You may be wondering what my family was like growing up. Well, they were dysfunctional, to put it bluntly. I'm certain that it gets discussed a lot that children in these situations believe that every other child they know goes through the same thing. When they grow up and talk to other peers about their childhoods, they find it isn't the case and that everyone had a different experience. Some were better and some were worse.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that beatings were par for the course when I was growing up. Dad doled out most of the punishment, sometimes with his belt. Please keep in mind that back then, these was considered normal disciplinary measures. If this had taken place today, it would be considered abuse. I do understand that my father had it a lot worse from his parents.
Even though I may have been under the impression that this happened within other families, I often felt like the beatings were rarely justified. After a while, I was able to deal with the pain and not cry when it happened. I mainly accomplished this by holding my breath for the entire duration of the beating. It didn't seem to sting as much.
How unjustified were some of those beatings? Well, here's an example: When I was about eight years old, Dad had purchased a new curtain rod system for the kitchen. The drawstring was bundled together by a piece of tape. Somehow, that piece of tape came off and Dad was very angry that someone had removed it. Dad asked us which one of us did it. I know I didn't do it and told him so. Loyd also said he didn't do it. Well, he knew that one of us did it. He told us we were going to stay in our room until one of us told him who did it. He also said that he would come in the room every five minutes and beat us until one of us admitted doing it.
Five minutes later he came in and gave us both a beating. At this point, I theorized that a mouse had removed the tape. In my mind, this was possible, because we had a pretty bad mouse problem in the house. We caught mice in traps at least once a week. Dad wasn't buying it. He came back in five minutes later and beat us again. At this point, I could not see anything else happening in my life. We weren't going to eat dinner. We weren't going to sleep that night. We weren't going to school the next day. I wasn't going to celebrate my birthday. I wasn't going to enjoy Christmas. I wasn't going to grow up. All that was ahead of me for the rest of my life was Dad coming in and beating me every five minutes. I decided that this madness had to stop and I confessed to removing the tape, even though I hadn't. Dad beat me one last time that day. After he left the room, Loyd said, "Fayd? A mouse? Reeeally!"
Now, keep in mind the point of this is that we went all through this just because a piece of tape was removed from a curtain cord. Why would Dad get so angry over something so petty? The tape could have easily been replaced. The punishment clearly did not fit the crime. However, as mentioned above, Dad continued to have problems with Mom and looking back, I guess he was just taking all his frustration out on us. I should note that I never saw Dad hit Mom.
We never did find out who removed the tape from the curtain cord. A few years ago, I recounted this incident to Loyd. Loyd didn't remember it. At first he said it may have been him, but when I told him about Dad coming in every five minutes to beat us, he didn't think that he would have been able to endure the multiple beatings just to keep from admitting it.
Dad has never apologized for the frequent beatings we received. In his mind, he was far more lenient than his parents had been to him. He has never mentioned the beatings since. I keep hoping that one of these days, he'll say something to the effect that we were never abused, and I can tell him about this incident and see whether or not he considers it abuse.
Dad recently admitted that he knew that he had made a mistake marrying Mom about two years into the marriage. I was born a little more than one year and eight months after they were married, so I wonder if he really meant he came this this realization after Loyd was born. About 23 years later, after Dad left Mom, she was diagnosed with having suffered from depression virtually since that time.
Dad says that he kept asking Mom to get help, that this type of behavior was not normal. He says Mom would reply that there was nothing wrong with her. However, Mom says she doesn't recall Dad ever saying this. However, in my personal experience with women, one that I dated would admit that when she got angry at me, she could not hear a word I was saying while I was trying to reason with her. It would not surprise me to find that Mom was the same way.
And of course, I have always wondered if Mom's experience with her own mother indicated that it was something she grew up with. I can only imagine that after her father passed away, her mother became a rather bitter and depressed individual who could only put on a happy face when around other relatives and friends. (That is something that Mom herself frequently did. I really didn't like that the Mom at social gatherings and the Mom at home appeared to be two different people). I don't think Mom ever saw joy in her mother's face between the ages of 12 and 21, but that all changed after I was born and she had a grandchild to love. Mom probably figured it was normal to be bitter at home and was biding her time until her first grandchild appeared.
This would probably explain why it appeared that Mom had us spend more time with Grandma Bend over Grandma and Granddad Ogolon. Her mother was suddenly more pleasant to be around now there was a grandchild in the picture. We drove to see Grandma Bend at least once a month, but only when to Grandma and Granddad Ogolon's once every three months, even though it was about equal distance to both. I'm certain my Dad had something to say about us not spending equal time with his parents, but Mom probably countered that with the fact that his parents had six other grandchildren and Loyd and I were the only ones Grandma Bend had. (And I think the lack of indoor toilet facilities at Grandma and Granddad's also played into this, but when they made this home improvement, the frequency of visits didn't change.)
At this time, I should point out that this blog is not going to be all about the beatings I received from Dad or the emotional struggles I had with Mom, but they may come into play every once in a while. I do want to mention that after I completed 5th grade, Dad said he was going to stop beating me. However, he still continued to beat Loyd until he got out of the 5th grade. Dad kept his word to me and I was never beaten again by him.
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