Seven years old, think you run this house by yourself?
N****, you gon' fear me if you don't fear no one else
A few months ago, someone posted a question online: when you think of your childhood, what emotion comes to mind?
It took a nanosecond - and no conscious effort - and one word came to mind.
Fear.
It didn’t need to be that way.
That homework better be finished, I beat yo' ass
Yo' teachers better not be bitching 'bout you in class
That pizza better not be wasted, you eat it all
Looking back, I spent my childhood walking on eggshells. Or maybe a tightrope. I spent most days worried about making a mistake. I worried about missing even one question on a test. I worried about failing. I worried about not living up to expectations. I worried about worrying.
I was expected to be perfect. I was expected to be perfect because my mother was terrified of upsetting my father, for fear he would leave her. To her, the worst possible fate was divorce.
So her fear became my fear. I, too, feared that she would beat my ass - literally, yes - but mostly figuratively. Emotionally.
And that was wrong.
But to a little kid, it was all-encompassing.
As I think about it now, that fear seems so trivial.
It’s not like I grew up in a war zone. I grew up in the suburbs.
I see true fear - legitimate fear - when I watch TV coverage of the Russian attacks on Ukraine. I see kids whose entire worlds are gone. With only 20 minutes’ notice in many cases, families were forced to grab what they could and run.
Some didn’t make it. They couldn’t outrun the Russian bombs - bombs dropped on kindergartens and houses and maternity and children’s hospitals.
We are told that children are resilient - that they will make it through their fear and tragedy and emerge unscathed.
Why, then, are so many of us former children in therapy?