I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why I'm the cynical, pessimistic, self-loathing, yet caring, giving, and almost completely selfless person that I am today. I'm not a misogynist and claim that women are the cause of all my woes. I love women, and while I've been "done wrong" by a lot of them, I don't believe that they're the reason I am who I am today. Truth be told, I feel like my issues go back a long, long time ago.
The basic family portrait: Three kids. One older (half) brother, and one younger brother. Two parents who loathed each others' existences and dealt with that loathing in different ways (but neither in the way any of us had hoped for).
Day by day: My mother may have been college educated, but she never put her degree to any use. Whether it was because of the times and women's rights, or because she just never tried, I don't know. All I know is that for as long as I could remember, she was nothing but a waitress at a shitty restaurant when she could have been so much more. She spent four years in the armed services and never bothered (to THIS DAY) to attempt getting her dues from the VA (even 20% disability could have been a decent income supplement). My father, on the other hand, was NOT college educated, and he had several decent engineering and drafting based jobs (we'll get to why it was "several" and not "a" in a bit). He may not have made enough money to support a family our size, but he did all right.
Unfortunately, with as much as my dad should have been pulling in, the family was hemorrhaging money. My father was a drinker (among other things). A lot of his income went to daily bottles of liquor which, when he was finished, he would hide in various places around the house or yard. On top of that, he experimented with a LOT of drugs: cocaine, marijuana, LSD. If it was illicit, you can rest assured my father tried it or used it on the regular. Both the parents shared a love for marijuana, and shared use was the only time they were civil with one another.
On top of legal and illegal substance usage, my father was an abuser, both physical and mental. When he was drunk and disorderly, he liked to take it out on either my mother or my brother and I. I'm not talking about a belt or a wooden spoon to the bare ass if I misbehaved. I'm talking fists and punching. He turned very physical when the standard "whipping" just wasn't cutting it anymore (i.e. I didn't say ouch anymore). If he turned physical to my mother, my brother and I would try to put ourselves between them, which only enraged him more. Instead of notifying the proper authorities, my mother instead chose to work when our father was home, simply to avoid conflict. I assume out of some belief that "it's not going to get better" or "I can't change my current situation."
So we were pretty miserable.
My father got fired from at least three jobs while we still lived in Wisconsin (where I was born and grew up), all of which were due to him either being drunk or otherwise (see: snorting cocaine) on the job. Though, the reason he got fired from one of his last jobs (in Wisconsin) was the real kicker to the whole family. I was 11, at the time, and it was summer, so my brothers and I were at home while my mother worked. My older brother, Lee, was in town (he's my half brother and his father had him for the school year while my mother had him for summer) and was supposed to be "watching" my younger brother and me. Instead, he was in his room, making out with a girl.
There was a room we'd found in the basement. It was locked up, but we'd never seen anyone go into it. So naturally, we were curious. We snuck into our parents' room and looked for a key. We found it in one of my dad's lockboxes full of drug paraphernalia. Excited, and admittedly a bit scared, we unlocked that room in the basement and found a treasure trove: porn as far as the eye could see (and not Playboy, my friends. We're talking 1980's Hustler, which was about as close as you could get to "real" porno in a magazine back then), several small rolls of cash (all $20s), a few growing tomato plants, more drug pipes and needles, and five fully grown marijuana plants potted and under lamps.
Unfortunately, a friend of mine from next door walked into the house while we were down there, saw what was in the room, and high-tailed it out of the house to go tell his mother. As you can imagine, a few days later, there was a raid on the house (I'm certain my friend's mom exaggerated on the amount of weed he'd seen). Cops everywhere, going through the whole house, tearing shit up looking for this "big score." My mom's weeping incessantly, while my dad's at work, completely oblivious as to what's happening at home. The cops get the room in question and pull my brother and I aside. They ask if I know what's in there. I'm 11, so I don't think it's wise to lie to the police. I tell them "porn, cash, tomato plants, and marijuana." They slap handcuffs on me and drag me down to the station for "having knowledge of" the crimes being committed in the household. Of course I was a minor, this is the early 90's, and they really couldn't "detain" me, but they did try to charge me with underage drinking (they found stashes of empty liquor bottles hidden by my father).
My father actually heard about what was going on and decided to stay at work an extra THREE HOURS while I'm at the police station, sweating out criminal charges in his name. It was awesome. Eventually he got home, was busted, and released after a couple months (I don't know the terms of his bargain). Cue the most savage beating of my lifetime. I'm glad that my accidental discovery of his small drug business did nothing to change his ways.
A few years later (and we'd moved in-state one last time) and I was able to get my own job, so to stay away from home, I worked as often as I could. I even made a large chunk of money, right about $3000 (I was saving for my first car, because let's face it, the parents weren't going to buy me one). Then my father gets his third DUI of the year. Back in the day, DUI/DWI wasn't as big a focus as it is today, so you could get one or two of them and it wouldn't impact your life as much as even one does now. He was detained and chose to pay a $10,000 fine to the state. My father didn't have $10,000. He had $7,500. Can you guess where the other $2,500 came from? Overdraft protection into a cosigned account.
Livid.
Cue the second most savage beating of my life when I got in his face about it.
When I was finally old enough to get out of the house, I did. I joined the military. They would pay for college, should I decide to go. I wouldn't have to rely on my parents for anything again. Hell, by the time I was 15, I was already feeding myself, easing the burden on my mother, who only then had to worry about feeding herself and my younger brother. I felt bad leaving my brother to the two of them. He'd write or call me, from time to time, detailing something he did (or didn't do) that resulted in him getting beaten, and there was nothing I could do to help him, other than assure him that he could leave soon, too.
My parents stayed together until my younger brother left the house. They told us that's what they'd do. Why would you tell your kid that? Why would you cement the idea, in their mind, that life is going to continue to be miserable because of them? Because that's precisely what they'll think.
I guess you could say I have a chip on my shoulder. Maybe I do. But at the same time, I survived with a determination to NEVER be the same way as either of them, and I think I've done a good job. I was married, for a time, and I treated my (now ex) wife with the utmost respect. Granted, she didn't treat me the same (a story for another time, perhaps), but I definitely feel like I did the best I could to be the complete opposite of my parents.
I've resigned myself to probably never siring offspring. It's not by choice. I'm getting too old to consider it an option anymore, and I've yet to find someone who truly desires to share their life with me in that way. By the time I do, I'll definitely be too old for that. I don't want my children to be 10 when I'm 50+. But if I do have the opportunity, I won't squander it by being anything like my father. I may be a cynic. I may be an asshole. I may be a fucking pessimist. But I'm not him. And that's all that matters.
EDIT: Puppy Tax
