Here, I am not interested in relitigating the events of 2019. Suffice it to say that our parents' conduct was despicable. And fully accompanied by all the bitterness and venom that only our father can muster. Now, they either cannot bring themselves to recognize it; which is bad. Or, they just don’t care; which of course is worse. And they are not stupid people. I assure you, if they had treated you this way, you would have reacted exactly as I have.
In fact, it was reminiscent of their unconscionable conduct when I was a little boy. But I was willing to set that aside for the sake of our relationship. For decades.
I am no longer willing to do that…
What 2019 demonstrated to me is that 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 be.
Early this year, before they found the Monadnock Ridge house, he was bragging (there’s no other word for it) to me about beating Nathan and me in front of a client. Over nothing. It was almost always over nothing. And even when there was cause, it was abusive over-reaction. I have lived with a small boy for the last nine years. Not once have I found cause to strike him.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Not necessarily about the behavior of their children. Kids can do outrageous things. But rather lying about whether or not they have the appropriate demeanor (patience and control) and intellectual fortitude to be raising kids in the first place.
Now one might argue that times have changed. And parenting has changed. But that does not negate actual abuse. It certainly does not negate this attitude of impunity.
I have researched abuse and estrangement quite a bit. What has always bothered me about the question of child abuse was this: Did my parents' conduct rise to the level of abuse? This has been a question for me, basically, all of my adult life. Broken as I may have been, I still asked the question.
Well in 2019, I found the best answer so far, when I read:
People who were not abused do not ask themselves if they were abused. The question never occurs to them. The only people who ask themselves this question are those who were in fact abused.It is not a perfect answer. Of course not. But it sure helps.
So what they gave me in 2019 was a sense of clarity. It was a gift really.
Their heavy-handed and unnecessary physical abuse (they sure beat the love out of me), their emotional abuse (prominently featuring his unique venom), and their complete and utter lack of regard for the development of my self-esteem. My sense then and now that raising young children was just a tremendous burden and embarrassment for them.
They were too cheap to buy milk for their little boys. Let that sink in. I mean, why have children at all?
So yes, they abused their children. They were and remain child abusers of the first order.
Now as they pointed out when I last saw them: "But we’ve done so much for you.” They threw this at me in anger because I was calling them out on their inexcusable behavior in 2019. (This was not a conversation I initiated or even wanted to have. I did not see the point. But they showed up at my home uninvited, unannounced, and most importantly, unapologetic.) And of course, this is true; they have done much for me. In fact, they have treated me better than anyone. It would be foolish to deny that. But they have also treated me worse than anyone. This, too, cannot be denied.
How does one weigh that?
I do not know.
It seems to me that once you break a child, no amount of time and effort can fully reconstruct what has been lost. No, not lost, taken. They deny any responsibility or accountability. He’s so smug and so arrogant. Their lack of respect for me is palpable. It's contempt really. So be it. I just want to protect what little self-respect I have left. For my own mental health, I must, belated though it may be, separate myself from them.
And before you ask, of course forgiveness is always an option. But it seems to me that forgiveness has only one prerequisite: Remorse. And of that, they have absolutely none.
It would be an unmerited improvement to say that: “He has turned into a mean old man.” No he has not; he’s been mean as long as I’ve known him. And the time has come, for me at least, to admit that he is not a good person. And while his sheer meanness was most often visited upon his own children, let's set my issues aside for a moment.
I cringe when I think how he treated his staff in the seventies and eighties. Even though they were working for peanuts. I remember when Jane Butler left to go work for Leslie Johnson; Mom and Dad were just baffled. Evidently it was just too damned difficult for them to figure out that if you want someone to be good to you, you might first want to be good to them. And similarly, how he treated countless waiters. (Are you familiar with the Waiter Rule?) I will never forget the way he treated my future wife on their first meeting. I think that night, he treated her worse than the waiter. I cringe when I think of how he treated James Melvin, a man who was always so kind to me and everyone else. Growing up, I was led to believe that the way the Melvin’s raised their children was deficient. But looking back on it and the results, I now know where the true deficiency was to be found.
The man did not have any friends because he did not deserve any friends. If you think about people he would today describe as friends, they are all people who never really spent any time with him. Business associates, all from out-of-town.
I remember once, when Nathan 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 Nathan 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 Mom and Dad, even today, they would tell you that their children (Nathan and I) 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 the Moore’s treated their children. And no, they did not want to associate with such people.
I suppose you could point to the Danilla’s as the one exception. But was that a real friendship or just all that was available? I think it would be a stretch to describe Ron as a true friend to anyone. Maybe that’s why they got on.
I could continue, but you get the point. As for mom, well she is what she always has been: His chief enabler and sometimes participant.
As best as I could, I have left you two out of this statement. But I have to ask: What are the odds that all three of their children would suffer mental health issues? 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. I certainly do not want to diminish this writing with idle speculation on subjects I know little about. But this is a question for me.
In any case, fifty years of bad conduct and bad faith is quite enough for me.
No more.
It seems to me that once you break a child, no amount of time and effort can fully reconstruct what has been lost. No, not lost, taken. They deny any responsibility or accountability. He’s so smug and so arrogant. Their lack of respect for me is palpable. It's contempt really. So be it. I just want to protect what little self-respect I have left. For my own mental health, I must, belated though it may be, separate myself from them.
And before you ask, of course forgiveness is always an option. But it seems to me that forgiveness has only one prerequisite: Remorse. And of that, they have absolutely none.
It would be an unmerited improvement to say that: “He has turned into a mean old man.” No he has not; he’s been mean as long as I’ve known him. And the time has come, for me at least, to admit that he is not a good person. And while his sheer meanness was most often visited upon his own children, let's set my issues aside for a moment.
I cringe when I think how he treated his staff in the seventies and eighties. Even though they were working for peanuts. I remember when Jane Butler left to go work for Leslie Johnson; Mom and Dad were just baffled. Evidently it was just too damned difficult for them to figure out that if you want someone to be good to you, you might first want to be good to them. And similarly, how he treated countless waiters. (Are you familiar with the Waiter Rule?) I will never forget the way he treated my future wife on their first meeting. I think that night, he treated her worse than the waiter. I cringe when I think of how he treated James Melvin, a man who was always so kind to me and everyone else. Growing up, I was led to believe that the way the Melvin’s raised their children was deficient. But looking back on it and the results, I now know where the true deficiency was to be found.
The man did not have any friends because he did not deserve any friends. If you think about people he would today describe as friends, they are all people who never really spent any time with him. Business associates, all from out-of-town.
I remember once, when Nathan 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 Nathan 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 Mom and Dad, even today, they would tell you that their children (Nathan and I) 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 the Moore’s treated their children. And no, they did not want to associate with such people.
I suppose you could point to the Danilla’s as the one exception. But was that a real friendship or just all that was available? I think it would be a stretch to describe Ron as a true friend to anyone. Maybe that’s why they got on.
I could continue, but you get the point. As for mom, well she is what she always has been: His chief enabler and sometimes participant.
As best as I could, I have left you two out of this statement. But I have to ask: What are the odds that all three of their children would suffer mental health issues? 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. I certainly do not want to diminish this writing with idle speculation on subjects I know little about. But this is a question for me.
In any case, fifty years of bad conduct and bad faith is quite enough for me.
No more.
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