Gingerpithicus Frisii

When he was alive, my grandpa used to make all of us grandkids our own dollhouses for our kids. I never used mine- it sat in the attic of my first house for a decade before I accepted that I just wasn’t going to have kids. Sorry, grandpa.

Why didn’t I have kids? That question goes through my head from time to time. I sometimes regret not having done it, like when my biological clock reminds me of the deep-seated need to pass on my genes. And then there’s something to be said for the legacy having kids brings- your branch of the family tree goes on, after all.

Settle in, because I have a series of vignettes for you. 

When I was around nine or ten years old, I had gotten into a fight with my younger brother, and I must have hit him- I don’t really remember. What I do remember, however, was the aftermath. My dad slapped me around like a rag doll. That is now one of my core memories, and it will live in my brain for the rest of my life. 

That moment was important. Life-alteringly important. 

I remember being hit repeatedly, thrown around like one of those bottom-heavy, inflated punching bags we had as kids. I remember feeling weak because I couldn’t fight back- I think it was one of the reasons I started lifting weights in junior high. I felt rage at the injustice of it. I should have been protected by him, not victimized.

But that’s secondary to what happened just afterward. I remember going out to the garage to get away from him, to cool down, to breathe, to try to be safe. And then I said something to myself that would live with me for the rest of my life. 

“I will never be like him.” 

And I thought I’d followed through with that thought. I had been taught that afternoon that anger was dangerous; that losing your temper and hurting a child was one of the worst, most evil things you could do. 

My dad wasn’t the only one who believed in corporal punishment- my mom was just as guilty. When the brothers get together, they often joke about how Mom used wooden spoons to discipline us- using humor to attempt to disarm the abuse. One time, she and I got into a tiff while doing the dishes, and she lashed out to slap me across the face, but I was able to grasp her wrist and prevent her from hitting me. I was finally strong enough to stop the abuse. 

Yes, what they considered to be a simple punishment was, in fact, abuse. My dad once said to my younger brother that it wasn’t technically abuse if there were no bruises left behind. Well, there were. The thing is, their “punishments” weren’t done without anger. It was rare when punishments were meted out with neutrality and calm. 

As an adult, that pledge became a large part of my personality, but I didn’t realize until very recently how the experience of being slapped around that day contributed to my childlessness and my current beliefs about masculinity and pacifism. I’m acutely aware that my physical strength is dangerous to others. I keep my anger on a leash now, and very, very rarely do I dip into it- it’s too much of a risk. More on that later. 

I didn’t want to pass on that anger, that rage, to my own child, especially the emotional pain. I didn’t even want to pass on any sort of parenting style that might arise instinctively. Because those instincts told me that I might, in a moment of anger and weakness, hurt my own child in the same way my parents hurt me. In this way, I was showing love to my nonexistent children. I was trying to protect them even though they didn’t exist.

I also did not want to find myself in a situation where I might discover that I was more like my father than I thought, and I’m given to understand that raising kids tends to do that. I wouldn’t be able to bear that- to know that, despite my best intentions, I had passed on that dysfunction after all. 

I don’t want the burden of having to think or know that I’ve screwed someone up. But it’s inevitable, isn’t it? That no matter how hard a parent tries, they’re going to leave wounds on their children. 

I have a very deep fear that I could seriously hurt someone. Growing up, I was always bigger and stronger than my older brother, and sometimes we would get into fights, as siblings do. After the incident with my father, I think I started to believe that anger was dangerous and something to be avoided at all costs. I grew up as a very anger-averse person. 

When my brother and I would get angry at each other, I would get overloaded on adrenaline- my instincts told me to beat him into the ground. Instead, I would shake uncontrollably with rage, just barely holding the violence in, the thoughts of “don’t become him, don’t be like him, don’t do it, don’t give in” echoing in my mind. 

What my father did to me brought me to a place where, when self-help books say we look for partners that remind us of our parents, instead, I look for the very opposite. I look for kindness in my friends and partners above all other traits. 

I wasn’t always completely capable of holding my anger at bay, however. This is a very difficult portion for me to write, as it exposes a couple of times that I let my anger hurt those around me. Something for which I feel immense shame. 

I was with a woman- eventually my wife- in the 2010’s, I’ll call her Juniper, and her daughters Erica and Emma (all pseudonyms, of course). I was a stay-at-home step-dad at that time, due to some mental health issues and a horrible neck injury. I made myself responsible for the upkeep of the house- cleaning, laundry, fixing stuff, cooking, etc. I wasn’t the greatest at it, I’ll admit. The biggest problem was that, because I felt responsible for the house’s cleanliness, when the girls made messes and didn’t clean up after themselves regularly, I would get frustrated with them and ask my wife for help. I would ask her to assign some consequences and try to back me up in the situation. I wanted her to be on my team. When what I wanted didn’t happen in the way I wanted on a regular basis, I began to get very angry. Angry at the situation, angry at myself for not standing up for myself in a healthy way, angry at the kids, and angry at my wife. It all came to a head one day when Erica was supposed to clean the litter box. She either refused or tried to put it off for later- I don’t remember exactly now. What happened next is something I’m trying to forgive myself for. I haven’t been as successful as I’d like. When Erica started walking away toward the front door, I got up and tried to head her off. She got to the door and opened it with her hand on the inside edge of the door, so that when I put my hand on the door to close it to her and put my weight behind it, I hadn’t registered that her hand was on the inside edge of the door until it was too late. Her wailing scream is something I will never forget. I had hurt a little girl badly. I took her to the hospital, and we found that I had broken some bones in her hand. I was horrified with myself. I couldn’t believe that I was capable of this sort of thing. I had sworn not to be like my dad, and I had failed. 

As our relationship aged, the anger persisted. Toward the end, it all came to a head. In addition to another important conflict in our relationship, my anger over my perception of the kids as entitled and my wife as unsupportive and uncaring had one day led me to become almost catatonic. I was also experiencing suicidal ideation. It would be so much easier that way. I deserved it, I thought. When she got home from work, Juniper brought me to the mental hospital, where I was placed on observation, and my meds were evaluated and changed. I was put on a drug that evened me out, but also took away part of my vitality for the next nine years. Then, one of the most traumatic things to ever happen to me occurred. While I was in the hospital, Juniper went through my private journal. In it, she discovered just how bad my anger had gotten, and I think she must have gotten scared for their safety. When she came to visit me in the mental hospital a day or two later, she told me she didn’t want me to come back home. It broke me. I got down on my knees, begging her to reconsider. She held fast, though, and I had to go to a hotel for the night. I spent the next six months in a state of quasi-homelessness, trying to find a stable life again, and failing. Eventually, I moved out-of-state to try to start over. I did eventually find that life, and I’m living it now. 

But currently, as a consequence of that abandonment, my anger is so deep beneath the surface that I don’t even know if it exists anymore. Maybe it lives so deeply I mistake it for absence. My anger was too dangerous to have because it had evolved into rage. It was why I was forced out of my home. 

For the longest time, I thought my chances at kids had ended- Juniper hadn’t wanted more kids, and I thought to myself that the legacy of violence and anger would end on my lopped-off branch of the family tree. Recently, however, I’ve begun to reconsider. Like I’ve said, I had always assumed that I was too dangerous to have kids- I couldn’t bear the thought of my anger hurting one again. Then something happened that changed my perspective entirely.

So I’ll tell you another little story. 

When we were kids in Michigan, our mom would take naps on Sunday afternoons in the middle of the living room, next to the stairs, right next to where traffic had to pass to get in or out of the house. Her recliner was sacred to her, and we were expected to revere her naps with the proper quietude. If we made the slightest (and I do mean the slightest– her ears were remarkably keen for someone of her age) noise, she would wake up and yell at us like we were trying to wake her up. We were almost literally walking on eggshells.

Last week, I was in Anaheim with my family, visiting Disneyland, we were all sharing a hotel room near the resort, and my brother, myself, and my niece were all taking a siesta to get out of the afternoon heat and to try to get some sleep, as my sister-in-law was so excited to go to the park each day we all had to wake up in the middle of the night to do something called “rope-dropping”. As my brother and I were trying to nap, my niece was playing on their iPad, making little noises and moving around from time to time, next to their dad on the bed beside mine. Now, if my brother had inherited some of that generational trauma from our mom’s toxic napping practices, they would’ve yelled or been short with my niece. Instead, my brother woke a little bit, shifted, and fell back asleep, snoring contentedly, if a little loudly. It was so remarkable to me that I immediately recognized what was happening right in front of me. My brother broke the pattern. And maybe, I thought to myself, I could, too. Maybe it could be done. Now, I’m forty-nine years old, and it’s a little late in the game.

One more story. 

When I was around twenty years old, my dad was having a particularly violent day. He had been beating and kicking one of my younger brothers and had hit another. What it was over, I have no idea. At one point, he angrily told me to go outside and scrape ice off the driveway with one of those long, steel, wood-handled scrapers. When it broke while I was using it, I went inside to tell him and see if he wanted me to go get another. He became even angrier, sticking his finger in my face and yelling at me. It was too much- he had hurt my brothers, he seemed about to hurt me, and I snapped. I hit him in the face, and he fell to the floor, stunned. I ran away in my little truck and went to a friend’s place to cool off and wait for the fallout. 

I learned only the other day that Dad never hit my younger brothers again. So maybe not all violence is bad. I’m not sure- I’m still working on it.

This brings us to my final thought. Even though I know very well that forgiveness is meant for me and not for them, I still don’t think I will ever be able to forgive my parents for what they did to us. Yes, I know it’s the healthy thing to do, and you can bet I’ll do the requisite work on the subject, but it’s a long shot. Maybe as I grow, I can come to a place where that can happen. 

We’ll see.