marbles" and going home.

Then would come his removing my, his father and even his grandmother's ability to see "his" children. You see, we were a family unit and what he did to one, he did to all. 

Like my father, my oldest son strikes out when what happens, what is said, does not "please him". 

Looking at him on line you'd never guess he was an abuser. Looking at his wife, you'd never guess she participated in an supported the abuse. 

I have no way of knowing how they treat the children. I've wondered. I'm not sure. Sometimes verbal can be as abusive as physical -- I remember as that was also a "skillset" my Dad had.

My oldest once asked me if he was anything like his grandfather. I said yes -- he was blue eyed and bald when he was born. Then the blonde hair came in -- odd because I had dark brown hair and my husband had "salt and pepper" hair with black and silver coloring. My husband had been quite sick as a child and thought that was the cause but seeing my other son "go grey" early, it must be hereditary on "that side" of the family.

We chose how we go through life. We walk past many windows in life, some we see from the inside, some we see from the outside.

We chose to work on relationships or we choose to use relationships to manipulate and control others.

In life, at home, at work, in social situations, we make choices. 

Mom and I both accepted what we could not change but have had the courage to change what we could.

There is heartache but we must move away from those who use and abuse for our own well being.

I know I have the ability to move through these times as they do not control me, they give me the courage to face head on and walk away waiting for the tomorrow I know will come.

I stand outside looking in to my early life and the life my oldest son has chosen to create for me. Little difference. Abuse is abuse.