Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Men We Love – A Domestic Violence Story: Part 4 The Coda
Two years ago, I went to my old boyfriend’s funeral. I milled around with old and old-looking friends and colleagues, talked to his nieces, now adult women, with whom I’d spent several Christmases so long ago, and every now and then glanced over at the urn that sat on an unadorned table. There was no picture there – no montage of photos from a long happy life. His siblings were furious at him for what they said he had put them through. After so many attempts and threats, including several when I knew him, he had finally taken his own life.
A middle-aged woman standing alone was pointed out to me as his girlfriend. Thinking I should offer my condolences to the closest thing that he had to caring family at the moment, I introduced myself. She launched into a quiet explanation about why she, alone, was responsible for his death. She’d just ended their relationship because of his violent behavior, she wasn’t able to help him. “And now look what happened.”
It was in that moment that it hit me. In the many years since Des Moines, I had fallen in love and married someone else, moved into a big old house and raised a family of four children, started a business, had friends. If I died, there would be a lot of pictures.
He had circled back and started over. If the length of our relationship was a predictor, he probably had four or five more serious relationships, all ending the same scary way.
If all the women who’d known him sat in a circle, we would tell the same story, make a quilt with identical squares. And the quilt would be very large.
This man, to whom we had all been attracted because of his gentle heart and fun-loving spirit, never intended to hurt anyone. Whatever trauma or damage he had in his early life that would explain his violent episodes, no one really knows.
I do know it kept him from having any pictures at his funeral.
This series is dedicated to The Alma Center’s Men We Love campaign. The Alma Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a nonprofit organization that works with men involved in domestic violence to help them identify and address the trauma in their own lives so they can learn to become good partners and decent fathers. Look for the Alma Center and Men We Love on Facebook.
Men We Love: A Domestic Violence Story – Part 3
It went on like this for a couple of years. Long periods of calm interrupted by longer moments of panic and terror.
I remember….a long night watching my boyfriend sleep with a butcher knife in his hand wondering whether he intended to use it on me or himself. Being chased across town and, thinking it was the safest place I could find, pulling up in front of the 5th District Station. Being trapped in the kitchen of my upper flat which, I figured at the time, was probably the worst place in the house to be. Banging the car door against his leg as I tried to pull it closed and flee after an argument in the Dells. Listening to him tapping on my back door all night long wanting me to let him in so he could apologize.
But still he had never laid a hand on me. That had become my bottom line.
I got through the terror by convincing myself that he would stop himself from actually hurting me. But it became harder and harder to believe as time went on, sort of like thinking that even though everyone else’s basement was flooded, mine would stay dry.
It was the classic frog in boiling water. I lost sight of how out of whack my life had become. How unexplainable. How chaotic. How private.
The fight scene. Man and woman in a hotel room in Des Moines. He’s been drinking all day – beer and Irish whiskey. He wants to go out. She thinks he’s too drunk. He threatens. She grabs the keys to leave. He tackles her, pins her to the bed. And puts his hands around her neck.
Calling on angels, she gets out from under his 280 lbs and runs into the hotel hallway screaming. People open their doors and look at her standing there. He’s in the doorway shrugging his shoulders. She is ashamed.
So after the fight scene, while people from the hotel stood and watched, I got my things and my car keys and I left. Wanting to drive home but afraid to, I found an old hotel downtown and checked in to a room on the 4th floor where I pulled the chest of drawers in front of the door and sat curled up on the bed until dawn.
I drove back to Milwaukee to pick up my daughter, back from a two-week Western vacation with her dad. “Hi Mom, you’re late.”
Coming next: Men We Love: Part 4 (the coda)
Men We Love: A Domestic Violence Story: Part 2
Not long after the endless night keeping watch out the window, after a bunch of happy evenings with my boyfriend, a trip or two to the racetrack, a drive in the country with a stop at a funky bar, and, oh, maybe a concert or two thrown in, enough to make the distance between that night’s me and me now so wide that the fear became imagined and extreme, an overreaction, not long after that the phone rang one night.
It was my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, the woman he’d lived with for five years.
“You don’t know me, but I have things I need to tell you.”
It felt like a wood sliver sliding under my fingernail. “Like what?”
She told me about her twisted arm, the black eyes that kept her home from work and the pillow over her face.
She told me about the apologies and the regret. How he would ask for forgiveness and promise not to do it again.
She warned me. “That’s what he’s really like. He’s not the person everybody thinks he is.”
“Nothing like that has ever happened with us,” I told her, only partially lying because it was the threat, the seemingly imminent possibility, of something like that happening that put me into that weird watching out the window place rather than it actually happening.
“He’s different now. That kind of thing would never happen. I wouldn’t put up with it. First sign of anything like that and I’d be done – that would be it.”
I hung up the phone just as he walked in the door, holding a pizza and a six-pack of beer.
I’d been warned.
Stay tuned for Men We Love: Part 3
Men We Love: A Domestic Violence Story: Part 1
Thirty years ago, I sat all night on the sofa in my upper Shorewood flat, smoking Benson & Hedges, with my mother’s green and orange afghan wrapped around my shoulders, waiting for my addicted, unpredictable, and sometimes violent boyfriend to pull up in front of my house, get out of his car, and use the key I had given him by mistake to come in and kill us all.
After spending all night on the couch looking out the window at the intersection of Newhall and Kensington, I showered, dressed, got my daughter ready for school, and went to work. As if nothing had happened.
My fear had happened. My lonely, secret, gut-wrenching fear had happened – fear so deep that I was afraid to close my eyes even for a minute lest I be taken by surprise.
When this happened, I was finishing coursework for a Ph.D. I had a job at a human service agency. It didn’t pay a lot but it was a decent job. I paid the rent. I owned a car. I had a good upbringing with decent parents. No one had ever laid a hand on me in anger. No one.
But I was terrified of my boyfriend when he was ‘off’ which he wasn’t always. Just once in a while. The rest of the time, he was mellow and funny, involved in the community, tons of friends, devoted to me.
It was hard to tell what would happen — it was (now one of my favorite terms) crazy-making.
Women you know this very minute are in this situation. If they are really scared or, worse, physically abused, they can seek shelter, assuming they are willing and able to leave where they live. They can call hotlines and learn how to develop safety plans. Stockpile resources and make a run for it if things get bad enough. I never got to this stage. I believed I could protect myself – at least until one fateful night a year or so later – so seeking shelter, asking for help for my situation never occurred to me. I wasn’t the person with the problem.
He was.
And there wasn’t any help for him.
The question was — was I supposed to change? Change my life, my residence, uproot my child to be safe? He’s the villain and I’m the damsel in distress?
I should have retreated into shelter so he could find the next woman who would try, in vain, to convince herself that how mellow and funny he was outweighed how terrifying he could become every now and then?
I didn’t think so then and I don’t think so now.
Stay tuned for Men We Love: Part 2.
It’s Crazy-Making: Jerry Sandusky’s Awful Legacy
At first, when I heard about what Jerry Sandusky was alleged to have done to young boys, I couldn’t stop thinking about the boys. How scared and worried they had to have been. How hurt and ashamed. And, this is really what bothered me the most, how unimportant they were in the bigger scheme of things at Penn State.
They were not important enough to listen to. Fundamentally, that’s what happened. Their little 10-year old selves, no matter how many of them there were, could not compete on that big Penn State turf. Little Gatorade bottles on the sidelines, that’s what they were. That put me in a weird place where nausea and rage intersect.
But lately I’ve been thinking about these boys as men. We haven’t heard or seen any of them so we don’t know how they are feeling now about what happened then.
So I am just conjecturing based on my own life and what I know and have seen and have felt. I think that what happened to them had to have been crazy-making.
Oh, I don’t mean this in the sense of causing depression or PTSD – those conditions are probable consequences of this situation. I’m talking about something else.
I mean this in the sense of a boy’s trust in reality, perception of the facts, recollection of events as they actually happened being cracked and smeared and run over by Humvees until he’s not even sure his own life was real.
A source I found (http://verbalabusejournals.com) defines crazy-making as an “abuser’s weapon of choice. If s/he successfully throw you off balance and teetering, then you are easier to control. Easier for the abuser to control – you feel crazy.”
I think that’s what happened here – that the reality, the normalcy with which people continued to treat the alleged abuser, his continued welcome on the Penn State campus, the lack of repurcussions or law enforcement concern – all of it had to have piled up into a sharp and rusty, tangled mess for those boys to men.
I know these boys/men have their own mothers to comfort them and go to war for them. But if I could lead a mothers’ march to each of their houses, I’d have a big sign that says —
HEY, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY.
Do not be ashamed.
I Think They Got It Wrong: Milwaukee’s Anti-Co-Sleeping Campaign
Today the City of Milwaukee launched a new ad campaign against co-sleeping (babies sleeping in the same bed as their parent/s). I hope it works but I really have my doubts.
I never slept with my kids. I saw going to bed with my husband in our own room WITH THE DOOR SHUT to be about the only peace I would have all day. I would no more have brought my children’s complaining, needy little selves into my bed than I would trade in my Posturepedic for a bed of nails. I needed a break from them and, lord knows, they needed one from me.
Plus, let’s be frank here. How do couples who sleep with their kids have any kind of sexual relationship? Like, how does that work?
Now I know a lot of that attitude is cultural. It would never even have occurred to my parents to sleep with their kids. I can’t honestly say I even remember seeing my father in his pajamas. A short-sleeve white shirt with a clip-on tie, yes. Pajamas, nope.
In other families, that kind of round the clock physical presence and intimacy defines family life. And that’s where this campaign, I believe, is missing the boat.
The ad agency and city officials have studied this issue of co-sleeping deaths and, certainly, they test-marketed the ad and must be convinced that it will work. But it just hit me wrong.
Maybe because it feels to me like we’re assuming co-sleeping moms are negligent. They are too lazy to put the baby in his crib, too preoccupied with alcohol, drugs, texting, whatever to properly care for their baby.
I think 99.9% of the time, a mom’s decision to have her baby sleep with her is an affirmative one that she is making, almost reflexively, based on how she was raised and what she learned to be best practices in mothering from her own mother. If a woman was raised to co-sleep, she would no more put a baby in a crib on his back with no blankets, pillows or toys than she would lay naked in a snowbank.
So, I am kind of wondering. Where are the moms in this campaign? Why do I only see Mayor Barrett and Health Commissioner Baker talking about this? I think if you want moms to think about something in a new way, you’ve got to start where they are, respect who they are, and believe in them.
You know the old adage about working with kids? Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care.
Put in other words – respect me, respect my family, show me how to be a better parent.
That’s the ad I’d like to see.
Worlds Apart: Adopting an Older Child
This is National Adoption Month and I want people to think about adopting older kids. Practically everyone can envision themselves rescuing a baby Moses from the reeds but it’s a lot harder to become someone’s mother when you have to get them to agree to it.
It’s an entirely different proposition especially when you and the child speak different languages. But that’s another story. Let’s assume we’re talking about domestic adoptions. Maybe you’re interested in adopting and you’re thinking it would be better if you adopted a baby. You’re probably right. (Didn’t expect that, did you?)
If you adopt a baby, first of all, you can carry the baby. This is a very big deal. Because if you are holding a baby – a lot – sooner or later, you’re going to develop the kind of physical ease and familiarity necessary to create the trust that leads to a bond. (I know this because I used to read a lot of books about adoption and I also had this experience with two children adopted as toddlers – well, toddlers on paper, they were actually more like limp rags with faces.)
Trying to recreate this carrying thing with an older child can be difficult.
Awkward. And heavy.
So because you can’t use carrying the child around all the time as your primary bonding strategy, you have to come up with other ideas.
Here’s where the fun begins.
Becoming the parent of an older child is just very, very difficult. Because the mindless ease of physical contact (the carrying) isn’t an option, a new parent has to stitch together the equivalent in words and actions in an intentional way. The bonding process takes longer to be genuine. There are many, many more setbacks – a lot of approach/avoidance – of the child, for example, wanting to be part of a new family but still consciously remembering and missing the old one.
Older children are also in an adoptive situation because something bad has happened and by this, I mean something much worse than simply being abandoned. The trauma in their early lives hums and buzzes around them, the drone so low only they can hear it. Because it’s so filmy and unarticulated, it’s very hard for adoptive parents to grasp how the trauma is affecting their child today.
I say all these cheery things by way of inviting people to think about taking on a bigger challenge in life. The little girl in the picture – playing with the Barbee? She’s sitting on the plane as it’s about to leave Managua, Nicaragua and fly to Miami. She’s buckled up and ready to go. Later her new mom will take her to the tiny bathroom where they’ll get stuck for 20 minutes while the little girl is entranced with the hot water coming out of the faucet.
Later, when she and her new mom are finally home in Milwaukee, she’ll lose the happy expression and become tired and worried. She’ll be stiff in her new dad’s arms.
It will take a long time.
Admit it. Doesn’t this sound a lot more interesting and challenging than adopting an infant? Think about it. There are certainly a lot of kids who need parents. You could do it.
Check out the Facebook page for Red’s Wrap — a lot of resources are listed there. It might start you thinking.
Unclaimed is Better: The Pain of Disputed Adoptions
I feel ill for the Monahans – the couple whose adopted Guatamalan daughter is now being reclaimed by the Guatamalan government on behalf of her birth mom who says the child was kidnapped by human traffickers and essentially sold into the foreign adoption system. I also feel ill for the child’s birth mom and admire her resolve in tackling the incredible challenge of fishing her daughter out of the American legal system. And I feel ill for the child who has to know something is up but has no idea of the wrangling that lay ahead and how it will divert her parents from the happy job of raising her.
You can read more about the case here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/adoption-wars_n_1028665.html?1319482146&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl22%7Csec1_lnk3%7C106906&ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
Our three adopted kids were abandoned by their birth parents. Each one was left with government officials – either at a hospital or an orphanage. And they were in the government’s care for a long time. One son’s picture was printed in La Prensa, the Nicaraguan newspaper, along with a plea for his parents to come forward to claim him. Another was abandoned at the hospital where he was born, spending the next 17 months of his life with a dozen other babies in a hut at Rolando Carazo Home for Children. The third, an older child, was dropped off at the same orphanage by a relative – maybe the cruelist story of all – where her hopeful wait to be reclaimed endured for over a year. All of them could have been found by their birth relatives — had those relatives returned. These children were pretty much where their parents left them – not spirited away, not rushed to a new adoptive family. They were sitting.
For better or worse. On the one hand, the fact that my kids were orphanage kids for a long time assuaged any worries we had that their parents would show up later asking questions and wanting them back. On the other, each child had over a year to become an institutionalized child. No matter how good a children’s home is – and Rolando Carazo falls in the category of ‘doing the best they could with what they had which wasn’t much but bless them for trying’ – children aren’t meant to grow up looking through the crib slats at the next orphaned baby, placidly waiting their turn for five minutes of sitting on an attendant’s lap to get fed the day’s porridge.
In order to thrive, a child needs to be adored by someone.
The Monahans’ child or the child of the Guatamalan mom – however you want to slice it – is adored both in the day to day and in the abstract. Obviously, the Monahans have put their heart and soul into raising her. The birth mom, given the obvious and easy option of just forgetting about it, has not let what she sees as a wrongful adoption go unchallenged.
Fundamentally, the case is resolved by answering the question: What is in the best interest of the child? She will not always be a little girl. Someday she will be an adult wondering where the missing piece of her heart is.
I am glad that I could say to my kids — Your parents couldn’t raise you. We were asked to do it. We did and we are grateful for the chance.
I am also glad I don’t have to say — We went to court and had a better case. So we got to keep you.
There is a really big price to pay either way.
Smile, Baby
So the Dad got up this morning, put on his Green Bay Packer sweatshirt, his jeans, and his flipflops and took his son to the dentist.
But wait! It’s not this little cute guy in the striped shirt and his baby corduroys.
It’s this guy – 26 years old. Employed full time. No health insurance. About as likely to have dental insurance as me being in a Broadway musical. With a mouthful of cavities – oh God, don’t get me started – from the evil Mountain Dew which is, in my opinion, the only substance that really ought to be banned in the United States.
Luckily, his Dad, a notoriously aggressive advocate, got his son into the wonderful Marquette University dental program where students will figure out how to make the son’s teeth stay in his mouth and we will pay the tab.
Why? Hard to explain. He was the one who drank the Mountain Dew. But I’m the one who loves his smile. And there was no other way this problem would get fixed.
It makes me mad. It does. Because our son – who works every day, 2nd shift with a lot of overtime, is one of millions who’s never going to get decent health insurance. He can’t pay out of pocket for dental care. Really. Who can do that?
So sure, I guess he should be responsible for his own teeth. But it’s like my husband said to the dentist the other day on the phone…..”He doesn’t have insurance. At the moment, he doesn’t have a phone. He doesn’t have any of that stuff. He has us.”
Should it be this way? Oh, I don’t know. It just is.
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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