Jack Jones shares a painful insight into the unintended consequences of poor parenting, neglect in child development, abuse, dysfunctional families and the absence of community.
The beginning:
This is part one of a multi-part series focused on boys child development, parenting, absent fathers, dysfunctional family, sibling rivalry, roles, expectations and patriarchy to name a few. The successive and subsequent submissions will cover the unintended consequences, delayed grief, spiritual battles, anxiety, trauma, depression, PTSD and mental, emotional health.
We were three. My twin, elder brother and I. The eldest was three years our senior. I was the youngest and the second born. Emanating from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. A traditional working-class family. Basic education and manual occupations. Our parents were descendant’s of broken families, absent fathers and mothers whom were incapable of being mothers. Emotionally redundant. Avoiding or neglecting the task of motherhood. Daily living based on worry, fear and anxiety. Difficulty in coping with day-day life.
From too an early age we were left to our own devices. Walking ourselves to school, making our own breakfast and drinks. No one around to welcome and greet or formal departure. The responsibility of adulthood was upon us in our formative years. Responsible for punctuality, dress and grooming, social awareness, personal discipline, abiding and obeying the nuances of life without instruction or exhortation. Also, taking oneself to the dentist and barbers. Mum was cold and distant, dad was aloof, unattached and closed off. Uninterested and emotionally defunct. He never did give eye contact. We were unseen. Blanking, ignoring and revealing the back of his head. He wouldn’t turn around when you entered the house.
Whenever he had to go out, he’d just go and sit in the car and wait for mum. There was no good-bye, we’re leaving now, he’d just walk off.
The two brothers would adapt and cope better than I. Being more self confident, socially astute they would adjust albeit being thrown in at the deep end. I didn’t cope. Mute, excruciatingly shy, reserved, hidden, and introverted. Fear and anxiety ruled. Unaware at this age what it was, but accepted it as normal. Living life in my head, paranoid and perplexed.
This was the nineteen seventies. There was no identification of abuse then, not in the spiritual emotional sense. You had a teacher for thirty children and he or she taught. Teaching then, was predicated on punitive as opposed to pedagogical approach. Right or wrong. Good or bad. An absence of praise, encouragement or edification. Oppressive, ungracious and legalistic.
“Must do better!,” was the mantra!
Imbued by guilt.
“Do you want to be like this or do you want to be like that?,” trotted out weekly.
That was it. Parentally, there was an absence of consolation, reassurance, listening and support. Frequently, we’d be dismissed, deferred and made to feel a burden and nuisance. We were unloved. Fed, watered and kept. I was the weakest, feeble and vulnerable between us all. Referred to “orphaned runt,” in the eBook, God, The Devil, And I. The other two would banish, ostracise, quell me out, leave me bereft and go and do their own thing. Taking and destroying my possessions which I had such an affinity. The attachment to “things”. Possessions were part of me. But were routinely taken, broken, damaged or given away. Soul destroying experiences.
Mum used to discard and disparage anything we had made at school. Paintings and drawings were regularly binned. Creations, writing and personal achievements would be overlooked and glossed over. Littering the place and making it untidy. They would often disappear, never to be seen again.
A God-given instinct alerted me in spite of the formative, developmental years that all was not well. An innate supernatural ability to discern, observe, analyse and conclude. Primal instincts. A judicious sense of justice and righteousness. It was obvious what was happening. We were too damn young. Little more than babies. The unintended consequences were that my twin would become violent. Physically, mentally and emotionally abusive. Primarily directed at me. He had never accepted the notion of being one part of two. My being alive was distorting, compromising and corrupting is very existence. He would separate, detach and make his own way. A longing and desire to recreate a substitute family elsewhere. Paul had similar ideas. Befriending and forming connections with strangers who would become accomplices, acquaintances and allies. But denying is own blood and biological connections. They would all ultimately look outwards to the world. Similarly to a hub and spoke model or starfish. The only exception being I didn’t have the wherewithal to adjust. Forsaken at the centre, socially inept, mute, mentally and emotionally incapacitated. My cries for assistance, support and help were churlishly denied, ridiculed and mocked.
This was the bedrock and foundation of my early life. A harbinger to repel, react and counter attack. As is invariably the case with human psychology and behaviour. One often over extends to the extreme. The instinctive reaction is to gravitate and focus towards polarity. The aggregation of the aforementioned would translate to an unrealistic aspiration to superiority and seniority. To be a “significant somebody”. To be the best. Number one. The biggest, fastest, luxurious car on the street. The biggest, best house with opulent décor in the area. Vying the allure of status, respect and acceptability.
Pride and arrogance would take root. Two self destructive spiritual concepts. A self defence mechanism and antidote to the shame, guilt, grief, neglect, despair and pain one was harbouring. Although mute, a stealthily, surreptitious bad attitude existed, subdued but prevalent.
The way my persona and individuality would respond to these internal and environmental conflicts was to suppress, subdue and repress. Override. Wilfully opt to deny, rebuke and refute. A temporary self medicating human attempt to fix a given problem. But would have far reaching consequences further on.
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