anger, love, and care
A month after my then-boyfriend was arrested for beating me up, I went home for Christmas. I'd told my mother over the phone what had happened, coaching it in terms of his alcoholism, which she knew about and understood because of her mother's addiction. She was shocked but believed me when I told her, in the steadiest voice I could muster, that I was okay. It wasn't hard to muster a voice that steady; I was in a daze for weeks afterward, volunteering to work on weekends at the magazine, staying as late as I could to avoid going home to the apartment that was full of him.
By the time I flew home, the restraining order had been lifted and my boyfriend and I had reconciled. His debt to society was to be paid in nine months of alcohol treatment and a battery intervention program. I didn't want to talk to my parents about what had happened-I'd already turned my thoughts around so much in my head that saying them out loud felt futile-but knew I had to say something to them to avoid the gaping silence that would have descended had I completely ignored it. I spoke instead of treatment, of how it's great that he's getting the help he needed, of how I knew it seemed crazy but damn if I didn't love him.
I recited this evenly to my father. We were sitting in the front seat of the family car, which my parents had let me pick out eight years earlier, after I'd wrecked the family minivan and given them the first is-our-daughter-okay scare of their lives as parents. That was the first time I'd broken my nose; my boyfriend's punch was the second.
"I'm just glad he'll be okay, at last," I said.
My father replied, "Me too." His eyes were strictly on the road as he drove me home from the airport. "It's admirable of you to give him a second chance. Alcoholism isn't easy to conquer. When you love somebody, you give second chances."
My brain seized upon this as a Good Thing. Yes, it is admirable! It's beautiful, it's a testament to our love, it shows how much I care. I'm so glad my father supports me.
Six years later, I'm at a bar in Brooklyn with one of my closest friends, and somehow, despite both of us being single and child-free, the conversation turns toward parenting. I tell him that he's going to raise the biggest daddy's girl ever. He laughs, then says I'm probably right, and that her future boyfriends would hate him. "But they'll know never to lay a hand on her," he says, then looks at me with a cautious expression. "What did your father say when you told him about your ex?"
It wasn't until my friend's arms were around me and I felt tears were on my chin that I realized my response to what my father had said. The man who was supposed to protect me didn't.
My father loves me, I know, and if he'd known that this wasn't a second chance, but a third, fourth, fifth, twelfth, his response would have been different. My parents raised me to be autonomous: I was proud of them, of me, when I didn't think twice about moving across the country to start my career the day I graduated from college. My father's confidence in my choice to stay with my boyfriend was his way of signaling his confidence in me. I was strong enough, smart enough, to be okay. He trusted me.
But oh, how I wanted my father's anger.
It's healthy to not expect or need a man to protect you; it's the most basic way I live my feminism. But my wishes for independence didn't only stem from knowing it was a smart way to live. I was chubby growing up, and I chalked it up to being "big-boned." I made the simplistic connection early on that because I was bigger than the boys, nobody would want to protect me from anything. Protection and need were for the small, cute girls, or the not-as-bright girls. Smart, not-small girls like me? We could take care of ourselves. I hadn't had my first kiss when I made this conclusion. I remember a flash of jealousy I felt in college, discussing the idea of man as protector with my roommate, who was petite. She said that men always wanted to protect her because of her size, and that it bothered her because she didn't need the protection. Trying to draw a neat parallel, I said that I was bothered that nobody ever wanted to protect me because of my size. I knew it was sophomoric reasoning, but I was pleased anyway that I was able to admit that there was a part of me that wanted to be protected.
This was part imagination, part real: I've never aroused a protective instinct in men, but it wasn't because of my size. During my adolescence, when I first shielded myself by believing that my size was the reason men didn't look after me in that way, I was a completely average height and weight. The real reason was that I didn't think anyone would protect me.
School counselor calls my parents to say that their daughter is clinically depressed? They let me decide if it was worth the weekly treks across town to go to the recommended support group. (I assured them wasn't, and then got a postcard from them from Italy, saying how proud they were of me that they could "believe" in me enough to go on their trip.) I go to them and ask for help with the ways I was toeing the line with an eating disorder? Here are the the treatment costs, Autumn, do you think it's worth it? They weren't implying that it wasn't worth it. If I'd said, Yes, I think I need this, they would have paid. But I wanted them to make that decision for me. The reason my disordered eating wasn't a full-blown eating disorder was because I didn't want to have an eating disorder, I wanted them to intervene. It was the classic cry for help. Did they ignore it? No, of course not, they love me. But they didn't intervene with my self-destruction.
This is all preferable to the extreme alternative. I don't want to be one of those people who can't make a move without her friends or other advisors; I am thankful that my judgment had to grow because I was forced to make decisions about my wellness. And it's not like I've walled off those friends or other advisors: I turn to people appropriately, I think, much of which is evident on this journal. I'm not left wildly damaged by their parenting style.
But oh, how I wanted their care.
Later, for other reasons, I turned away one man who did take care of me. It was the right decision. But that care felt wonderful. I've never said I wanted a man to take care of me. I might be saying it now.
By the time I flew home, the restraining order had been lifted and my boyfriend and I had reconciled. His debt to society was to be paid in nine months of alcohol treatment and a battery intervention program. I didn't want to talk to my parents about what had happened-I'd already turned my thoughts around so much in my head that saying them out loud felt futile-but knew I had to say something to them to avoid the gaping silence that would have descended had I completely ignored it. I spoke instead of treatment, of how it's great that he's getting the help he needed, of how I knew it seemed crazy but damn if I didn't love him.
I recited this evenly to my father. We were sitting in the front seat of the family car, which my parents had let me pick out eight years earlier, after I'd wrecked the family minivan and given them the first is-our-daughter-okay scare of their lives as parents. That was the first time I'd broken my nose; my boyfriend's punch was the second.
"I'm just glad he'll be okay, at last," I said.
My father replied, "Me too." His eyes were strictly on the road as he drove me home from the airport. "It's admirable of you to give him a second chance. Alcoholism isn't easy to conquer. When you love somebody, you give second chances."
My brain seized upon this as a Good Thing. Yes, it is admirable! It's beautiful, it's a testament to our love, it shows how much I care. I'm so glad my father supports me.
Six years later, I'm at a bar in Brooklyn with one of my closest friends, and somehow, despite both of us being single and child-free, the conversation turns toward parenting. I tell him that he's going to raise the biggest daddy's girl ever. He laughs, then says I'm probably right, and that her future boyfriends would hate him. "But they'll know never to lay a hand on her," he says, then looks at me with a cautious expression. "What did your father say when you told him about your ex?"
It wasn't until my friend's arms were around me and I felt tears were on my chin that I realized my response to what my father had said. The man who was supposed to protect me didn't.
My father loves me, I know, and if he'd known that this wasn't a second chance, but a third, fourth, fifth, twelfth, his response would have been different. My parents raised me to be autonomous: I was proud of them, of me, when I didn't think twice about moving across the country to start my career the day I graduated from college. My father's confidence in my choice to stay with my boyfriend was his way of signaling his confidence in me. I was strong enough, smart enough, to be okay. He trusted me.
But oh, how I wanted my father's anger.
It's healthy to not expect or need a man to protect you; it's the most basic way I live my feminism. But my wishes for independence didn't only stem from knowing it was a smart way to live. I was chubby growing up, and I chalked it up to being "big-boned." I made the simplistic connection early on that because I was bigger than the boys, nobody would want to protect me from anything. Protection and need were for the small, cute girls, or the not-as-bright girls. Smart, not-small girls like me? We could take care of ourselves. I hadn't had my first kiss when I made this conclusion. I remember a flash of jealousy I felt in college, discussing the idea of man as protector with my roommate, who was petite. She said that men always wanted to protect her because of her size, and that it bothered her because she didn't need the protection. Trying to draw a neat parallel, I said that I was bothered that nobody ever wanted to protect me because of my size. I knew it was sophomoric reasoning, but I was pleased anyway that I was able to admit that there was a part of me that wanted to be protected.
This was part imagination, part real: I've never aroused a protective instinct in men, but it wasn't because of my size. During my adolescence, when I first shielded myself by believing that my size was the reason men didn't look after me in that way, I was a completely average height and weight. The real reason was that I didn't think anyone would protect me.
School counselor calls my parents to say that their daughter is clinically depressed? They let me decide if it was worth the weekly treks across town to go to the recommended support group. (I assured them wasn't, and then got a postcard from them from Italy, saying how proud they were of me that they could "believe" in me enough to go on their trip.) I go to them and ask for help with the ways I was toeing the line with an eating disorder? Here are the the treatment costs, Autumn, do you think it's worth it? They weren't implying that it wasn't worth it. If I'd said, Yes, I think I need this, they would have paid. But I wanted them to make that decision for me. The reason my disordered eating wasn't a full-blown eating disorder was because I didn't want to have an eating disorder, I wanted them to intervene. It was the classic cry for help. Did they ignore it? No, of course not, they love me. But they didn't intervene with my self-destruction.
This is all preferable to the extreme alternative. I don't want to be one of those people who can't make a move without her friends or other advisors; I am thankful that my judgment had to grow because I was forced to make decisions about my wellness. And it's not like I've walled off those friends or other advisors: I turn to people appropriately, I think, much of which is evident on this journal. I'm not left wildly damaged by their parenting style.
But oh, how I wanted their care.
Later, for other reasons, I turned away one man who did take care of me. It was the right decision. But that care felt wonderful. I've never said I wanted a man to take care of me. I might be saying it now.