Sometimes It Gets Too Heavy

Hard on my oldest tonight. Too hard on him. He made a stupid mistake, and it cost (in actual dollars) us a chunk of our weekly budget. He trusts, and I hate to even think of pushing him towards mistrust, but he trusts too easily, too openly.

I just want him to know how to protect himself.

I hate that we live in a world where I have to choose some degree, some melange, of innocence killing skepticism and brutal life lessons. He trusted, and some kids stole his fundraiser money. He left it out like easy pickings. Vultures picked it, and didn't look back. He didn't want us to know he fucked up. He wanted us proud, not disappointed.

So, I get a call from a teacher, instead of hearing it from him.

He has such goodness. He didn't lie. He chose silence so he wouldn't lie. And I took too long to see that, lecturing, raising my voice, berating him him instead about growing up, about getting tough - as if I can temper his sweetness without ruining his capacious generosity.

Me, fucking jaded - I come from hard lessons, from state homes and the foster system bounce, from childhood violence, and much, much worse. "Ward of the state," the way I endured it, sharpens your instincts or makes of you the sort of victim predators single out.

Makes you capable of shit you don't want to admit in the light of day.

I learned young to offset size with dexterity and a fierce, cultivated dangerousness. A bully will stop fucking with the scrawny kid if the scrawny kid has no compunction against jamming a number two pencil into his tormentor's forehead, or going all crazy and turning his face into bruised flesh tapioca.

I come from violence, so much of it.

An explanation for my commitment to political non-violence?

Sometimes, I don't know. Sometimes, as I mentioned early, I really do understand the satiation of retribution.

We raised our kids right. We overcame ourselves, sublimating isolation and lovelessness to bring up two boys who exceed their parents.

I'll tell you a story, taking no credit for the outcome: my youngest transferred schools mid-year. Introverted and sure of his own self, he has a hard time subsuming himself to social dynamics, especially on the playground. He plays alone, mostly happily but sometimes with a crushing sadness. Becoming the new kid didn't make it easier, for shit sure.

But, against our worries and our sad expectations, he came home talking of a friend. Happy, really happy. Another new kid, newly transferred. Two months we heard of their exploits, their secret name for a stingy teacher, of how they traded lunches, and remembered snacks for each other. Finally, outside school one day, I met this perfect sounding friend.

A black boy. Which doesn't matter, of course.

So, the point?

Not once, not ever, not for a single instance did it ever occur to our son to mention that his best friend was black. We heard dozens of reports about what they discussed, about their playground games, about how they each take an extra snack to school, in case the other forgets. And at no point did he think it important to tell us about the color of his best friend's flesh.

I could have wept at the awesomeness of it, that small, human victory. Ah, fuck it. I did get a little misty.

I remember growing up. Skin color, gender roles, rank, class - that shit really fucking mattered. A childhood friend, some time shortly after graduation, tattooed a swastika, an iron cross and a celtic cross on his body. He joined up with skins. He would rant the most racist shit, heading south to stomp in Boston, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester and Roxbury.

T's father was black. T was black, light skinned enough to become something of a totem for the skins, but a black man nonetheless, nappy fro floating in the wind. Until he shaved it off.

Until he embraced self hatred so deeply that he became a neo-Nazi.

What kind of social pressures do you have to endure daily to see your own skin, your own gender, your own sexuality, your own persona as a parasite on your chance at happiness?

We swore we'd raise our kids better than that. Mostly, we've succeeded - and they've exceeded us. My father in law, approaching triple digits, can say the most reprehensible shit. Climbing mountains into his eighties, handy with every tool in the Yankee's kit, generous to his neighbors, loyal to his wife, a working man provider. A foul mouthed throwback to attitudes and beliefs which have no place in our lives. My own mother...well, some other day. I have a few tattoos to cover childhood wounds, and I still know that she loved us in her own way, not that it makes any of it any better.

We did a little better than our parents.

But our kids have truly exceeded us, and I know the rightness of it.

Then, I look out the window and I know what shit fuck world they'll inherit and sometimes it's really fucking difficult to resist making them hard men, survivors, able and capable operators, men who will right wrongs and deal retribution to those who deserve it.

But damn - I don't want them to resemble their father. I don't want them growing up into the shape of me.

Unreal fates and uncaring gods, no.

Sometimes it just gets so heavy.