“It takes a village to raise a child” a proverb that means an entire community of people must provide for and interact positively with children. For those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment.
Our earliest impressions from our family structure shapes our character, they form our morals and set us on our path of growth throughout our lives. The people in our lives as babies and young children shape our perspective of the world, showing us what to expect. My definition of a family structure for the purpose here is as follows, Grandparents, Parents, Aunts/Uncles, siblings, cousins, and close friends of any persons included.
My Mother and Father would alienate our “household” from the family structure. Prior to Gommy passing away I have many wonderful memories of spending time at different aunt’s houses. One aunt had a swimming pool and I would find myself riding my bicycle to her house to swim and play. One of my other aunt’s lived close by as well and home schooled her children, there was a huge study with arts and crafts, and games, I loved it there and with the family . I would regularly go over there and spend time in the years leading up to Gommy’s passing. I assume there were struggles and tension between my mother and her sisters, many of my aunts have told me stories of my mother from before. Some wonderful stories of the awesome person she could be, but others dark and mean like the drink would make her. I never experienced any of the tension associated with my mothers behavior before my grandmothers passed away. Gommy would leave us in March of 1999 and Nanny would follow in early 2001. Those 2 years were filled with constant drama and with the death of the matriarchs, the family unit would implode.
The sisters would all fight, take sides and then disown each other. Every one of them would mend the relationship and the quarrel would be short lived, my guess “a normal family thing”. Well to bad I didn’t get a normal family. My mothers family would be black listed. My own cousins seeing me in public and treating me like trash because I was Cheryl’s son, them taking the sides of their parent in what ever struggle was being played out. Myself a 12 year old boy when Nanny died, left to defend himself against a adversary that was his own family. Having no direction in life I would find my own. As I grew up I would become wise to the ways of the world and not have any guidance in sorting it out, my family structure failed me and the end results fills these pages. I like to say I was raised by wolves and it’s not an overstatement. My mom and dad didn’t even have indoor bathroom facilities, a stand up shower and an outhouse was what their house offered for amenities, another of the reasons I lived with Gommy. When my family turned their backs on my mother, they inadvertently shunned me with her. I do not believe they knew the true consequence for there actions and with that I do not say this to cast blame on any person.
No one can be blamed for the decisions I made, I am accountable for my own choices. It is however easy to make bad choices when those are the only ones presented to you. A product of the environment that my parents created. My mothers drinking would lead to her stealing from and lying to her sisters, ultimately my father would get involved and his undying loyalty to my mother would lead to him defending her tooth and nail. The accuser could be holding evidence found with Cheryl and my dad would still defend my mother. This happened on multiple occasions with different sisters involved. The sisters however were not the only ones. Any person that graced my mothers presence may find the touch of Cheryl. She was manipulative with sticky fingers and every one knew this and turned their backs on her for it. I do not recall a relationship that my mother had that was not tarnished in this way. As my mother became worse this behavior would cost my father friendships and acquaintances. No one wanted to associate with my mother and my father didn’t care. The two of them, my father with his undying loyalty to her; and her with a twisted sense of reality, would withdraw our family from the family unit.
Once withdrawn from the family because of my parents actions I was left to my own devises, free to travel the world at will. No oversight, no rules, just a 12 year old kid getting into trouble. Redpoint was and still is a summer time vacation resort community. I would grow up in this resort based setting spending my time with those on vacation, people partying and doing drugs. Then there were the locals who lived there, most of who were lower class individuals, bikers and mechanics, car guys, construction workers. All of the locals knew who my dad was and I was always treated older because of my father allowing me to start working at a earlier age. The men around the community viewed me as more mature than the other kids of similar age and I was allowed to see things, be a part of things. Partaking in activities that were years beyond where I was supposed to be at. This is where my other education started to refine. With no oversight from my parents and no outside influence from my family, I was allowed to roam Redpoint freely. Like a wild animal out to pasture, Redpoint was that for me and oh how I would blossom there.
A life long education that started out with a need for survival, now I choose to use the experiences to shape a future and show hope that change is possible. Someone reading this may be stuck in a similar position or creating a similar position for their child.
No matter the reason for reading I would like to add this for your thoughts. It is critical that we invest our time into our children. These younger members of our communities need a strong supportive set of people to encourage them. A young mind requires so much attention for growth, as a child I was curious and wanted to know everything. I look back on those people that were impressionable of my life and see their interests within my own, not those of my immediate family. Cast out of my own family structure I built my own. Some of the people I found attention from were not the best choices. We see the same behavior in gang culture and the symptoms are similar. I became a product of the environment my parents created. Only they had the control to make the right choices on my behalf and chose not to.
We do recover….
From Redpoint to Recovery; The road less traveled 