The child does nothing but cry because the mother’s words scar into their mind, like blood dripping off the face. The child did nothing wrong, but the child does not know that. That child might cry itself to sleep at night of frustration.
Child abuse is a lot more serious than you think. It happens all around us, but sometimes we do not notice it right away. Child abuse has been happening so often that some pedestrians accept it in society.
Amy, 36 years old, grew up in a household where her and her sister were neglected by their mother. The mother was an alcoholic and never tried to control it for her children’s sake. The mother verbally abused them and never had “maternal instincts” for them.
“When I was twelve years old, my mom married my step dad and decided to shun my older sister and I,” as Amy sighed. “When I was home with my older sister my mom came home completely trashed. There were times when she kicked us out of the house. My stepfather would call my friend’s house and tell us to come home Sunday, (since we had school the next day) and acted as if nothing had ever happened. She was never there for me when I needed her, but always for my younger sister.”
Amy also talked about how running away from home would not make anything better since she had no where else to go. She had considered it, but spent most of her weekends outside spending the nights with her girlfriends or her boyfriend’s.
“I never considered talking back to her. Believe me, I wanted to, but I bit my tongue and kept quiet. I was basically raised by my grandmother and she always told me to ‘respect adults’ and ‘be careful of what you say to adults’, so I was silent. I usually raised my voice, but then took it down a notch. It took me 36 years of age to draw down the line and actually say how I felt about her. It changed our relationship.”
But how did Amy overcome this? Did she ever think that this negativity would get to her or affect the rest of her life?
“Basically I came terms with an AAA Counselor. He had helped me through it a lot and made me realize that life is happier than what it is. I realized it was the alcohol in my mother that was speaking to me and not her. Whenever she yelled at me it was more a less a revenge of when she hurt me that the poison of the alcohol was causing her pain inside.
“I wanted to prove to her that I was better than her and would be more successful. I realized I never wanted to become like her or drink alcohol like she did. It taught me that those things in life are not important.”
Bill Dea, age 69 was physically abused by his father when he was a young boy. He never had the happy childhood that a kid should have had. During his adulthood he never used his childhood as an excuse for getting through life.
“I was about four or five years old,” as he said. “I don’t mean to talk about my father like this but he was a heavy drinker and a nasty man. We were all terrified of him. When he came home, we would hide and run like hell from him. We never talked back or said a word to him. We never dared.
“He would always come home drunk and beat my mother. She would always leave and then come back. Then he decided to put us in shelter homes in Philly.
“All my brothers and sisters were spread out and I was never close to them. They were not family to me, but like friends. We went to the Shelter of Philadelphia and Roberts House and the Methodist home for kids. They are not there now, but they were at the time. It’s very confusing. We were always coming back from one of the three.
“I remember I cried like hell when I was in the foster home. When you first got there, they put you in a room called Isolation. You were kept in there for two weeks to make sure you didn’t have any diseases or sicknesses. I was there all by myself until the doctors came in gave you shots and you were ready to go. Then they put you in the other rooms with the other kids.
“I remember the first night I came to the foster home between 15 St. and South St. in Philly that I heard the song ‘Silent Night’ and I cried my eyes out. I didn’t want to be in the homes. I wanted to be with my mother. I carried on for days.
“One time, before we were put in the homes, I was waiting for the church bus outside with my mom, dad, brothers and sisters and someone threw a rock at one of the windows. The glass shattered and one of the kids blamed it on me.
“My father grabbed out a bug leather belt and beat me until it snapped in half. My mother was screaming, ‘Stop! Stop! It wasn’t him. He didn’t do anything.’ and my father started to beat her. My back was as red as a lobster. When he did find out that it wasn’t me who broke the window, he didn’t regret beating me because that was just the way he was with us.”
With a past like that, how could you never get nightmares? How did you interact with other people? Was there anything that haunted you and still does?
“Now that I look over it,” as he said. “It’s kind of funny. I felt that someone was looking over me every time that I ran away from the shelter, foster homes and Roberts Home. Till this day I can never figure out if I ever got used to living the life I did or if it had hardened on me or stuck it out until I turned 17.
“I think it was because I had depended on myself and never had a close friend to go to. My mother would visit me every now and then, but she didn’t have money, a job or a house to put all my brothers and sisters and me together as a family. She relied on my father too much.
“I was a loner and never talked about anything or got anything off my chest. I got closer with my brothers and sisters when we were young adults. We all had the same pain and we knew that we weren’t here suffering alone. We knew we had to move on with our lives and we knew right from wrong. That wasn’t an excuse to use anymore.”
Even through all this pain, some thought there was a light shining through. It affected them in different ways and some are stronger than others. It helped these two people develop a fate and a bigger meaning in life.
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