Surviving The Fire, 1

Gentle Reader, this will be the first part of a series I will be working on until, well, till I've run out of stuff to write, I guess.

I will begin with my childhood.  It wasn't an easy time but I really don't think that being little is easy for anyone.  For one thing, you are small.  Everyone, except for younger children, is bigger than you, and stronger and smarter.  You are completely and absolutely vulnerable but for your parents' protection.  And when they default on protecting you from harm then you're really screwed.

There is no such thing as a really comprehensive training manual for new parents.  Of course there are courses and workshops and seminars but no one is offered such a thing as a series of university credit courses in raising their own children.  I don't think there is such a thing as a new parent who doesn't enter this new and wonderful phase of life feeling completely unprepared, inadequate and inept.  They will not be able to go home from their kids, but thank heavens for daycare, for those who can afford it, and at least both Mom and Dad can escape into their jobs for a while every day.  Of course there is little alternative given how expensive it is to not only raise children but simply to both eat and keep a roof over your head.

If the kids luck out and end up with very caring, engaging and intelligent parents chances are they will do relatively okay and will only need to pay token lip-service to Philip Larkin ("They fuck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do")  And then there is the rest of us. 

In my case I emerged in a household that was not ready to parent.  There was already a brother three years older than me and my parents were still awfully young when I arrived: mom would have been twenty-five, dad was just about to turn twenty-eight.   Neither was educated.  My father barely finished elementary school and my mother dropped out of high school.  When they did tie the knot she was already five months pregnant with my brother.  This was in the fifties when everybody wed and bred young.  And no one really had a clue about raising kids.  They were too immature.

I got through it, but not unscathed.  My father was an alcoholic, usually distant and uncommunicative.  Occasionally he would express affection by inappropriately touching me (you may fill in the blanks, Gentle Reader).  My mother had a bad temper, zero patience and a tendency towards violence.  My brother rejected me and beat me almost daily.

Then there was school.  I was considered gifted and excelled academically and artistically and therefore no one liked me.  I got through school and my horrible family, completely covered in bruises but I got through it.  At fourteen I became a hippy, smoked pot and read underground publications.  I raised the middle finger at all my oppressors.  I suddenly became liked at school, suddenly transforming from the most despised to the coolest kid in the hall.  I didn't feel inclined to trust any of those little bastards who had previously treated me like shit.  And then I became a Christian...