Toxic Blood: Never There
Chapter 9
When I talk or write about my life and my family, it is relatively easy to reach the conclusion that Mother was the primary instigator and abuser in my family, but it only appears that way because Mother was present. Mother tried. Some part of Mother very much wanted to be a Good Mother, so she put in effort, even if her efforts were often colossal failures, did more damage than good, or fell far short of what they needed to be. I have more to say about her because she was more involved in my life and the lives of my brothers. Even though nowhere near every interaction was bad or abusive (most were simply neutral), it still works out to be an avalanche of terrible events when I look back.
Father was barely there. For many years his daily routine, regardless of his specific job, was to get up early, go to work, come home, go to bed, come out late in the evening for food and maybe a little television, and then go back to bed. He suffered from debilitating depression and chronic migraines, so I try to be compassionate about him being unavailable, but it dramatically reduced the total number of interactions I had with him, especially as I got older. Even though a larger portion of those interactions were bad or abusive, the total number ends up being less than with Mother. Also, the total number of genuinely good interactions I had with Father were miniscule, and the majority of those happened when I was still a toddler.
Up until 2021, Mother had such a strong drive to try that she failed to respect my boundaries and sent me specifically unwanted letters multiple times a year, just to tell me how much she and Father care, with a pre-packaged message in a fancy greeting card. I think that was one of Mother’s main problems. For her it was all about her. For the most part, we were only a priority when it earned her social brownie points, when she needed the emotional validation of feeling like she was being a good mother, or when it would be obvious if she did not do her job as a mother. She made sure to brag for years on any slight “sacrifice” she made for her children, to milk every drop of personal benefit out of it as she could. I do not know if she consciously realized that was what she was doing, but it was obvious from the point of view of a child who was clearly never the priority both my parents claimed I was.
I have been aware my entire life that Mother and Father had three children because Father was a diva about not using contraceptives. Birth control pills made Mother sick, so she could not take them. Father is an example of one of those men for whom that extra tiny bit of sensation gained by leaving off the condom is more important than any consequences of sexual intercourse, so they used the rhythm method, which is often far more effective for deliberately getting pregnant than avoiding pregnancy. I was born slightly less than 15 months after Older Brother, and only 18 months before Younger Brother. When Mother had a false pregnancy and they thought baby #4 was on the way, Father finally had enough sense to get a vasectomy. They literally could not feed the three children they already had, yet a condom was not an option for him, because he was not willing to give up a brief moment of slightly increased pleasure.
That kind of selfishness pervaded how he interacted with his family my entire life. If he had an opinion about what was preferable in any situation, that was going to be the course of action. He often feigned caring about other peoples’ opinions, but if he truly did care, at least from time to time he would have acquiesced to the desires of other people in the family. Other people only got their way if he did not care about the outcome or course of action.
At the same time, Father was painfully non-confrontational, so he was never direct about getting his way. Instead, he would engage in a wide array of manipulative techniques, gaslighting, and passive-aggressive behavior to ensure that his preferred option was the most appealing, and that all other options were too much trouble. This manifested in big ways and little everyday ways.
His selfishness was apparent in things as simple as his complete unwillingness to cook food any way other than how he liked it. He did this even with single-serve foods, like hamburgers drowned in barbecue sauce.
Father and my brothers liked this weird pudding cake concoction that consisted of layers of white cake, instant vanilla pudding, banana slices, and tinned pineapple. I thought it was gross, but Father liked it and had the backing of my brothers, so it was the standard birthday cake, even on my own birthday. I once made Father a German chocolate cake from scratch for his birthday, but year after year on my birthday I had to settle for a cake monstrosity that would fit in perfectly at a 1950’s Horrible Food themed party.
This also manifested in big things, like family outings. When I was young, we drove to Los Angeles to visit family almost every year, and the trip always involved a visit to an amusement park.
There were several amusement parks in the greater Los Angeles area. Despite this, we always went to Disneyland. When my brothers and I were very little, it was because they had a lot of rides and attractions that were geared towards toddlers and very small children. As soon as we were big enough to get on the roller coasters, we realized other parks most likely had better offerings (Magic Mountain), or at least different things to see (Knott’s Berry Farms).
Their children, especially Older Brother and I, were bored with Disneyland. We desperately wanted to go somewhere else. We wanted to see something else. Magic Mountain topped the list, but Knott’s Berry Farms was a close second. Mother was not willing to visit Magic Mountain because she had bad associations with it, and Father encouraged her since it eliminated one alternative.
Requests to go to Knott’s Berry Farms were always given a “maybe” that actually meant “no”. Mother and Father did not have a ready excuse why not to go there, but it was not where Father wanted to go, so we did not go there. He wanted to go to Disneyland. He had his Mickey Mouse watch, made sure we had the Disney Channel as soon as it existed, and generally idolized all things Disney. He did not care whether or not all three of his children were literally begging to go somewhere new. His selfish ass wanted Disneyland, so we always went to Disneyland. He was not willing to give us one single solitary time going somewhere else.
I think the most disappointing part of all of it is that we never even stayed for the Parade of Lights, even if it was running when we visited. I would have been happy to go to Disneyland one more time, just to see that attraction, but no. Father had always satisfied his desires by evening, my brothers and I were tired, and there was no world in which my parents were going to budget for food inside the park, so we always left hours before sunset.
To add insult to injury, if I mentioned the Parade of Lights, Father usually responded by telling me how amazing it was when he got to see it before we were born. He never could resist making digs like that, disguised as commiserating.
Big family outings were almost always to a destination Father chose. He would prep us before the event, talking it up to his children and getting us on board well before it happened. When we were little, it was easy for him to use us to ensure he got his best possible personal outcome. We would visit a train park, air shows, and hot air balloon races on a fairly frequent basis. These are actually some of my best memories of spending time with Father, but it was because I also enjoyed attending such events, not because he had any desire to join me for anything outside his personal areas of interest.
I hate that in retrospect, even the good memories I have with Father are tainted by his overriding selfishness. Those are good memories. I always enjoyed those outings because they were among very few occasions when Father seemed genuinely happy and carefree, and would fully engage with me. He would happily provide facts and trivia about the things we were looking at. We would wander from item to item admiring decorations painted on planes or colors patterned into the balloon fabric. A couple times Father even paid for us to go up in a hot air balloon on a tether to get a bird’s eye view of the event.
I do not think I really cared about the balloons or the planes or the trains for their own sakes. I read a bit about small planes and kit planes with the vain daydream that I might one day own and learn to fly a plane, but it was not a driving goal. I delighted in these events because of Father’s infectious enthusiasm. I delighted in his engagement with the event and with me, actually conversing with me and letting me in on some of his dreams and desires. It meant the world to me that Father would be in the moment, with me, enjoying something together, with no reservations or undertones of guilt or sadness or regret. These occasions are among the very few genuinely happy memories I have of spending time with either of my parents.
Because of that, when my brothers grew bored with air shows and the rest of the family stayed behind, I continued to go with Father. On one of the last air shows we attended, Father surprised me with the gift of a ride in a Cessna. I never would have asked for something like that, and before I was told to get in the plane, I thought he was asking about pilot lessons for his own sake. I was beyond shocked at the selflessness of the act, mostly because it was so uncharacteristically generous.
I think I was pre-teen, but the instructor taking me up in the plane did not treat me like a child. He walked me through all the safety routines, explained all the controls, told me about the radio communications, and all the other things that would be expected from a first-time pilot lesson. He let me taxi the plane out to the runway, and even let me take off under constant guidance (and of course, his hands on the controls too). We flew around the area for what seemed like hardly any time at all. When we landed, my instructor let me keep my hands on the control stick as long as I did not move it, and I promised to let go immediately if he said to do so. I did not land the plane, but I did feel what landing the plane felt like. With a friendly smile, he said he normally did not do this first time up with someone, but I was a natural and he felt confident I would not try to kill us.
After I was back on the ground Father grinned and let me know that I had been up in the air far longer than the time he had paid for. I think I might have been grinning like a Cheshire cat for days. Flying was fun, and that selfless gift meant a lot to me, because it was something I could cling to and prove to myself that he genuinely cared. Unfortunately, though, one single selfless act is incapable of erasing all the pain caused by an otherwise selfish lifestyle.
Those are good memories. And yet, I look back on them, and I know they are only good because he enjoyed those activities, he did not want to go alone, and I could find joy in his joy. His enthusiasm and joy were infectious, so for the sake of having some sort of relationship with him outside of heartbreaking negativity, I went along for the ride and had a good time. I went along to see him smile, to see him happy, and in his joy, I found joy, but it was never about me, not even some of the time. It was only about him.
I was interested in a lot of things as a child, most of which I was never given an opportunity to explore. I wanted to do more with art, sewing, costuming, writing, reading, astronomy, physics, horses, animals in general, camping, hiking, swimming, and biking, to name a few. If I could explore the subject alone in my room, I was free to explore it to my heart’s content. If it required any expenditure of money or time or effort on the parts of my parents, it happened rarely, if at all. Father had a passing interest in astronomy, so there were a handful of times we went stargazing with hobby astronomy groups, but not often enough for me to meet anyone in those groups (or group?) more than once.
For a few years I did attend martial arts classes at a dojo within biking distance of home. Initially my brothers and I all went, but within a few months they had both dropped out. It was easy for my parents, because I could get myself to and from classes most of the time, so all they needed to do was pay for it. At the same time, Mother and Father were going to far more trouble and expense keeping my brothers in Boy Scouts, which met across town and required camping gear and weekend outings. The “fair” effort and monetary expense put out on my behalf worked out to be much lower maintenance.
That was it. Mother drove me to and from a summer day camp at a horse ranch two different summers, and one summer I went to a Girl Scout summer camp, solely because she and Father were paying for my brothers to attend Boy Scout summer camps. In the interest of fairness, they offered me a rough equivalent. If my brothers had not been in Boy Scouts, I have no doubt I never would have attended summer camps.
When I had the opportunity to attend an art intensive summer program, paying for it was absolutely out of the question. Yet, a couple years later when Older Brother wanted to attend the Boy Scout Jamboree in Washington D.C., a far more expensive endeavor, they figured out how to make it work because it was a “once in a lifetime experience”. That same year they even found the money to buy Younger Brother his own computer. That summer father and I went river rafting for an afternoon, so that they were “fair” about spending money on all of us.
Nothing else on that list of interests was genuinely supported or encouraged by either parent. I believe that was because there was nothing for them to personally gain, especially since for the appearance of fairness they would be required to go out of their way for my brothers as well. Mother already had enough “it’s hard to be a mother” stories for sympathy and socializing, and was frankly exhausted from carrying the bulk of the work and responsibility in the family.
Father? Well, Father could not be bothered unless it was something he already wanted to do for his own sake. Father appreciated it when I was there for him, but he repeatedly demonstrated that he was not willing to be there for me, so I knew it was pointless to ever ask.