by Dandelion Doolittle

Created on: May 24, 2010   Last Updated: May 25, 2010

In the middle of the night, several times a week, my siblings and I would hear harrowing cries from my mother screaming, “Al, stop, you are hurting me!  Let go of my leg!”  My father would be pulling my mother down a flight of stairs.  They also had frequent verbal battles during the evening hours.  We lived on the edge.

My mother augmented her rage by abusing us physically.  Unfortunately I was the only child who resembled my father.  She choked me till I turned blue, slapped me till my nose bled, drug me across the floor by my ponytail while kicking me, beat me over the head with broom handles and called me all sorts of obscene names. She would also say, “You can run but you have to stop sometime, and then I will get you!”  When I was about twelve, we thought she was possibly mentally ill and tried to find a way to have her committed.  We were told she would have to land one of us in the hospital or kill one of us. 

Supposedly my mother came from a volatile home.  I believe her father physically abused her.  It was not a subject that was ever discussed.  Clearly, she was a frustrated woman.  She tolerated my father for twenty-five years.  Also, she was obese while growing up, receiving a lot of ridicule, and I am sure that affected her self-esteem.  She worked eight hours a day in a factory and that probably attributed to her mental state.  Her nerves were always quite frayed.

All of the child rearing and discipline was left to my mother.  I think my mother resented having a job and children.  She wasn’t close to her one brother and one sister, and didn’t really have any one to talk to.  We did see our maternal grandparents.  My grandfather was loud and argumentative.  My grandmother had a lot of emotional problems and had a nervous breakdown.  I don’t remember my mother having any friends.  All of this combined, I think is the cause of her behavior towards her children.  She was partially repeating what type of life she had grown up with, and beating us was a release for her stress.  I also think she was angry with my father for not being around and for his philandering, and in turn took it out on us.

My father never physically abused us in any way.  But he was emotionally abusive.  He was a man of few words and his silences instilled fear.  There was no talking at the supper

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