Sanguine and gentle, my sister's a natural with children. Now that she's had her first, she's matured even more than in all her previous years. That's no small feat. The life before included adulthood, school and living on her own, marriage and the deep pains of chemotherapy.
Kids have always liked both of us. But as more grains of sand pass through to the other side of the hour-glass, all the familiar dreams about having a family don't "set" right. The shadows at the corner of the dream portrait seem to reach farther into the center at me and a future family.
It's about abuse.
For years the thought of having a lot of kids, even though I'd adopt, was on my mind. Big families are all over my history. My maternal aunt and uncle had 10 children alone. And affinity with the meek and tiny has always been part of me. Most teen vegetarians start their "phase" around puberty; my path of eliminating foods with a face began around pre-K. More than complimented nicely by unabashed "brown" thumbs in the house with their "reverse Midas touch", (everything they touched turned to crap) I found out I enjoyed gardening. Now I'm a volunteer conservationist and at home I grow and breed over 25 species of native forbs, not to mention a novice vegetable garden. Aged 12 and 9, my best friend's kids are crazy about me. And me them. We've gone on day trips, camping expeditions, hikes. My nephew, 9 months, takes to me quite a bit, like the babies and toddlers of past co-workers.
But lately, little things are festering at the back of my mind. Having unexpectedly inherited the job of living with a sister's Jack Russel terrier (terrorist) while she's at school, one would expect distractions and messes. There's already another dog here, plus my adopted cat of 11 years whom I've always been patient with. But I'm getting snappy with the dogs, I'm afraid.
My father, himself a former-abused child, was a "rageaholic"--verbally abusive, sometimes physically abusive, generally frightening. As a bony young teen I took a brunt of it for a long time, because I was anything but formidable. His physical violence was of the explosive and fleeting type. But the verbal abuse--the scowling, profanities, yelling and screaming--these were frequent and never off the table. He never touched my (younger) sister, hardly even yelled at her compared to me, but frequently dogs bore his wrath. Screaming. Hitting. One Christmas break while I was babysitting a friend's cat, he kicked the thing in the tailbone for having the audacity to meow. Of course, he never actually hurt the animal, he'd say. Backpedaling and describing in less stark terms than the action was typical. But most of his damage was done simply by inducing fear, not pain. I wrote about my problems with anxiety here, and AllisoninSeattle mentioned the word "hypervigilant". The description of hypervigilance seems familiar enough.
Now, I'm not yelling at the animals at the drop of a pin, and I try to be more focused on results than my feelings. But making the effort to be less erratic with your anger isn't the same thing as being predictable an stable. And it's not just pets. I'm getting more argumentative with significant others. Though I didn't date much after (or during) high school, if anything when I did date I was more clingy and nagging than picking a fight. I don't want to cause dischord. I do want to appreciate people. Obviously, I could make use of some counseling and trying to be more proactive about my anger. I'll take that up again when school starts in fall. More healing.
But I'm warned. In the 1999 movie Magnolia, William H. Macy plays a grown child-genius. Now hard-scrabble after his parents stole his quiz-show prize money, he just can't get his life together. Getting fired, embarrassing himself in a bar, making a botched attempt at robbery. The movie only covers 24 hours of action, yet you see Macy's character has deep, lasting wounds. At one point in the film, he references a biblical curse (drunkenly) from the Book of Kings:
"And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God"
The trouble is, abuse works like a cancer on a person. You can fix the expressions of the destructive state eternally, but it can still linger and spread inside, finding new outlets. It's for this reason that people I know who've done a lot more counseling and have put their whole hearts into it still can't bring themselves out of hell. My case is a lot more promising. Internally, 2 years has done a lot, let alone 4, let alone 7. I used to be seriously, deeply depressed. Then there was the body-shame and the bulimia, about as gone now as they can be. Being healed is a goal that no one's seemed to reach. Yes, improvement is possible, heal-ing is possible. The psychic "grief at the center of [my] dream", to quote Margaret Atwood, can only be defeated at my own doing, as I've been practicing for a while.
But not everyone is meant to have children. That's ok. Cat Stevens sang, "There's a million things to be". Some make great babysitters but shouldn't marry or have kids. And as in my sister's case, you don't get to have children after you've told the universe you're ready. She learns as she goes. Maybe the warning signs are nothing more than someone having a shitty period in their life when he shouldn't be saddled with the wrong type of pet. Potentially, there's years and years ahead of me for things to develop and change. I hope it does. I'd never risk subjecting a child to a damaging environment.
The thought's come to mind seeing as to the holiday.
Have you ever worried about doing to your children as your parents did wrongly to you? What did you learn?