On Parenting My Parents When I Was a Child: Two Book Ends

As they are both no longer physically here, and I'm not doing much of anything these days thanks to the pandemic, this leaves me with plenty of time to just ruminate, and connect what dots I am able to, and just try to understand my trauma, and be in awe of the fact that I survived. I have a couplet of stories wherein I advocated for my parents, something neither of them ever did for me at a time in my life when it was truly necessary for my development:

Age 4-5

My mother's verbally abusive father was at our home. My dad and my grandfather both were outside doing yard work or some household repair. My grandfather was his usual verbally abusive, emotionally destructive self, verbally harassing my dad. All I knew at the time was he was being really mean to my dad. So, in response, I picked up the garden hose, and gave the old man a good dousing with some icy cold well water. This was long before RA had crippled him up, and he made chase after me, stopping once he got to our dining table, my hiding spot, a place he could not reach me. Dripping wet and seething with anger, he wanted my dad to punish me, and all dad did was shrug his shoulders and say, "tough luck, pops."

Age 12

At a family gathering at the home of dad's aunt (his mom's sister), my dad's mother decided (now that she had an audience) she was going to humiliate my mother for being fat. "I'll never understand how anyone could make love to a fat woman!" Which of course brought all conversation to a full stop. And not one of the adults in attendance, NOT EVEN MY DAD, interceded on mom's behalf. I gave it a moment, and then replied, "Well, grandma, I don't see anyone beating a path to YOUR door to make love to YOU." And much like in the first story, dad's mother asked if he was going to discipline me. Dad just shrugged his shoulders and say, "Why should I? She said the truth."

The parallels between the two stories is evenly balanced, and a consistent theme throughout my life--parenting my parents. And now, here I am in my 50s, and I need to parent MYSELF.