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Same Parents, Different Outcomes
Children’s responses to trauma
My sister and I are 18 months apart in age. She is older. There is very little that we have in common. One important thing that we do share is the same dysfunctional upbringing.
Mom was stuck at home, with no income of her own. She was unhappy, and it was not unusual for my sister and I to find her sitting in a chair, crying. She was also self-centered, and would rather hold a grudge than work towards a compromise.
We didn’t suffer from physical neglect or abuse. She always had meals for us, she kept us and the house clean and safe. But, she wasn’t there for us emotionally. Any problems we brought up to her received the same answer: “Hey, I have problems, too.”
My Dad’s parenting style was, “It’s my way or the highway.” On the plus side, he did take time to talk to us, although talking took the form of lecturing. He encouraged us to think before acting, to try to solve problems on our own, and he emphasized the need for a good education. But, he was totally stuck in black-and-white thinking (“there ARE no shades of gray,” he would say), and if our solutions were different from his, we were simply wrong.
Our Dad believed that hard work built character. My sister and I had very little time to be children. Dad believed that 7-years-old was…
