metaphortunate son (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
metaphortunate) wrote2013-04-24 09:09 pm
metaphortunate) wrote2013-04-24 09:09 pm
Entry tags:
things my parents did right #2
They always let me go.
My house, growing up, it was not a house of happiness. That's probably overstating the case? I guess? I know so many people now who grew up in abuse, and we were not abused, seriously we were cherished and taken care of in every way, so I don't want to complain too much. But the truth is: it was not a happy house. No one was happy living in it. And I was always looking for a way out. Oh, we had friends over sometimes, but mostly I was angling for an invitation. I was trying to get a ride, I was trying for a sleepover, I was trying to leave the state.
And my parents let me go.
They let me spend all day swimming at D's house, all summer, every summer. They let me go on a weird overnight campout thing that turned out to be at a Christian camp. They let me go on a hundred million sleepovers. They let me go to France for a month. They let me go to Six Flags Houston with my best friend when I was just little. They let me go to Washington D.C. on a school trip, they let me go to Georgia for six weeks with my cousin to stay with her cousins on the other side of the family that I'd never even met. They let me go to upstate New York. They let me go to Chicago for college. They let me go over to my friends' houses after school, on the weekends, every weekend, in high school, spending the night, theoretically I wasn't allowed to go out to Rocky Horror or whatever we did at 2 am but they must have known that when I wasn't home they really didn't have any idea where the hell I was.
They must have been so goddamn brave.
What are you afraid of, I would ask, exasperated. Because they didn't want to let me do any of these things. Where they come from, girls don't wander around the world by themselves. It's totally normal to live with your parents until you get married. They never wanted to let me do any of these things. WHAT?! What are you afraid of?! NOTHING, I would patiently explain at the age of eight or eighteen, nothing is going to happen to me! I'll be fine! And they were too scared to even tell me explicitly what they were afraid would happen to me.
I know now, of course. Rape. Murder. Child abuse. Molestation. Carjacking. Mugging. Brushfire. Drowning. Flash flood. Peer pressure. Alcohol poisoning. Meningitis. Tetanus. Drunk driving, car crash, drugs, teenage pregnancy, religious indoctrination, kidnapping, AIDS. Kidney theft. Bullying. Arrest. Falling in with the wrong crowd.
None of that ever happened to me, barring the bare minimum of inevitable sexual groping and harassment that you (female) cannot avoid collecting as you go through life no matter what you do. And, I guess, depending on your point of view, a certain amount of falling in with the wrong crowd. Some of them were actually the very right crowd. Some of them weren't and I learned some valuable lessons that way. What actually did happen to me were awesome things. I have so many good memories of the places I went, too many good stories to tell in one post. I love all of the places I went, even if I was always going away, not really knowing or caring where I was going to.
And if anything bad had happened to me, I know my parents would have taken the blame. They would have been blamed and they would have blamed themselves. So let me give them the credit for everything that went right. That's only fair. They always let me go. I'm very grateful.
My house, growing up, it was not a house of happiness. That's probably overstating the case? I guess? I know so many people now who grew up in abuse, and we were not abused, seriously we were cherished and taken care of in every way, so I don't want to complain too much. But the truth is: it was not a happy house. No one was happy living in it. And I was always looking for a way out. Oh, we had friends over sometimes, but mostly I was angling for an invitation. I was trying to get a ride, I was trying for a sleepover, I was trying to leave the state.
And my parents let me go.
They let me spend all day swimming at D's house, all summer, every summer. They let me go on a weird overnight campout thing that turned out to be at a Christian camp. They let me go on a hundred million sleepovers. They let me go to France for a month. They let me go to Six Flags Houston with my best friend when I was just little. They let me go to Washington D.C. on a school trip, they let me go to Georgia for six weeks with my cousin to stay with her cousins on the other side of the family that I'd never even met. They let me go to upstate New York. They let me go to Chicago for college. They let me go over to my friends' houses after school, on the weekends, every weekend, in high school, spending the night, theoretically I wasn't allowed to go out to Rocky Horror or whatever we did at 2 am but they must have known that when I wasn't home they really didn't have any idea where the hell I was.
They must have been so goddamn brave.
What are you afraid of, I would ask, exasperated. Because they didn't want to let me do any of these things. Where they come from, girls don't wander around the world by themselves. It's totally normal to live with your parents until you get married. They never wanted to let me do any of these things. WHAT?! What are you afraid of?! NOTHING, I would patiently explain at the age of eight or eighteen, nothing is going to happen to me! I'll be fine! And they were too scared to even tell me explicitly what they were afraid would happen to me.
I know now, of course. Rape. Murder. Child abuse. Molestation. Carjacking. Mugging. Brushfire. Drowning. Flash flood. Peer pressure. Alcohol poisoning. Meningitis. Tetanus. Drunk driving, car crash, drugs, teenage pregnancy, religious indoctrination, kidnapping, AIDS. Kidney theft. Bullying. Arrest. Falling in with the wrong crowd.
None of that ever happened to me, barring the bare minimum of inevitable sexual groping and harassment that you (female) cannot avoid collecting as you go through life no matter what you do. And, I guess, depending on your point of view, a certain amount of falling in with the wrong crowd. Some of them were actually the very right crowd. Some of them weren't and I learned some valuable lessons that way. What actually did happen to me were awesome things. I have so many good memories of the places I went, too many good stories to tell in one post. I love all of the places I went, even if I was always going away, not really knowing or caring where I was going to.
And if anything bad had happened to me, I know my parents would have taken the blame. They would have been blamed and they would have blamed themselves. So let me give them the credit for everything that went right. That's only fair. They always let me go. I'm very grateful.