no_hypocrisy
no_hypocrisy's JournalThese were the comic books my father made me throw out in 1969
because he believed Readers' Digest or whatever about how comic books led to juvenile delinquency:
Superman
Batman
Archie comics
Binky
Dennis the Menace
No violence. Throwbacks to the Fifties. Superheroes. White bread.
My father never looked at what I was reading but just saw comic books and knew my mind was being polluted.
And no, I have not forgiven him for making me throw them away. I paid for them. They belonged to me.
Postscript: Dad struck again in 1972. He made me throw out the sheet music for Don MacLean's "American Pie." But this time, I waited for him to go to bed and retrieved it from the garbage. I still have it.
I'm glad for Tiffany Trump.
Hear me out please.
She has finally escaped the familial bonds of her biological father, Donald J. Trump. Until her wedding, Tiffany has been dependent and under the control of her father for financial survival. All she had to do was to follow his rules, his whims, his demands -- like her siblings. From the moment she was conceived. She knew better than to challenge and to cross her father. He would have cut her off without blinking.
I don't know if she married for love or money or both. But she married someone her father can't threaten because of his wealth. She is safe.
Why do I care? Because I was raised in a similar situation. When my sister married, I knew she was safe. Me, I stayed single and did continuous battle with our father who had plans for me. I defied each demand and suffered as a result. I was freed when he died. Sure, I was disinherited, but I was still free.
So, Tiffany, make the most of your life. You've earned it.
Some workers don't "get it".
I've been musing about my late father.
His ultimate and last career was a medical doctor. Nothing wrong with that. (My best guess is that he decided to find a vocation where he could always be the boss and would avoid the risk of termination by another. Small business owner as well as physician.)
And he was fair to his employees at his medical office (office manager, x-ray tech, lab tech, nurses, patient assistants).
But he exuded an attitude of privilege that reflected his general disdain for employees. Specifically I mean that he had no sympathy for unions, for strikes, for collective bargaining, organizing. To him, it was akin to socialism, even communism (if he even understood the difference).
My father was a worker twice, perhaps three times, in his life before medical school. He was a chemist at a cement factory. He was an usher in a movie theater (where he say "Gone With The Wind" about 40 times). If you count the Army, that's three times. (As to the latter, he decided that being a grunt Private was not for him and hastened promotions to get out of that status.)
Having the experience of holding a job vicariously to the whim of one's employer, not making enough money to survive, making one's life dependent on one's employment, I can't understand how a person can turn his/her back on his/her experience and resent when one's former peers request then demand better working conditions, more security, more money for a decent lifestyle.
I can understand how Bush Jr., TFG, Trump Jr., Ivanka, Eric, etc. have their extraordinary sense of privilege. They were born into it and know no other way of life.
But my father, I just don't get it.
A good day in court yesterday
I represented a client pro bono (free). His wife kidnapped his three children and concealed them from him for almost nine months.
She sued for emergent temporary custody, claiming falsely domestic violence and alcohol abuse on his part. And got a protective order against him.
Yesterday we went to court. Armed with a police report from June. His wife was arrested for being heavily intoxicated in a public park while their children played. Endangerment of the welfare of a child.
Let's say, the wife was more agreeable to dropping the application for emergent temporary full custody, barring my client from his kids for at least two years. And dropping the protective order.
And my client got immediate access to his three minor children after court.
There's a realistic joint custody order in place.
While we can't give him back the almost nine months without his children, my client got justice yesterday.
Why I Am A Loner
I learned from a very early age (2+ years) that I couldn't depend upon my parents. My father had a busy medical practice. My mother was overwhelmed with being a doctor's wife, a mother with another infant, and the housekeeper of a 14 room house.
I couldn't depend upon my teachers. In nursery school, my "teachers" allowed my fellow toddlers to hurl wooden blocks at me and at each other. In Kindergarten, my teacher kept floating theories why I should be left back for another year. My first grade teacher had a temper and shook me until my teeth rattled.
I couldn't depend upon my classmates. They were relatively silly, opting to change themselves to be popular and this was way before high school. And in high school, I was independent and didn't fit into the 3-4 cliques.
Immediately after graduating college, I backpacked through the UK and Europe, by myself of course. 13 weeks. I met people and had more flexibility where I wanted to go when I was solo.
When I had graduated college and graduate schools, I found employment but I also found I was smarter than my employers -- and they didn't like that.
I like being independent, autonomous. I am alone and like it that way. I am in no way lonely. Sometimes, I merely tolerate the company of others.
It's Father's Day. My father is dead and I don't miss him at all.
He was cruel to me almost as a quest. He tried to break me through punishment, criticism, manipulation of my relationship with my siblings, minimalizing my graduations (3), and trying to hold us out as a happy, perfect family.
I'm not happy that he's dead. I'm just relieved to be free of all that emotional tumult and future threats.
My mother tricked my father into sending me to an independent all women's college.
Sweet Briar.
Actually, both parents wouldn't let me apply to any other genre. I applied to Randolph Macon Women's College, Beaver College, Gaucher College. And I got into all of them.
1975. I was a senior at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. B-plus average. Impressive SAT scores.
My father had issues with control as far as allowing me to make my own decisions. It was oppressive and onerous. I hated it.
I got into Beaver first and I had the delusion that I could at least choose where I'd attend college out the small selection I was given.
Nope. Dad wanted to wait to see if Sweet Briar and/or Randolph Macon accepted me. They did. OK. I still chose Beaver simply because it was in metropolitan Philadelphia instead in the middle of Virginia, where the other colleges were located. Dad nixed Beaver, told me it was my "back-up" school.
I chose Sweet Briar as it was a pretty campus, it was 15 miles closer to home (honestly), and someone I really didn't like from high school was going to attend Randolph Macon.
The very first course I attended at Sweet Briar was Logic. It totally opened my mind with its mathematical analysis of arguments, proof, process of validity of facts. Each subsequent course I took, my intelligence increased, my critical thinking improved, my collection of principles and facts grew. I became independent through knowledge. This was the purpose of liberal arts.
You're asking, "How did your mother 'trick' your father?"
My mother attended Barnard and had a similar experience. She understood the family situation where my father was desperately trying to direct my life. Mom wanted me to escape her fate of a marriage with little or no independence. She was as oppressed as I was in our family. And she couldn't help me by advocating for me -- except to make the case that I should go to an "exclusive, all-girl college" -- to find a suitable husband. That's right. Not that she believed her premise, but Dad would believe that.
My father was a shameless social climber and was concerned about me both marrying the "wrong sort" and not enhancing his social climbing. By following Mom's premise that I could marry well at an exclusive all-girl's college, I'd be rubbing shoulders with girls from exclusive private schools, debutantes, etc. and meeting visiting male students from the equivalent background. And maybe, just maybe, the college could turn me into a "Lady".
I know, I know. It was 1975. Feminism had not yet hit its stride, especially in our household and Sweet Briar.
Mom knew my only escape was independence, being able to think for myself, support myself, etc. until I could find a like-minded partner. Obviously THAT premise wasn't the one to use on Dad. So she fell back on the 1950's marriage argument. And it worked.
I graduated. I went to get a Master's and a Juris Doctor. I never married and never missed getting married.
Honestly, I initially resented being sent to a school where I believed I would have to wear starched-white shirts and white gloves to pour tea on Sundays. Instead, I met some very interesting young women with intellect and spirit. Yes, there were the debutantes, who were marking time at Sweet Briar, waiting to get married. I even learned to make friends with them.
But my character and opportunities developed as a result of my mother doing me the biggest favor in my life.
P.S. Dad never caught on that he put me on a trajectory to autonomy and independence.
Follow-up on my investigation re choking a six year old boy.
Thank you one and all for your support.
To refresh your memories: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1124&pid=13818
Here's what I found out about my investigation.
There was no report of any marks, bruises, scratches, etc. on his neck. While I'm not an expert, when the neck is compressed, it's loaded with blood vessels and there would be some bruising. And/Or scratches.
And there were no medical reports submitted. If your child claimed to have been choked, wouldn't you take him/her to an ER or clinic immediately? If not for concern for his/her wellbeing, then for documentation?
So, in other words, I was suspended and investigated on just hearsay and no evidence submitted. Words.
A six year old boy accused me of grabbing him by the neck and choking him
when I was a substitute teacher for his class last month.
My agency suspended me and I was investigated for "misconduct", until yesterday when I was interviewed.
On the day of my assignment, I was told before the class came in that there two boys were "problems" (by the principal, by the "money teacher", and by the nurse). And I vowed to stay on the other side of the room all day in that case. And I did.
They were disruptive, destructive, insolent, and more. All I could do was manage the rest of the class.
More problems: the class went to recess before lunch and these boys refused to climb off the jungle gym and come in. I had to send security out to get them into the building. At dismissal, they "locked" themselves into the coat closet in the back. I got the door opened 2 inches and they slammed the door shut on my hand, crushing my fingers.
So long story short, I was assaulted and I was the one accused of "misconduct".
The investigation found not one student to corroborate the accusation; the principal and teachers gave me stellar reports, and . . . . I had the prescience to leave behind a detailed report that specifically documented all the problems these boys caused that day.
Apparently the boy told his mother who reported the allegation to the principal who had no choice but to report this to the state.
While I have been exonerated, I faced losing more than a few more years of substitute teaching. I risked losing my teaching license and possible criminal prosecution/conviction. The charges could have included attempted murder.
I can't get over a six year old (and if not him, then his mother) could make such an accusation.
In any case, I don't have the stomach to return to teaching if I'm going to wonder which kid is going to report abuse when I was merely doing my job.
Processing my familial PTSD
You know, it's been bad enough to heal myself from the malignant narcissism regularly doled out by my father. Not to mention his explosive hysterical temper. I literally wake up each morning and remind myself that he's not alive and I'm safe.
I'm also processing how he terrified my brother and my sister. My sister was so scared of our father, that she was a positive Quisling against me at any opportunity. I suppose it was to distract and redirect our father's ire away from her. Talk about sleeping with the enemy. I never laid a hand on her, not even in reflex. Not to mention that she'd run to our father and I wasn't looking for more trouble. To make things more strange, my sister had a pathological need for our father to love her; but he was incapable of loving anyone. She was mad/depressed that she wasn't getting her pay-off.
After our father passed, my sister seemed to wake up and started to understand our trauma.
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