Lies my family told me
2015 01 27 | journal
I was just watching one of those medical dramas where they throw the big moral "you or your baby" questions at you, which led to a discussion with a friend about the lifelong pain, guilt, and/or self-loathing that some children feel when they grow up parentless because of this, grow up in an adoptive home, or other related such things, the lies that kids are sometimes told, the truths they're sometimes told, and the questionable motives of the people who tell them. Now, I am not going to share my opinions on the "you or your baby" question, but it did remind me of something.
Just to clarify, I was raised by my maternal grandparents.
A long time ago, when I was still very young, in my teens, someone in my family told me that when my grandfather found out that my grandmother had taken me in (without telling him first), his reaction was, "Get that fucking little bastard out of here." Someone later told me it wasn't true, but not till decades later (about three months ago, in fact). Really, I'll never know which of those things is true. The (supposed) guilty party is dead, and one of the over-sharing culprits is also dead.
I do not recall specifically who told me this - though there are three main culprits - but what I want to know is why the fuck would you ever say such a thing to a young kid? What kind of adult says that sort of sick shit?
One might think this could be the root (along with a whole host of other shit) of my lifelong battle with self-esteem, the lack thereof, and my raft of inferiority complexes.