Interesting Poll Cailyn, I've often wondered about this subject myself. I didn't participate in your poll though because I'm not sure how to answer it with the choices given. On the surface I would think I may have suffered physical and emotional abuse to an extent as a child, but from what I know of child abuse in my early days as a county peace officer, I don't think it measured up to what I have seen and I'm not sure I'm objective about my own experience.
Originally I was a very soft child and my feelings were easily hurt. My Mother and father had been divorced since I was an infant and my mother moved around a lot and was always involved with some boyfriend or other and over the years had 4 other children, all boys, my half brothers. I was the only one born out of wedlock and my father always maintained contact with me and provided for me above and beyond child support. When living near him I stayed with him on weekends and when living out of town or out of state, he provided plane or bus tickets so that I could spend summers with him. He had been 45 years old when I was born and I was his only child and he loved me very much and cared for me and provided me with anything I needed or wanted within reason.
My Mother, who basically tolerated my presense because of the money my father provided her, (he basically supported her) for my keep was a totally different story. She was a full time Party type Girl with a taste for violent, Macho Men. She spent little time with myself or my brothers and when she was entertaining a boyfriend, we were not allowed in the house and had to fend for ourselves on the streets.
My brothers did ok in this, but myself, the oldest, was often pushed around and taken advantage of. At times, I would get chased home by other boys or come home with my clothing torn and bruised up or bleeding and I had a tendancy to cry a lot about such things, which would make my mother furious. She insisted I stand firm and defend myself and was insulted that one of her sons would run or cry when the going got tough. She would often beat me severely for coming home like this and insisted I not move around, try to get away or cry when she did.
She had one of her boyfriends, a golden glove type, teach me the basics of how to defend myself and he slapped me around a lot to get me used to dealing with pain and to show me that just because something hurt, didn't mean I was incapacitated and could still fight back. It was a painful process, but I learned enough to at least stand my ground in the parks and playgrounds and in time I even began to enjoy a good "contest". As I got better at it and it became to much trouble, effort etc. for the bigger boys to prove superiority over me, they became less prone to picking on me. They found that even if able to put me down, I could never be made to actually give up.
The truth is, I was afraid to go home and tell mother I had been beaten or had worse, gave up or submitted to anyone, and I was afraid to not tell her as I was afraid of what she would do if I lied to her or she found out I didn't tell her, so by the time I got to high school, I would be more likely to die on my feet before losing any kind of fight. If overmatched by skills, Size or weight, I was using "rope a dope" many years before Ali. I would outlast them, since I was willing to be beaten to a pulp and still carry on in order to simply wear them out till I had a chance to take it to them. If I were to do otherwise, Mother would beat me far worse with broom handles, switches and once even a rawhide whip (Mule Skinner) my Grandfather had helped me make and taught me to use when I was 8. Nobody but my mother ever terrified me by then.
In my freshman year of school I ran away and made my way back to southern california to stay with my father, a totally different environment. I had a lot of problems adjusting to the new more reasonable environment as the boys were still pushy but nothing at all like the mining camp and construction crew sets I had grown up around and I had little or nothing to fear from these as the button down collar middle class white boys didn't impress me at all compaired to those I had grew up with.
I had always had a soft emotional nature, but had deeply surpressed it while growing up, but in the milder social culture of my fathers part of town, it returned somewhat and I learned to "switch" myself between two extreams almost instantly as was needed when the occassional problem arose.
Things got interesting from there on, but thats the background of childhood that kind of set the stage for how I developed in life.
While my mother was definately a very mean spirited person with whom I have had little or no contact with through most of my adult life, ( she was close to using a shotgun on me at the end of the 60's) I'm not sure how 'abusive" she was in relation to what a lot of other kids of that time and the cultural environments she was prone to hang out in were prone to. I know that she in no way considered herself abusive and would have said she was only teaching me to be a man by the standards of manhood of her people, but I know from my grandmother and grandfather, that they themselves didn't approve of her methods, and before Grandmother died, and Grandfather went back to Texas, they never allowed her to beat me in their presensance and even punished her for trying to do so.
By thier practice, children were basically unrestricted in their behavior, unless it represented a danger or threat to others, or themselves, and taught proper behavior by example. good behavior was praised and honored and bad behavior ment rejection and non inclusion. A child learned to behave properly or not be included in the rewards of tribal membership and participation. Children were in part, raised by the entire community with the parents having major responsibility and influence. Each was a part of the whole and the whole supported the part.
My mother never broke any of my bones, cut me bad enough to require stitches, denied me food or lodging or any of the things I would recognize as abuse. I recognize that to her, having a "sissy" son was a disgrace in the white world, though accepted in her own, and it aggrivated some of her live-in boyfriends, though she never allowed any of them to touch me or punish me in anyway, that right she always reserved for herself. and so to her, the beatings for such behavior were for my own good, and she did take me to countless therapy sessions as a child to work out why I was so unmale like in my nature, as she believed none of the spiritual teachings of her peoples traditions. She was totally sold into the White world and culture rather then integrated into it as were her parents.
Terri
