A few years before my father died, I asked him about my sisters and his response has always
lingered with me. He had the mindset that these were his children and he will do with them
whatever he pleased. I’m glad to say that the law disagrees. Every person is valuable and
individual, and each person is responsible for their own actions. However, that responsibility
has to be learnt, like everything else. As babies we cannot take that responsibility, although
we still have a free will, we are too immature to use it. Every one of us will have to
eventually take ownership for themselves and their actions, but there is a process that must
take place. Responsibility has to be taught and practiced, just like every other task. When
children master a deed, say toilet training, they then become responsible for controlling
themselves in that area. Sure, there are a few mishaps along the way, but eventually we get to
the point where we are completely in control. It’s like that with everything; responsibility is
learnt one step at a time. I like how my number three sister was very animal orientated. Her
children learnt their responsibility by not only caring for their domestic animals, but also a
few chickens, budgies and finches. It was a great place to visit.
From the time we are born, we are dependent on others, and we rely heavily on our family. It
is from this dependent youth that we learn to submit to their control. Our old age is much the
same; nevertheless there is a period of independence where we take life by the reigns and
gallop into the big wild world, where we sometimes get to make our own decisions. The
transition from living under someone’s control, responsibility, teaching and influence, to a
self-responsible, self-providing lifestyle, is one met with mixed emotions; daunting at first,
yet gratifying. Some make the transition easily, while others can’t wait to get away from
being controlled, yet still others don’t want to leave home at all. The family home means
security and comfort for some, and nightmares for others.
The parent’s role is to take responsibility for the child and teach it to be the best adult that
their potential will allow. We have twenty years to achieve this and I promise you that it will
go much better if you get help along the way. The downside is that not all parents make good
teachers, many choosing to give up the responsibility for their children and replace it with
control. But the reality is, if you brought a child into this world, you are responsible for them
for life.
So what changed for me, how did I realise that I had been irresponsible? Well firstly, my life
was veering away from my expectation. What I believed to be normal was to go to school to
get an education. Leave school and get a job, a car and a girlfriend. Next is to settle down,
buy a house and start a family, and live happily ever after. Sounds great, yes! Well sometimes
a spanner is thrown into the works to bring us into reality.
I married my first love when I was twenty-one, but when it came to parenting we had two
different ideas and lifestyles. The only problem was that we didn’t know how to fix our
issues, although we tried. When I was married, I would usually agree with my wife’s
decisions since she always had our best interest at heart, but this time we strongly disagreed.
Our wealth was more important than being a parent to her, whereas my priorities were with
the child first. Our best compromises only saw us drift apart as we worked opposite shifts.
This way we both could care for our son and both work. The consequence was that as
husband and wife, we were lucky to see each other one day a week. After a year, we hardly
knew each other. We both had a different circle of friends and our marriage was reduced to
communication by post-it notes. Neither of us really knew how to solve the conflict properly
since we both believed we were powerless to change the others view. The saddest part was
that we had no idea that we could get outside help. When I told my dad my marriage was
over, he said to me that he never liked her anyway. I look back now and think to myself,
‘what a piece of shit my dad is’, there wasn’t even a hint of advice. No-one in my family has
heard of marriage counselling, let alone any other sort of counselling. To my generation, it
was a sign of weakness, an indicator that displayed your inabilities. My generation was all
about hiding your shortfalls, not exposing them. If I knew then what I knew now, what a
cliché that saying is; realistically though, if I did know how to get help, I would most likely
still be married to the same woman thirty years on.
My son wasn’t born until I was twenty four, and in my eyes, we were not going to have
another child until we sorted out our parenting differences, I made sure of that. Consequently,
he is an only child, which was one thing he was never meant to be. We were married for
seven years before we finally called it quits. My son suffered the most, but we didn’t realise it
at the time.
My next dilemma, prior to turning thirty, was because I believed I was not allowed to
challenge authority, and also, with the interaction that I did have with my father, I learnt to
fear him. I can remember at least two occasions from my youth where I learnt fear. One was
where I received the back of his hand that sent me down a four foot drop. The other was
when I was seven. I was injured, and dad demanded that I stop crying so that I could tell him
what was wrong. I don’t remember which was worse, fighting back the tears or the original
injury. To be honest, I can’t remember the injury but I do remember the fear I was feeling.
The fear rose up during my feeble attempt to hold back the tears, so I guess I do know which
was worse.
With that in mind, there were two main events that change me. When I was twenty-nine I had
a job where most of my lunch breaks I spent on my own. It was the first time in my life that I
had read a novel from cover to cover. It took me a couple of months reading a half hour a
day, but I felt a little proud of myself for it. I had never been encouraged to read.
It was during this time that I discovered a new kind of authority in my life. For the first time
I had someone who was genuinely concerned about doing the right thing. One day at work I
had some pay concern and became fearful, since I did not believe I was allowed to negotiate
or explain my concerns. After the fifth problem had occurred I knew I had to do something. I
started to make some notes regarding my grievances, but before I could finish, my boss had
caught me and wanted to know what I was doing. My job did not normally require me to
make notes. He took me by surprise and I thought I was in trouble. So when I began to tell
him about my pay concerns, I found it very difficult to breath. After about ten seconds I could
feel myself choking up. My boss sensed my fear and asked me for the note. He described
how two of my grievances were a misunderstanding on my part, but he also said two of these
are genuine problems that he will fix. The fifth he will look into, which he did and informed
me of the outcome that afternoon.
When I look back at that event, especially when I choked up as I was speaking to my boss, it
was reminiscent of the incident with my father when I was seven. When I held my breath in
fear of my authority, it was the exact same feeling as holding back the tears in my youth.
In contrast, my boss’s actions were foreign to me, especially since I never heard any ridicule
about a grown man nearly crying. My family would have played on that for years to follow,
but not this guy. With his healthy response, I learnt that there were different kinds of
authority in the world.
The second main event was when one of my brothers had an affair. Now that was something
I could not cope with or justify. As I was growing up, I had idolised this brother. When I got
married, I even had the wedding service in the same church that he was married in. He was
confident, decisive and in control, just what I wanted to be like when I grew up. But this, an
affair; that I didn’t want!
I didn’t want to be like him anymore; but if not like him, then who? I was confused.
We are all like sheep, whether consciously or subconsciously we all follow someone. We all
mould our lives on someone we can aspire too. Consequently, I became like a lost soul. My
marriage had ended two years before and I had been trying to find a new life. Now the one
stable part of my life that I could depend on was living a lie. I realised that my whole life had
been one long lie. What should I believe, who should I trust?
I remember when I was thirty I really began to look inwardly in an attempt to find who I was
and where I fitted in this world. For some reason I didn’t like what I found. I began to listen
to myself and realised I swore like a trooper. I had no idea why. I also asked my six-year-old
son if he was scared of me. His reply was truthful yet given in fear. I didn’t realise I was so
mean. Every waking day he would wonder if my yelling would turn physical, and what was a
six-year-old to do when he upset his dad for just being a kid?
Apparently, what I didn’t realise, was that I had become like my father. My father was a
yeller. He was a sergeant in the army who was accustomed to belling out orders to his
platoon. What I later realised was that it was the perfect rank for my father, someone who
gives all the orders but takes none of the responsibility; he only passes on the demands of the
officer’s.
For me to be like my father, knowing what he did to my brothers and sisters, was very scary
for me. I lived in fear of becoming more and more like him. Something had to change and it
had to be something within me. I didn’t understand why I was so nasty to my son, especially
since I was great around other people kids. Then the penny dropped, that word
‘responsibility’. I was responsible for my son and I literally harassed him to do the right thing
all the time. I had unrealistic expectations and wanted my son to take responsibility for more
than he could cope with. Expecting a child to know what an adult means is unrealistic.
One example was when he was five and dragging his feet. I told him to pick his feet up when
he walked, but he began to walk like every step was over a hurdle that was as high as his
knees. He did as he was told but not what I wanted, so I got mad.
When his mother and I split up, my son went with his mum. It was probably the best thing for
him at the time; at least it gave me a while to find myself. I still had visiting rights, but I took
the time to work on my attitude for a while. It wasn’t an overnight success, but eventually I
got better. Since I was so good with other peoples kids, I re-thought my responsibly to my
son. I pretended he was someone else’s kid. Strangely enough, I took more responsibility for
him and gave him more freedom to make mistakes. It just took me a few years to work it out.
I’m glad to say that I asked him the same question when he was fourteen, ‘if he was scared of
me,’ his reply was the best response possible, “what a dumb question dad, why would I be
afraid of you”.
How quickly children forget, but I never will.
I say all this to let you know I am not perfect and I am not worthy of accolades. I have stolen
money in my youth and lost just as much in business ventures. Even though I never had any
savings, I spent most of my life with enough money to get by. Later in life was I managed to
live just beyond survival.
When I was twenty-nine I had a bit of money, so I took up dancing lessons. I needed
something to focus on now that I was single. Married life had left me overweight, so I took
up squash again, something that I had enjoyed on and off since I was sixteen. I even
participated in aerobic classes, all in all to help me loose twenty kilo’s.
By the time I was thirty, I was fitter, healthier, still single, but had no future. So I looked to
the past. Tracing my family history was a lesson in finding facts, it taught me to play
detective. There were some great stories of people whose names seem to fit our family
profile, but if I could not verify them, I needed to reject them. This is where I learnt the
difference between good and bad detective work. There is nothing wrong with speculation,
instinct or an assumption, for it is these three things that tell us where to search. They give us
direction and help us ask the right questions. Regardless of that, if we cannot find the truth or
discredit our speculation, then we need to dismiss it. Speculation does not become the truth if
you can’t prove the assumption, it always remains speculation. For me, it is the truth I seek,
not assumptions; so proof for me is compulsory. I say all this for good reason and that reason
is that our personality is affected by the truth, or by what we think is the truth.
~ 4 ~
The start of a victim mentality.
When my sisters were old enough to comprehend the legalistic side to their dilemma, they did
what they could to try and understand why they had lost a part of their childhood. But when I
was an adult, I thought that persecuting their own father either didn’t occur to them, or just
seemed wrong, I never asked at the time. Now some light on the subject has certainly
revealed itself, and quite significantly.
I was born when my oldest sister was ten, two years after my father had begun his
unspeakable actions. And that word ‘unspeakable’ is one reason it remained undetected for so
long. I’ve noticed that every victim has a reason for not speaking up and it’s usually that they
are being manipulated by their abuser. Either they have been lied to in order to prevent them
speaking up, or there is a fear of reprisal from their abuser. Both can be a controlling factor in
a victim’s life, especially when they are too young to know the law or the truth.
Before I discuss why children keep silent about their attackers, I need to shed some light on a
term I call a ‘victim mentality’. Most victims do not loose this way of thinking just because
they become adults. Part of the brain, or at least the part that controls their thinking, stops
growing because of their trauma.
Most people are a victim of crime at some point in their lives, but some crimes are worse than
others. Some crimes affect us physically while others upset us mentally. All have different
coping mechanism. However, sexual abuse is the worse crime possible to be inflicted upon a
child, because it affects every aspect of their being, their body soul and spirit.
So who, why and how could someone commit such an horrendous crime and frequently
repeat it? My father was such a man and to find the answer to these three questions, we first
need to go back to the 1930’s where the culture of the day may have been different, the
people are still the same.
When my father was five, he was like every ordinary first born child. He had a younger
brother that he bossed around and a little sister who was just learning to ride a tricycle. His
parents owned a bakery in the heart of the city. Their days began very early and there was
always a lot to do. One day my dad’s mother had forgotten to remove the yeast from the oven
on time. When she removed the big pot from the oven it was too hot, so she placed it on the
back porch to cool. The other problem was that the children were out the back yard playing.
The youngest, Ruth, wanted to ride a bike, so she borrowed her five-year-old big brothers.
When he discovered his sister on his bike, he responded as any five year-old would, he
grabbed his bike with one hand and pushed his sister off with the other. Ruth lost her balance
as she was pushed and accidentally fell into the bat of boiling yeast. It would be nine days
before she finally died of third degree burns.
Even though my father blamed himself, his guilt was reinforced when his father yelled,
“What have you done?” as he extracted his daughter from the yeast.
Because no one explained the truth, that his actions were normal behaviour for a five-year-
old, my father continued to believe his own feelings. So for a five year-old, it is an
understandable response to feel guilt. I believe this to be a contributing factor towards my
father’s victim mentality.
Without the correct guidance, the trauma can keep a part of the brain at the age of the event.
The problem with a victim mentality is that it is the part of the brain that determines
reasoning.
My dad told me this event when he was sixty years old and as he was telling me this, he was
talking as if it was still his fault.
Since the event was never spoken of when he was a youth, he spent years believing his
speculation of the event. Someone should have told him it was not his fault, or at least his
actions were that of a normal child. The real problem was that the yeast should have never
been there in the first place. On the other hand, and this is the biggest problem for many, is
that at an age of understanding, he should have been able to determine the difference for
himself. In other words, when he became a teenager or early twenties, he would have been
old enough to know the difference between an accident and something deliberate. But it is as
if that part of the brain stops growing. Unless their assumptions are challenged, there is no
reason for him to change his beliefs, even if they are wrong. Hence the victim mentality in
this case is due to the wrong perspective. The blame was someone else’s, not his.
When my son was growing up, he blamed himself for us splitting up, since the problems
started when he was born. About once a year during his teenage life, he would mention the he
was to blame for our divorce, and every year I would sit him down and explain what really
went wrong. I never stopped trying to reassure him that he was loved by both parents and that
our splitting up was never his fault. I was happy to reaffirm his innocence year after year for
as long as it took. Once was not enough for him, but never speaking of a tragedy is damaging
and irresponsible.
Another dilemma occurred when my dad was nineteen; his father was killed when a drunk
driver hit a spoon drain. It was Christmas Eve and the man had too much to drink at his break
up party. After he drove over the spoon drain, he lost control of his vehicle and it veered into
the oncoming traffic, killing my grandfather on his motorbike. My dad never liked Christmas
after that. So I think it was safe to say that in a way, my dad was a little bitter about life. He
still followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the army as his father had done before him.
Forty-one-years of service between the two of them, that’s something to be proud of.
My dad was twenty-two when he married a sixteen-year old woman who had had a child out
of wedlock. Being a single mother was a big deal in those days for woman, especially since
there was no financial support from the government.
This is the part of my father that I am still curious about. Why did he pick this woman? I
know she is my mum and I know my dad has his own insecurities, but why pick her
personality type and her submissive behaviour? It is these traits in particular that played a
major role in our future, so why did my father seek those attributes? I sometime think he
needed a woman who was submissive so that he could seem self-confident around her. That’s
an assumption on my part, because I sometimes think that self-confidence means that no-one
is game enough to tell you how big a fool you really are. Just a personal insight of my own, I
transgress, let me tell you about my mother.
Mum was nearly sixteen when she became pregnant, and not by choice. She lived in a small
country town where work was hard to find. There was a man in his thirties that offered to
have the young girl work in his café at the nearby railway station. He would taxi her to and
from work, a necessary stipulation in order to appease her mother. It was not safe for a young
girl to walk the streets at night. A job meant the fifteen-year-old could gain some
independence and earn a wage. My grandmother’s instructions were clear, “he is your boss,
do whatever he tells you”.
Although my grandmother had her daughter’s best interest at heart, her boss soon found out
that her daughter had miss understood the context in which the instructions are to be applied.
Apparently, she believed she had to do exactly what she was told in every aspect of life, not
just employment. One night on the way home, he took advantage of the naïve young girl. To
be honest, I don’t know if it was once or more, she never said, but we do know she became
pregnant to him. Grandma thought she got pregnant to some boy she liked and never told her
who. Even though my mum was too scared to question her mother, she always blamed her for
saying that she had to do whatever her boss said.
Right up to the time of my grandmother’s funeral, my mother still held a grudge against her.
She believed that Gran must have known what happened, yet my mother was still too scared
to say something to her. Even at the open coffin, she still couldn’t say what she felt, although
she wanted too.
What my mother didn’t realise was her boss was a manipulator. Gran never knew the truth
about mum and mum didn’t know that her boss just took advantage of the situation. Seize the
moment, some would call it, however that doesn’t make it right.
My mum was sent to the city to have the baby. She stayed with her Auntie so she could still
be with family as well as near a decent hospital. My dad soon found himself living across the
street from a sixteen year-old single mum and does everything he possibly can to help. He
goes out of his way to buy her the necessities, knowing full well that she does not have the
money to pay him back. As for my mum, here is a twenty-one year-old man with a car, soon
to be twenty-two and with a helpful nature that she is now indebted to. After several
proposals of marriage, the young mum finally concedes, especially since the debt is getting
way out of hand and since she has no resources to repay the man.
My dad adopted the little girl when they married. There were another eight children that
followed.
I’m sure there is more to their stories, but I want to highlight their weaknesses. Or at least the
things I believe are relevant to their future abusive existence.
Abuse can take two forms, aggressive and passive. Most people would look at my mum, as I
did, and see a woman who was kind and considerate. Although she is not as helpless and frail
as some of her choices would lead you to believe, she does lack confidence. It is by her own
choice that she remains passive. There is an old saying, ‘the devil thrives where good people
do nothing’. If nothing else I can say that my mother was a good person overall, but her
passivity was the attribute that my father required to conceal his behaviour.
My father’s ability to manipulate my mother had begun from day one. My mother’s victim
mentality had already been well established long before she had met my dad. She was easy
prey for him. When my mother was sent away to the city, she believed she was being
punished for getting pregnant, even though, in her own eyes, she had done what was
instructed of her.
I’m probably repeating myself here, but I remember my mother is so caught up in blaming
her own mother, that she can’t see the truth about her boss. He’s a lying manipulating bastard
who took advantage of the situation. Just because he could, doesn’t mean he should. So why
doesn’t my mum blame him?
My mother is another case of a victim mentality, brought about by having the wrong
perspective, her scenario justifies living a lie by blaming someone else, not necessarily their
abuser, but someone they though should have protected them.
Both victims believe it is acceptable to remain a victim in their own mind, but because
neither searched for the truth, they believe their own assumpti