My Mother came from a family more privileged in ways. During her younger years they lived in a mountain homestead in the Madison Valley and my Grandpa was a government trapper, in charge of taking out the roaming grizzlies and other predators that would prey on livestock. They later moved into town to run the store and post office. grandma was a small town society lady, and my Mother’s send of decorum and manners reflected this. father’s family was a rougher lot and their ways and humor reflected it. In my father’s family, then later in our own, obscene biological bodily noises were not only encouraged, but applauded, much to my Mother’s disgust as she would hightail it to the restroom at the least sign of abdominal discomfort.
I was also a late life surprise for my parents. Mom was 41 when she had me, and Dad, at 48, was sure he would be dead before he saw me graduate high school. In a way, I guess he did die before he saw that because I dropped out to get my GED, later took several years of college courses and never did really graduate high school. He was 80 when he died six years ago.
My parents knew poverty as children, to differing degrees. My mother never knew hunger. My father did. They both worked. Mother graduated college with a degree and later became a teacher. My father took five years of high school and could never pass the English class. His story is that the English teacher hated him, which very well may have been true. It is also quite possible my father suffered from the dyslexia that is so prevalent in his side of the family, but which went undiagnosed.
There is a two generational gap between my parents and I. I have two older sisters, and raising them in the 70s left my parents in a state of shock, I think. Because of my sisters drinking, drug using, sneaking out shenanigans my parents tried to overcompensate by keeping me as close to home as they possibly could. While I understand their desire to ‘protect’ me, it also, unfortunately taught me nothing about reality of day to day living and responsibilities. When I came along we had more money so I was spoiled more than my sisters. My parents were more tired when I came along. They did the best they could with the knowledge they had, a very unhappy marriage and their own views of life, which unfortunately conflicted 99% of the time.
We never want to marry our fathers or our mothers but we seem to end up following the courses we know.
My husbands family grew up poor as well. More than my parents ever were. He has in some respects I think, however unintentionally, held this against me. He has told me I am viewed by his family as standoffish. Uppity, in a way. Like I have an attitude that I am better than they are.
Every family has their dysfunction. My Dad was a bowling night drunk. He took my eldest sister on a car ride when she was three years old and told her he would kill her is she didn’t start behaving. He was constantly emotionally abusive and sometimes physically violent with us. My mother was emotionally distant and very involved in her own miseries. She and Dad never loved each other, they were merely doing what was expected of them for their generation. Marrying because that’s what you did.
My husband’s parents, as told to me by my mother-in-law were married because her parents set it up. Her father didn’t believe a woman should go to school as she wanted, to become a nurse. The arranged the marriage and set the date. She was to marry a man she not only didn’t love, but whom made her uncomfortable for the fact that he constantly watched her everywhere she went. You know, like a stalker. But she had been molested by her own brother for years. Perhaps it was her parents way of taking care of the problem. But the man they chose for her, though I do not know all the details of how that arrangement came to be, was not a very stable personality either. He has an obsessive personality. Anxiety attacks. Later on, alcoholism on both sides, physical abuse. Darker things kept from the kids. My husbands family believes in keeping secrets. ‘Family business’. Abuse. Neglect.
I was not raised that way. We have come to screaming disagreements. I have taken my final stand after this summers goings on, and I have made it clear to my husband, whether or not he completely understands;
I WILL NOT LONGER SUPPORT YOUR FAMILY IN THEIR CYCLES OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT.
I struggle with my own demons of abuse. Curse myself for allowing my father’s words to come out of my mouth. War with myself over reacting to my children with anger. Come back to them time and again when I screw up, apologize, tell them I was wrong to do or say something. try harder. Fail. At times, succeed. But I try. I try. I fuck up and try again. I play with my kids. Laugh with them. Force myself to hug and cuddle them when I am feeling like a depressed introvert, knowing that they need that more than I need my bookish escapism. I so desperately want my children to grow up happier and more successful than I have been.
Time will come to tell of it, but the only reason I didn’t turn my husband’s sister into Child Protective Services once and for all was because his best friend, her new married boyfriend was leaving his wife to come and take her and her three very disturbed children out of state. What makes me sick about it is the whole family kept their mouths shut about his sister’s neglect and what it was doing. They would talk about it as if it were the kids fault they were so fucked up. The family wanted to be rid of their burden.
I don’t know that I did the right thing and in part I regret not turning her in. So I make up for it by crusading with Animal Control to try and liberate my mother-in-laws 16 unaltered, inbred and underfed dogs from her. So far I have only managed to steal one and get her to the basset rescue group. I am working on the sly with the director of my local animal shelter. But I have not yet had the courage, for fear of the World War III that with blow up between my husband and I when he finds out I breached his family’s backwater code of “It’s our business, no one else’s!” to call the Sheriff’s department on his mother and her ‘boyfriend’ for the neglect of these animals. We are snowed in and my rig is broken down. I did tell him I am getting rid of the dogs. I keep telling him I will no longer support his family’s habit of neglect. My husband doesn’t recognize neglect because he was raised by neglect. He remembers the child protective people making unwanted unannounced visits to them when he was growing up. His mother of course, holds that she was being victimized by the system and was doing nothing wrong. My husband, unfortunately, has the same kind of view. Everyone is out to get them and they are never at fault.
I do have to credit him in some areas for trying to improve. Mostly because I keep calling him on the bullshit. Not always in the most positive ways. But I will not be his victim. I will not subscribe to his belief in that way. I will not support him in neglect. I will overcome my fear. I will be a better parent, if not with him, them in spite of him. He is not completely unreasonable, though at times it seems he is. He has grown far more in these last nine years than he did in his previous thirty-two. I have required more from him. I have pissed some of his family off by coming into his life because he was supposed to be the one everyone dropped all their shit on to take care of. My husband is at once extremely self-sufficient and terribly handicapped within his family.
I am trying to understand it. I am trying here to write it out. Poverty plays a large part of it. And family history. I will do what I need to do.
We have dived into a lifestyle of poverty to escape poverty. I had been receiving housing assistance for a long time. With only his income since my job loss last year, we are still having to rely on food stamp assistance and Medicaid even though pays for health insurance. We want off that as well. But he doesn’t want me to work when we still would have to have childcare. Even with childcare assistance, our portion would be hundreds of dollars a month. I would be working to pay for childcare and gas. We did that before. Then we lost all assistance. Public assistance is an addiction cycle on its own.
He may be laid off this week. We will know tomorrow. Then what? We shall see.
I will not always live like this. Damnit, my kids deserve better. I will see that they get it. One way or another.
