I am not a child. And yet I am someone's child, and I know things a child should not know.
I know that my father is drinking himself to death. I know that he is impotent, and that he shits in his pants and pisses in his bed. I know that my stepmother eventually left him not because he hit her, but because he told her he'd rather die on a barstool than live with her. I know that his liver was nothing more than a little crusty ball of carbon 15 years ago. I don't know what it looks like now, but I can imagine.
I know that my grandfather was imprisoned not once, but twice, for molesting children, and that my father and stepmother let me play with him anyway, let me sleep in his house, let me sit on his lap. And I know that my sister was relieved when he died, as finally she could keep her own children away from him without making a fuss. God forbid anyone make a fuss.
I know that my father told my mother to get an abortion, and that she had an appointment and intended to keep it right up until the morning she was supposed to go in. I know she wondered for years if she made the right choice.
I know that my aunt's husband beat her. I know that my cousin is a drug addict, and that her husband is stupid, and that her baby has little chance of any sort of better life. I know that there is a cycle of poverty and humiliation crushing my people, and that distancing myself from them may not be the only way out of it, but it's the easiest.
I know that just because my family is better than some, that doesn't make everything that happened OK.
I am 25, and I know things a child should never have to know.
Comments (8)
I just think it's lame nobody has posted any response to this one, so I'll throw my sympathy your direction. That's an unusual load of shit to have to handle. The only nice part is that none of the terrible things you listed are things you've done, had done to you, been the owner thereof. If you were their god, I'd complain you weren't saving everyone and time traveling and shit. Since you're just some chick (ha ha! I tease!) I'll let you off the hook.
Posted by simonmaxhill | June 14, 2005 6:26 PM
Thanks, Simon. I wasn't really out for sympathy, I just felt like posting something that isn't drivel for once. :)
Posted by Grace | June 14, 2005 8:10 PM
You know things that no ADULT should have to know. And yet (perhaps because of, sometimes?), you manage to pass along grace and kindness and humor. And we here out on the internets thank you.
Posted by Emma Goldman | June 15, 2005 10:18 AM
Sometimes distancing yourself is the only way to fly. I left my parents house at 17 and moved 500 miles away. That distance allows me to control how often I see them. Wish my siblings didn't live so close to parents, though. I'd like to see them more and nephews more.
Posted by NJ | June 15, 2005 10:19 AM
I'm really sorry that these things are part of your reality. Obviously, you wish that they weren't true in the first place. In your post, though, are you saying that you shouldn't know these things? Given that they are true, and if you had the choice, would you choose to not know these things if ignorance were possible? I struggle with this question in all its different forms, namely, whether knowing the full truth is always desirable. I can't ever give an absolute answer, and I'm curious about what you'd say here.
Posted by Scand79 | June 15, 2005 4:10 PM
Yes, what I was thinking as I began that was that I shouldn't have to know these things, or at least that I shouldn't have been told the ones I was told when I was told them. This is particularly a gripe I have with my stepmother--I think her telling me that stuff about my dad was just plain selfish. Sure, talking openly about him being an alcoholic is one thing, but your (then teenage) daughter does not need to know her father wets the bed or is impotent due to his drinking. There was just no reason to tell me that stuff.
Posted by Grace | June 15, 2005 4:30 PM
Shit, that's awful, Grace. They say childhood is a time of innocence, but so many of us had experiences that couldn't be farther from it. I'm sorry.
Posted by FractalGirl | June 15, 2005 8:30 PM
Yeah, I see your point. It was definitely shitty that your step-mom told you those things. I don't really think there was a good time for those things to be told, but anything younger than full-fledged adult is completely out of line.
Posted by Scand79 | June 16, 2005 6:38 PM