Actually, if you want to see me with really green eyes, not just in a photograph, make me cry. Green against red is intense.
Mig commented on how cruel it was to make my mother cycle home for such a meagre lunch, and that maybe shutting her in a dark cupboard was seen as less unkind than hitting her. In fact it's true that my mother never mentioned that her stepmother hit her. But I think that the psychological bullying was intended to break her spirit, as they used to say, to make her give in and become malleable. Jane was more stubborn and more clever than her stepmother and wouldn't give in. Terrified as she was of that cupboard, she never showed it at the time, though the effects lasted all her life.
My father was the same. He never gave in over anything, once he'd made a stand, although he very rarely argued. There were a few childhood stories - the most pertinent one being the tale of the pudding fork. After his parents divorced, he often spent school holidays (having been sent to boarding school at the age of six) with his godparents, who were loving but quite strict. He'd never used a spoon and fork to eat his pudding, he was only a little boy, but he was required to. He just sat there. The spoon was taken away. He was told he'd sit there until he'd eaten his pudding with a fork. He just sat there. I don't know how long this lasted, but I suspect that they begged him to eat the damn pudding and he just sat there. I doubt he ever gave in. I don't know the end of that story, I just know that the consequence was that he never ate pudding with a spoon and fork in his life. He'd only use a fork, however inconvenient it was.
Mig commented on how cruel it was to make my mother cycle home for such a meagre lunch, and that maybe shutting her in a dark cupboard was seen as less unkind than hitting her. In fact it's true that my mother never mentioned that her stepmother hit her. But I think that the psychological bullying was intended to break her spirit, as they used to say, to make her give in and become malleable. Jane was more stubborn and more clever than her stepmother and wouldn't give in. Terrified as she was of that cupboard, she never showed it at the time, though the effects lasted all her life.
My father was the same. He never gave in over anything, once he'd made a stand, although he very rarely argued. There were a few childhood stories - the most pertinent one being the tale of the pudding fork. After his parents divorced, he often spent school holidays (having been sent to boarding school at the age of six) with his godparents, who were loving but quite strict. He'd never used a spoon and fork to eat his pudding, he was only a little boy, but he was required to. He just sat there. The spoon was taken away. He was told he'd sit there until he'd eaten his pudding with a fork. He just sat there. I don't know how long this lasted, but I suspect that they begged him to eat the damn pudding and he just sat there. I doubt he ever gave in. I don't know the end of that story, I just know that the consequence was that he never ate pudding with a spoon and fork in his life. He'd only use a fork, however inconvenient it was.
7 comments:
I'm beginning to think Larkin was quite right about parents....
Indeed - though it wasn't actually the parents. Both mothers and fathers were absent, though not through neglect.
Blimey Z but your parents had rotten childhoods. I feel quite sad for the children they were. Those kinds of experiences leave deeply etched marks.
I am glad your eye is healing so well.
I remember sitting in the dining hall at school when I was ten all afternoon because I wouldn't eat the cabbage.
In retrospect I should have put it all in my mouth and immediately sicked it up but I didn't think of that.
Thank you, Wendy.
Did you eat the cabbage, AQ?
No. Ugh.
I think I meant that cupboards caused less injury than physical violence rather than being less unkind. Any attempt to frighten a child into submission (by adults anyway) is unkind. Actually when I read that post I felt quite sad for your Mother.
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