KRIS WRITES:

Jesse’s excellent response here has provided me with the motivation to finally put my personal thoughts and feelings into a reply. I believe my husband and I are prime examples of the destructive pattern he describes.

My husband grew up in a “Christian” home, in so much as the family attended church on a regular basis. His mother was involved in the music ministry, taught Sunday School; his father was a deacon, elder, and committee member. His parents were (are) well-respected in their church and community. Although his mother and father held mostly to traditional role models in the home, his father worked very long hours and spent very little time with his children. His mother did all of the child-rearing herself, which often left her tired, angry, and bitter.

My husband does not remember his mother ever sitting on the couch, reading to him. Because he attended public school, the home was not considered a place of learning, but a place to be kept neat, orderly, sterile. He spent a lot of time watching TV. Bad attitudes were tolerated as long as the “appearance” of compliance was upheld. Shame was used to modify behavior…”What would Mrs. Smith think of you if she knew…?” Appearances were everything. His home was not a warm, friendly haven, but a museum…seemingly attractive, but devoid of the messy stuff of life. Emotionally dead.

The home of my youth consisted of a distant, atheistic father and a “super-mom” mother, both of whom worked full-time to finance our “comfortable life.” I was left behind each day while my mother went out to fulfill her goals and ambitions. She was a nurse. If there’s one thing about nurses, at least the ones of my mom’s era, is that they are a “sisterhood.” They form tight, lifelong friendships. So, while I’m sure my parents would’ve argued that my mom “had to” work…I believe she truly loved not only the job, but the social interaction and friendships she maintained there.

If I had to summarize my childhood in one word it would be this…loneliness. My grandmother cared for me until I started kindergarten at age four, at which time I went to stay at a woman’s home who lived near the school. She would walk me there, and I cried every day when she dropped me off. I still remember sitting on a staircase, crying all alone. At 42, I can still remember that feeling.

My mother continued to work and I stayed at that sitter’s home until I was about 12 years old, when I was in danger of being molested by her son. Then I was allowed to stay home after school by I took piano lessons. My father was supposed to pick me up, but was habitually late. One day, after my lesson concluded and I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for him, I needed to use the bathroom. My instructor, who was admittedly a bit strange, would not let me back into her apartment to use her restroom. So, I stood there alone on the sidewalk, painfully waiting for him. I remember feeling so humiliated and unloved. I was crying when he finally arrived. It was all I could do not to soil myself.

Middle school was a terrifying place for me. I was often bullied, and actually beaten by a few girls once. I begged to stay home…hated, hated, hated that place! But, back to school I had to go. I really don’t know what possessed my parents to keep me there, except their emotional disconnect from me as a human with actual feelings and their own refusal to sacrifice self. As I matured, the disconnect only got worse and it’s no wonder that my life went on to include promiscuity, premarital sex, and abortion. My parents’ marriage eventually ended in divorce due to my father’s adultery and refusal to reconcile. He left my mother one week before I graduated high school.

To this day, I don’t think either one of them see any correlation between their behavior and mine. Let me clarify that I take full responsibility for my sinful actions before God, and praise Him, I’m forgiven! I am grateful to Mrs. Wood for her exemplary job of exposing the theoretical harm that poor parenting does. Although unpleasant, to be sure, I share my story because I don’t recall many personal stories from those who have lived through this cycle of absentee parenting.

HOWEVER, by God’s infinite grace, my husband and I are doing everything humanly possible to stop the evil cycle Jesse so eloquently described. Our lifestyle is radically different from what we both knew as “normal.” It isn’t easy. We are attempting something that we’ve never seen done or experienced personally. Raising morally grounded children in this age of relativism is challenging enough when you have a good foundation and support system. Many of us do not.

In our family, my husband is the primary provider. I have worked part-time when necessary to supplement our income by teaching sewing classes, but my main responsibility is homeschooling our 4 children, ages 3 to 15. And, God blessed us this past year as we’ve built a new home and had our children work alongside us whenever possible. We do not take vacations or drive new cars. I purchase staples in bulk and cook almost everything from scratch. We do not go to the mall. We cannot afford music lessons. The clothes I do not make for myself are purchased at the thrift store. We work very hard to maintain our “comfortable life.” But, it is comfort of a different sort. We have traded the luxury of money for the luxury of time. THAT is a sacrifice I’m willing to make. 

And, while I cannot yet say that I am thankful for my trials, I do not believe God allows us to suffer in vain. We need to shout from the rooftops, “Stop the insanity!” And point those who will listen to a better way.

                                          — Comments —

Karen I. writes:

I am glad Kris shared this story. She is just a couple of years older than I am and daycare as we know it today did not exist in most areas, but it did not stop our mothers from leaving us anywhere they could. Like Kris, I was more or less left to fend for myself at the age of 12, with the added burden of younger siblings to babysit, and a home to clean after school. I know for sure children are being left in similar situations every day all over the country as most daycares do not accept children past the age of 12, sometimes 11. Children of 12 or even 14 are not ready for that responsibility and they will often get themselves into all kinds of trouble after school. Younger children do not respect or listen to older siblings in that situation, but older siblings are unfairly held accountable when something goes wrong. There is severe sibling rivalry among children left home as they fight for what little time and affection the parents can give when they finally come home at the end of the day. Children left home alone also tend to get scared of noises and things like that. I remember leaving all the lights on when it started to get dark in the winter. Every light in the home would be on because I was scared and my father would yell about the electric bill when he got home, never questioning why I was doing that. I was so used to putting on a brave front for my busy, hard-working parents, I probably would have lied and said I forgot to turn them off anyway. 

I’ve written before about the cute lingo used by working mothers and their supporters to sugarcoat what they are doing. I was what they called a “latchkey kid.” Doesn’t that sound so cute compared to “terrified, lonely and exhausted 12 year old”?

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