In this post I'll be telling the 'self-truth' of someone else I know. I'm telling this story because I think it's strong and in this case I will make an assumption on what goes on in someone else's domain. This is just to demonstrate, I've quite a few painful truths in that category of my own and I will share them.
When my son was in kindergarten he befriended two boys who were both his age and siblings. They were not twins but simply adopted by their two fathers, who were married. My son was very fond of them both and they became his favorite friends. LL and I were also good friends with the fathers who seemed to be just our cup of tea. Initially it was new to us, having a gay couple as friends but since neither us nor that couple had come with any prior misconceptions, things flowed.
This relationship was great and was good for both LL and I and our son.
The problem began when one of the boys was gradually becoming violent. It started in school, with other kids, with his brother and also my son. It was both physical and verbal violence, punches with fists (which were new to us, coming from a 5 year old), he used wooden sticks and threw objects at other kids and sometimes even adults.
Playdates and meetings with that family were becoming intolerable. LL and I had discussions and were polarized over it but really, it was very frustrating for both of us. It seemed like their parents, our friends, could not have done anything to solve the problem while my son was getting beat up by their kid inside and outside of school. Finally, we've stopped seeing them on a regular basis and only during school events in which we had no choice and also these violent outbursts were not focused on our son (and we could do something about it).
Did I say frustrating? I mean, very. At some point, the parents approached us and told us that it was frustrating for them also. This was affecting the whole family and the situation was getting worse. They did not understand where the violence came from; there was no physical violence within the family. They talked about how they are sure this is a result of them being a gay couple and how perhaps the boy needs a woman-like parent to reduce his aggressiveness.
I knew that they did not want an honest answer from us, that's usually the case. We're not psychologists, but it was very clear to anyone having the external viewpoint what was the problem. If you ask me, it was not the parents' gender problem. As any kid is, I guess, this cute, smart and gentle boy was a mirror of his parents. Mirrors tell the truth, they can't lie to their surroundings or themselves. Like parents/adults can.
The parents were also smart, social, gentle and good people. But, they had a problem. The community they came from (the exact details are less important, I think) was not receptive of being gay and gay marriage. Their families gave them a hard time. There are probably other reasons which I'm not and shouldn't be aware of. The fact is that both parents were violent. They did not use physical violence, but they used verbal violence when they were angry. When angry (which happened a lot, also when we were there), both of them had their whole bodies in attack stands. I can still see their boys' faces in my minds' eye, defensive, eyes blinking with fear when these episodes took place. If you're a 5 year old and have a difficult time differentiating between physical violence and virtual violence, you'll be protective, you'll mimic. That's the example you're seeing.
I remember, after that, starting to notice my own behavior with my kids. I found so many painful mistakes, painful truths. And each time I've found one, it was hard, it hurt, but once I've admitted it to myself and others, the problem was solved. The following posts will probably deal with some of them.
Maybe it was easier for me to start with someone else's painful truth and maybe I feel it's just a good example.
Finally, after a a couple of extreme episodes (including some passive aggresive episodes towards us), we broke total contact with that family. We missed them but we had no choice. They started therapy, I recall, but the episodes were still strong.
It still is frustrating when I think of our friendship(s). Still.
No comments:
Post a Comment