What Role Did Grandparents Play In My Life
She told me of how she was molested by both of her brothers and her father for years before she was old enough to leave home and when she left she said she never saw them again.
D. What role did your grandparents play in your life? The only grandparent I ever had in my life was the mother of my step-father, Mrs. Eschol P. Hitch. She came to live with us when I was around twelve. She was 81 years old and had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. When she came to live with us they wanted her and I to share my bedroom. I gave her my room, got some scape wood and built a make-shift room in the attic for myself. She died in my bed, in my bedroom less than a year later, a virtual stranger to me.
E. Did your family have a problem (mental illness, unemployment, …show more content…
or poverty) or special circumstance (immigration, adoption, divorce)? How was that understood in your family? As a young child and as a young adult the families I lived in lived in a world of denial and delusion. Dysfunction ran rampant and was accepted as the norm. The dysfunction and denial continued in my step family. When I confided in my mother about my step-father fondling me and graphically describing what he expected of me when I turned eighteen she said to me, “William would never do that.” Even when she saw him doing it she would just turn away or go into her bedroom and shut the door. The special circumstance here resides in the fact that my step-father did not consider me his daughter or even my mother’s “real” daughter, but just another female who was fair game at the age of eighteen.
F. What rules and expectations were in place for boys and girls? What form of discipline was used in your family most often? Was the discipline the same for boys and girls
What form of discipline was used in your family most often? According to the New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary (1989), discipline is defined as strict control to enforce obedience. In my adoptive family of origin, the form of discipline most often used was corporal punishment. In my blended family of origin, I only remember my step-father raising his voice one time and I don’t recall being disciplined at all. As a child, in my adoptive family, I was severely beaten, dragged, kicked, thrown…and many nights and days found myself locked in my bedroom which would be dead-bolted from the outside, by my father. I remember countless nights when I would sit at the dinner table unable to finish everything on my plate as my father would bombard me with his ranting and raving, knock my small body off the chair and then scream at me to get back in my chair at the table and finish my dinner. I can still feel the weight of his hand as he would press my face into the food on my plate, the sensation of gasping for air is still fresh in my memory. There I would sit until I fell asleep, often with my head in my plate of food, only to be awoken as he dragged me by my hair and then threw me and my food into the bedroom as he slammed the door shut and threw the dead-bolt. My hair, face matted with food and wet with my own urine, I would fall asleep. When the dead-bolt slid open in the morning I would find myself being dragged to the toilet, my clothes being ripped off as my father screamed at me for not using the toilet.
G. Who participated in the decision-making process? In my adoptive family of origin James, my father, was the dictator. In the other family of origin my mom seemed to be in charge of the decisions. My step-father would always just say “yes mam, no mam,” he spoke to my mom like he spoke to his mom when she had lived with us. I don’t remember seeing much of the decision making process though. I honestly don’t know how they made decisions. I just did what I was told to do.
H.
What types of rewards were given for family and individual successes?
I. Describe what you hope may be the same or different in your future family compared to your family of origin.
I was married at the age of twenty-five, had three children and found myself and my children in a family that almost mirrored the dysfunctional family that I had been brought up in. The only difference was that my husband, Randolph Read drove a long-haul truck for a living and was seldom home.
FAMILY SUPPORT SYSTEMS
A. What kind of environmental strengths and resources did your family use? As a child the forest was my environmental resource that provided sanctuary and the lake was a place where I could feel free. After my father abandon the family my mother found work as a maid in several of the motels and we would often stay overnight when she had to watch the front desk. The fact that Lake Tahoe, at that time, had a thriving tourism industry meant that work was readily available.
B. How was stress handled in your family? Can you identify patterns or attitudes associated with stress? Were they apparent in more than one generation? How do you handle stress?
C. Whom did your family turn to for help when support was
needed? I honestly do not know who our family turned to for help when support was needed. There was no extended family (at least none that the family had contact with). Our family did not attend church or belong to any social groups.
D. Who in the family did you turn to for help? Who helped you solve problems? I turned to my mother for help
E. What obstacles (internal and external to your family) prevented access to environmental resources? Many internal obstacles prevented the families of origin from accessing the external resources in their environments. Among these were the dysfunctional patterns within the families which often created isolation from those resources. Another obstacle I can see looking back was lack of information of the environmental resources available.
F. What resources were needed or required that were lacking in the environment? Looking back the biggest resource lacking in my environment that was so desperately need was Child Protective Services. I believe the agency existed but they never became involved with our family. The community awareness surrounding child abuse that exists now was not so in the 1960’s and 70’s. When my mother told the doctor that I had had another accident he did not question what she said and if he did he did nothing about it. Teacher were not as educated in the signs to look for or required to attend trainings to educate themselves on such issues.
G. What were your family strengths?
D. What role did your grandparents play in your life? The only grandparent I ever had in my life was the mother of my step-father, Mrs. Eschol P. Hitch. She came to live with us when I was around twelve. She was 81 years old and had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. When she came to live with us they wanted her and I to share my bedroom. I gave her my room, got some scape wood and built a make-shift room in the attic for myself. She died in my bed, in my bedroom less than a year later, a virtual stranger to me.
E. Did your family have a problem (mental illness, unemployment, …show more content…
or poverty) or special circumstance (immigration, adoption, divorce)? How was that understood in your family? As a young child and as a young adult the families I lived in lived in a world of denial and delusion. Dysfunction ran rampant and was accepted as the norm. The dysfunction and denial continued in my step family. When I confided in my mother about my step-father fondling me and graphically describing what he expected of me when I turned eighteen she said to me, “William would never do that.” Even when she saw him doing it she would just turn away or go into her bedroom and shut the door. The special circumstance here resides in the fact that my step-father did not consider me his daughter or even my mother’s “real” daughter, but just another female who was fair game at the age of eighteen.
F. What rules and expectations were in place for boys and girls? What form of discipline was used in your family most often? Was the discipline the same for boys and girls
What form of discipline was used in your family most often? According to the New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary (1989), discipline is defined as strict control to enforce obedience. In my adoptive family of origin, the form of discipline most often used was corporal punishment. In my blended family of origin, I only remember my step-father raising his voice one time and I don’t recall being disciplined at all. As a child, in my adoptive family, I was severely beaten, dragged, kicked, thrown…and many nights and days found myself locked in my bedroom which would be dead-bolted from the outside, by my father. I remember countless nights when I would sit at the dinner table unable to finish everything on my plate as my father would bombard me with his ranting and raving, knock my small body off the chair and then scream at me to get back in my chair at the table and finish my dinner. I can still feel the weight of his hand as he would press my face into the food on my plate, the sensation of gasping for air is still fresh in my memory. There I would sit until I fell asleep, often with my head in my plate of food, only to be awoken as he dragged me by my hair and then threw me and my food into the bedroom as he slammed the door shut and threw the dead-bolt. My hair, face matted with food and wet with my own urine, I would fall asleep. When the dead-bolt slid open in the morning I would find myself being dragged to the toilet, my clothes being ripped off as my father screamed at me for not using the toilet.
G. Who participated in the decision-making process? In my adoptive family of origin James, my father, was the dictator. In the other family of origin my mom seemed to be in charge of the decisions. My step-father would always just say “yes mam, no mam,” he spoke to my mom like he spoke to his mom when she had lived with us. I don’t remember seeing much of the decision making process though. I honestly don’t know how they made decisions. I just did what I was told to do.
H.
What types of rewards were given for family and individual successes?
I. Describe what you hope may be the same or different in your future family compared to your family of origin.
I was married at the age of twenty-five, had three children and found myself and my children in a family that almost mirrored the dysfunctional family that I had been brought up in. The only difference was that my husband, Randolph Read drove a long-haul truck for a living and was seldom home.
FAMILY SUPPORT SYSTEMS
A. What kind of environmental strengths and resources did your family use? As a child the forest was my environmental resource that provided sanctuary and the lake was a place where I could feel free. After my father abandon the family my mother found work as a maid in several of the motels and we would often stay overnight when she had to watch the front desk. The fact that Lake Tahoe, at that time, had a thriving tourism industry meant that work was readily available.
B. How was stress handled in your family? Can you identify patterns or attitudes associated with stress? Were they apparent in more than one generation? How do you handle stress?
C. Whom did your family turn to for help when support was
needed? I honestly do not know who our family turned to for help when support was needed. There was no extended family (at least none that the family had contact with). Our family did not attend church or belong to any social groups.
D. Who in the family did you turn to for help? Who helped you solve problems? I turned to my mother for help
E. What obstacles (internal and external to your family) prevented access to environmental resources? Many internal obstacles prevented the families of origin from accessing the external resources in their environments. Among these were the dysfunctional patterns within the families which often created isolation from those resources. Another obstacle I can see looking back was lack of information of the environmental resources available.
F. What resources were needed or required that were lacking in the environment? Looking back the biggest resource lacking in my environment that was so desperately need was Child Protective Services. I believe the agency existed but they never became involved with our family. The community awareness surrounding child abuse that exists now was not so in the 1960’s and 70’s. When my mother told the doctor that I had had another accident he did not question what she said and if he did he did nothing about it. Teacher were not as educated in the signs to look for or required to attend trainings to educate themselves on such issues.
G. What were your family strengths?