Tuesday, January 10, 2012

When I was eighteen, my parents threw me out of the house because I was sexually active. It was 1968. I couch surfed with my boyfriend before we moved to Boston so I could go to art school. I didn't see or speak to my parents for a year and a half. I dropped out of school because I couldn't pay the tuition. Eventually I drove across country in a 'drive-away car' with my friends and a backpack. I landed in LA where I lived on the beach with other hippies. And that's just part of the story.

What I mean to say is that I will never understand how a parent could throw away a child. I know it happens all the time but as a mother, I don't get it. I was a naive eighteen year old with barely any skills. And I'll always be terrified that I won't have a place to live, no matter how hard I try to secure housing and enough money. I stole food. I lived hand-to-mouth on temp jobs and the kindness of strangers. I only got busted for hitchhiking once. I was lucky.

My children always have a home with me, as long as I live. I know that and so do they.

I never really feel safe.

4 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

I will never understand that either- how a parent could throw a child out of the house.
Bless you, baby. Wrong was done to you for sure.
I never got "thrown out," but I ran out and there was no way in holy hell I was ever going back to that pit of fear and evil.
I wish you could feel safe. Maybe someday you will.

Sabine said...

The one thing our mothers probably taught us in a weird and twisted way - although mine would never see the point anyway - is how to be a mother in the first place. I am not daft but not until I had a child myself did I realise how it could have been done.

It's the best therapy, be a mother and be yourself and don't look back.

Valerie Loveland said...

I feel the same way. No matter what, I felt like I could always go and stay at my parents' house if I needed help.

Wendy Birdseye Pavlus said...

A few of my kids(out of 6) have given me fits. My youngest daughter the worst. Alcoholic, bad boyfriends, late night phone call in all sorts of places to come and get her - all while she lived here. Many friends told us to "throw her ass out" Never....2 yrs ago after her 2nd DWI and it was no longer up to me how her life went(she was still living here), she fell apart one night and told me she had terminated a pregnancy several years before (kind of explained the increase in drinking at that point and beyond). When she told me about it she said, "I know how you feel about that and I am sure you are going to throw me out now". Although heartbroken, I said " Jilly, I love you and if I didn't throw you out for being a drunk I certainly would never throw you out for this." She is now sober, working, engaged and living with a nice guy. She always was the sweetest girl ever and I will never regret not throwing her under the bus. She probably contributed to my heart attack, but she is alive and well and moving on to a good place. Amen! Beth, I am sorry your parents were so rigid. Mine would have been heartbroken, but would always have been there for me.....Isn't it amazing that these many years later it is still haunting you. Be well....You have lots of love in your life!