The phone rings, which is somewhat strange because no one calls me these days. It takes me a minute to realize that it is actually the phone making the noise.
I answer: “Yes?”
“Hey man.” I hear my brother’s voice. I have not spoken with my brother in years, so this can only be bad news.
We’re long past small talk. “Mom died this morning.” He tells me.
He had emailed me a year earlier, telling me that she had developed some type of cancer. Then he would occasionally email me one-line updates, but that stopped after a couple of months.
I remember the last time I saw my mother, the year before that. And the last thing she said to me was that she loved me. They had come to see me for some reason or other, but did not stay long because they could feel how unwelcome they were. My father did not say a word the whole time.
Other than that extremely brief visit, I had not seen them for three years. Not since they had asked me to help them with a house they wanted to buy. During their long search, they had asked for my advice and I gave them the best counsel I could from a distance. But the house they ultimately selected was only about forty minutes from me, and I could actually get involved. I did not seek out involvement in this affair; they asked for my help.
It did not go well. Oh they got the house and all. But they behaved shamefully. Mind you, not towards the seller. No, shamefully towards me. I will spare you all the gory details. But the worst of it was that they decided to put the house under contract for cash, when in fact they did not have the cash available. That's bad enough. But they blamed me for the consequences of this bad decision.
Well, that's not actually the worst of it. The worst of it was their attitude, which was belligerent and condescending all the way through. Venomous is a better word. As if I was the one preventing them from doing what they wanted, however irrational it may have been. Had they not been my parents, I would have withdrawn from the transaction. As it was, I felt an obligation to see them into the home they wanted. So that is what I did.
It only cost whatever was left of our relationship.
About three weeks after they closed on the property, they showed up at my house – Uninvited, unannounced, and unapologetic. I think their goal was to put the bad blood behind us and simply move on. But there was no explanation and no apology. Nothing of the sort. When I complained about their attitude and behavior, all I got was, We’re sorry you feel that way. That was my mother. Again, my father did not say a word.
But I was having none of it. By this time, I did not need an explanation. I knew who they were. My parents, with typical self-righteous impunity, tied their supposed love (well, our relationship anyway) to their irrational expectations, including my acceptance of their betrayals and their lies, and of their sheer nastiness and spitefulness and venom. That is who they were. That is who they always have been.
Sure my parents loved me. But it was a conditional type of love. Conditional on what? Well, whatever it was they expected at the time. And if I did not meet their expectations, well there was a price to be paid. There was always a transaction on the table.
But by this time, I had the strength, or rather the experience, to say: Oh no you don’t.
You see, by the time they bought that house, I knew unconditional love, belated though it may have been. I had met someone who would later become my wife. And in my mid-forties, she became the first person in my life to love me unconditionally. And now that I had experienced unconditional love, I simply would not tolerate anything less. Certainly not from people who happened to be my parents.
The effect was explosive.
I had to accept my parent’s conduct and bad faith for what it was: A termination of our relationship. No doubt, they would argue that it was not a termination because they still wanted to fix it. My mother even said: You may have given up on us, but we've not given up on you. But words are easy. There is a level of maltreatment that indicates that you no longer value a relationship and that you have no expectation nor desire to maintain it into the future.
Let me say that again: There is a level of maltreatment that indicates that you no longer value a relationship and that you have no expectation nor desire to maintain it into the future.
Surely we, all of us, can expect some minimum level of goodwill and behavior. We owe this to ourselves. So I just decided that it was time to make their decisions irrevocable.
That was very difficult for me. But conditional love is all they knew and all they were capable of.
And for my parents? Well they have other children. And their own comforting self-righteousness.
Now my parents love their other children conditionally as well. Like I said, it is the only kind of love they know. But my siblings are more willing to indulge it than I am. And no doubt it helps that they have certainly done a better job at meeting parental expectations.
Without my wife, I would still be trying, and failing, to meet their expectations... their conditions.
The transaction on the table.
Their table.
So my wife and I crafted a new table. And around our table, there is only unconditional love.
Now before we continue, it is important to acknowledge that my parents have done a lot for me. They have been extremely generous. It would be foolish to deny that. But they have also treated me worse than anyone. This, too, cannot be denied.
Did the one necessitate the other? And how does one weigh that? I do not know. But I do know that one should not have to weigh it at all.
But there are matters...to be considered. For instance, what kind of mother does not buy milk for her children?
She would have to be desperately poor, right?
She would first have to sell the house. And then the furniture. And then her wedding band.
She would demand that her husband buy milk; or threaten to divorce him, taking the children, and filing for alimony and child support.
Wouldn't she?
Or...she could make the entirely reasonable decision to not have children. Perhaps she cannot afford children. Or perhaps she does not want children. Either way, the decision to have children is just that – a choice. And if you make the decision to have children, at the same time you make the decision to take care of them properly.
Or...she may not give any thought whatsoever to whether she wants children, or whether she is well-suited to parenthood. She certainly does not consider whether the man she married, a truly angry and contemptuous soul, would make a good father to her children.
Ultimately she has children per customary expectations, and perhaps for her own selfish vanity. Certainly for her husband's vanity. I can think of no other reasons. And yet she decides that providing milk for them is a bridge too far. An expense she is unwilling to bear.
When I was a kid, there was always beer and wine and Scotch whiskey in the house. But there was never any milk. It is important to understand: This was not neglect; it was a conscious decision. It was simple and genuine miserliness.
It was cheapness elevated to cruelty.
By any standard, my parents were incredibly affluent...
I am five feet six inches tall.
I remember when was maybe, four or five. This was early 1970's. A time when small-town parents still allowed their children to wander unattended.
Late one afternoon I was out roaming the neighborhood with my best bud, kid next door, and frequent bully, Steve Cashwell. And right in front of my house, we found a pack of matches in the street. Big stuff for pre-internet five-year-olds.
Steve, who was bigger and stronger, took custody of the newfound afternoon possibilities. And against my urgent protests, he immediately went looking to put the pyrotechnics to use. I stumbled along, as bullied kids so often do.
He settled on a solitary bush just off the street between our two houses. As I am sure he'd never before struck a match, it took a little doing. But before long, he had the dried leaves beneath the bush alight. And then very quickly, he had that bush ablaze.
Well, that was too scary for me and I took off for help. I ran through our front yard, past the front door, headed around the house, toward the back door that we actually used. Unbeknownst to me, my father had arrived home, and saw the burning bush from his bedroom window. We met just beyond the front door.
He yelled at me to go inside while he went and dealt with the Cashwell's flaming shrubbery. Steve, by this time was no where to be found.
Afterwards, my father came inside the house and beat the crap out of me.
I tried to tell the story. Of course I did. And even after the beating, I denied that I was responsible. So my parents, my well-educated, liberal parents, did what they considered appropriate and sufficient due diligence: They phoned over to the Cashwell's, to find out what had actually happened.
And when they were informed during that telephone conversation that ... I ... was the actual culprit, they beat the crap out of me for a second time that night. For lying about it.
I remember once, when my brother and I were quite young. John and Pat Shaw invited all of us over for dinner. All went well until after dinner, when the adults were playing bridge in the basement and the four children were playing in the adjoining playroom. I remember, Michael and Susan Shaw being rather rowdy. Well, by our standards. And my brother and I, were scared to death. Rowdiness was just not to be tolerated. So we sat in the middle of the room, meekly, and Michael and Susan sort of danced around us. We were literally shaking. Sure enough, Dad comes in and beats the shit out of us. Right on cue.
This sort of fear really defined my childhood.
Now the Shaw’s never invited our family back. Never. And they never came to our house. No doubt if you ask my parents, even today, they would tell you that their children (my brother and myself) made a bad impression and the Shaw’s no longer wanted to be friends. But I was invited to that home hundreds of times after that. No, I think the Shaw’s were appalled by how my parents treated their children. And no, they did not want to associate with such people.
I remember when I was just a bit older, maybe six, we had moved into a new house. My brother and I had our own rooms for the first time. We shared a bathroom between the bedrooms. Let me be clear: My room, bathroom, my brother's room. I remember I started peeing in the waste paper basket in my room. It was actually a basket, and of course, all flowed to the carpet beneath it.
Naturally, sooner or later, the stench became noticeable and my parents confronted me about what was going on. When I confessed (how could I not?), there was talk of big punishment, which I don't recall ever coming to pass. But let me tell you what there was not. There was never any talk whatsoever about why a six-year-old might develop this odd behavior. All blame, and that is exactly what it was, was directed at the child, and the parents never once questioned their own behavior and attitudes.
As to why the promised punishment never came to pass? Well they knew didn't they? Deep down, they were perfectly well aware of who was at fault. And why. Of course they were. Like I said, these were extremely intelligent, well-educated people. They simply did not care enough about the project of childrearing.
Like all of us, the most basic needs of children are food, water, and shelter. But Maslow taught us that right above these physiological needs sits: Safety. Even before love, children need to feel safe. This is the primary job of parents. This is the primary purpose of a home.
And I learned very early that my parents and our home were not reliably safe. My greatest fear as a child was not the dark or getting lost or whatever it is that children typically fear. Rather, I feared the volatile and capricious nature of my parents. All too eager to find fault; all too willing to strike with unpredictable abuse. Physical as well as venomous verbal assaults. Abuse used to insure preternatural behavior and obedience, and to protect a warped view of their own reputation. For my parents, fear was the tool of choice in their burden of childrearing.
I did not feel safe with my parents. How could I? I was scared to death of them. Trust is a vital element of safety and we are all born trusting. But if you learn at the age of three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and beyond, that your parents cannot be trusted, do not be surprised if you have trouble trusting anyone, ever. How does such a child find mental and emotional stability? You can expect trouble forming and maintaining relationships, distrust of authority, and other symptoms of the maladjusted.
And if a child's home is not safe, he may never feel home anywhere. He may spend a lifetime seeking a home that he lacks the emotional capacity to find. If a child does not feel safe, how can he possibly develop Maslow's higher-level pursuits of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization?
My parents did not give two cents about the self-esteem of their children.
But that is not all. Abused children are likely to grow up to be angry adults. And this internal rage affects everything they do. And all of their relationships. How could it not? I wonder what percentage of our prison population were abused as children?
So, angry and unfulfilled. And unable to find happiness. Yeah, that sounds about right. But Jordan Peterson says that happiness is not the goal. It is rather, a mere byproduct of moral venture. So I guess, there's always hope. One muddles onward, searching and hoping. What choice is there? The question becomes: Can abused children transcend their anger and their lack of self-esteem to live a life of moral venture? Here's hoping.
In any case, there was nothing special about the abuse described here; these are just early incidents that I remember clearly. My parents were always ready, even eager, to find fault and assume the worst about their children and act on those assumptions. They knew that Steve, the neighbor kid, was bigger and stronger and a bully. But they found the idea, that their kid was the one responsible, irresistible. This was the defining element of my childhood. Imagine what that does to the psyche of a little kid. I don't think I ever got over it.
Now I know, plenty have it worse, physically. Far worse. Some are hospitalized; some go hungry. But for me, I think this willful neglect of self-esteem, even actively working to suppress it, may be the absolute worst form of child abuse.
Today, it is so easy to mock parents for how they raise their little snowflakes. Self-esteem above all else. Above right and wrong, above winning and losing, above proper and appropriate discipline. These parents are misguided and do not prepare their kids for the real world. That's bad.
But on the opposite end of the spectrum, what happens when parents do not care about self-esteem at all? Surely this is infinitely worse. It's unconscionable. These people do not attend to the most basic responsibility of parenting: Raising strong, productive, and mentally and emotionally healthy adults-in-the-making. They have no business raising children at all.
When children do not have this, it follows them, like a shadow, into adulthood. Where it lingers… for a lifetime.
I struggled mightily to overcome their abuse, and had put it behind me, and perhaps had even forgiven them. But when they bought that house, they were all too willing to demonstrate that nothing had really changed. Behind the veneer of respectability lurks a common and wholly unrepentant child abuser, who longs for the day when he could simply beat his children into submission to his will, however irrational it may have been. For her part, my mother was his chief enabler and an often participant.
The worst part is that they continued to believe that their abuse was within the bounds of decency. They refused to acknowledge any misconduct. They had no shame and denied all accountability. It was arrogance. This is what is so unforgivable. Not their actual abuse or misconduct, but rather their continued belief that these derelictions were acceptable. And why would they have believed otherwise? They never suffered any consequences whatsoever for their bad behavior.
In any case, fifty years of bad conduct and bad faith was quite enough for me. Our relationship came to an end with that house. And my wife and I moved to the other side of the world.
I think to myself, I should ask my brother: What are the odds that all three of their children would suffer mental health issues? As adults. One out of three might be statistically about normal. Two out of three might be a high statistical outlier. But three out of three? That is something altogether different.
“Hello…hello?” I suddenly remember my brother on the phone. “Are you there?”
I let my question slip away; at this point it no longer matters. Before hanging up, I simply say:
“Thanks for letting me know.”