Some thoughts on children.

Something happened this morning that brought up some of the issues I've been working through. Lalita had a hard day at work yesterday and didn't feel like talking about it. It seemed like she was demoralized and exhausted, so I didn't press her any further. She was still feeling low this morning, so I instinctively avoided her, worried that she'd yell at me or say something hurtful.

But she hasn't ever and would never treat me that way. She has been my friend for going on eight years and has never once lashed out at me with her emotions, even when there have been plenty of situations in which she could have.

The ride to work this morning, for me, felt taut with tension. Again, I was expecting something terrible to happen, but it didn't come. She told me that I was acting weird, and when I said that I was afraid that she'd be upset with me, she reminded me that I acted this way because of how I've been treated throughout my life leading up to when I moved here. Of course. It all made sense in that moment. The most frustrating part is that this isn't the first time this has happened, with Lalita and my other relationships. I always expect swift and decisive punishment. Bracing myself for retribution was a useful survival skill, but now it's a faulty program that needs to be overwritten with a long-needed update. I've got to get out of this mindset.

I've been to the psychologist twice this year and will have another session this Thursday. I really hope that my therapist is a good fit. The thought of having to tell the story of my whole life again to a different stranger just magnifies the exhaustion in my bones.

Here are some words from "Fire Maple Song" by Everclear on their first album, World of Noise, that inspired me to write this:

Turn away from the pain you don't want
Turn them down to avoid them when they call
Strange words of hurt a long, long time ago

I wish I could go back to a summertime

I knew more than twenty years ago

Lay between the sheets

Lie underneath the maple tree

Now I can't smile

Children are beautiful. If the evolution of our species prioritized their care to ensure the survival of the next generation--huge, round eyes, their smiles, innocence, and sweetness--you'd think that as a species, as all the different societies we arrange ourselves into, we'd try harder to actually care for them. Children haven't been corrupted by the evil in the world. They know hardly anything of capitalism, socialism, wars, religions, economics, climate change, politics, death, poverty, the self-serving nature of the superrich. There is no such fucking thing as a Christian child or a Muslim child. Child labor laws have existed for barely a century. Hillary Clinton approved African tin-horn dictators' employment of child soldiers. Those pictures of families all wearing "Make America Great Again" hats. And then those news stories about those parents who kept all their children chained to their beds for years. Their twenty-nine year old doesn't even weigh 100 pounds. Anti-bullying policies in schools are an extremely recent development. Where the fuck were they when I was a kid? And for all those who suffered before my time? Are we really this slow to react? 

It doesn't matter if kids are born into poverty or with silver spoons in their mouths--they didn't deserve the world adults fucked up before they were born. They didn't ask to be born, as Lalita often reminds me. It isn't their fault--the conditions of poverty were created by those who put the silver spoons into the mouths of their own kids. And then parents on both sides, because of their backgrounds or for no reason, load their children up with their problems.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had,

And add some extra, just for you.

I can already see it in how my sister treats her daughter. The cycle of emotional violence and authoritarianism always repeats itself when people don't or won't analyze themselves and then take steps to get better. This is a large part of why I refuse to help make children at this point in my life--

I'm just not ready to. I haven't sufficiently sorted through my own issues to where I wouldn't pass them down. 

Sometimes it gets so much

I feel like letting go

Sometimes it gets so hard

I feel like letting it go

Sometimes it gets so goddamn hard 

I feel like letting it all go

Working here at this school, I sometimes see through the cracks in some of my students' facades. I can see them shouldering the weight of their parents' expectations. Their judgment. I just look in their eyes and know. I want to hug them and tell them they're beautiful, intelligent, that they really are more okay than they think, more valuable than people have told them. I don't care how these kids look, whether they wear hand-me-downs or Air Jordans, how well they do in school, or even whether they're well-behaved (by the standards of our society) or "problem students"--they, just like anyone else, but especially because they're children, deserve to be loved. Are people really so wrapped up in themselves that they can't see this? I don't mean to make myself seem like I'm the only person who does (I'm definitely not). I'm just really frustrated.

I keep on having the same bad dream

And it makes me want to hurt all the people

Who have done this thing to you

When I see your face

I can see you smile

Read all about you in the New York Times

When I see your eyes

I can see your life

When I think about what happened

It just makes me crazy

This makes no sense to me, yeah

This eye for an eye thing

It has gone too far

I don't know anyone who does not hurt inside

I would like to believe that we can learn from this

And maybe some day

Make things right

Thinking about this, I realize that I owe a couple of students some apologies. Like my mom tried to apologize to me somewhat recently. It felt weird mostly because it took her years to do it. She offered to talk about it, but I turned her down. I just felt so much revulsion and resentment that I couldn't do it. My students don't deserve to have me lose my shit on them, especially not because my mom did it to me throughout the time I grew up. I will not take years to apologize to my students. The fact that I lived in a house where I thought that the conditions I faced were normal makes me frustrated beyond whatever efforts I could put towards describing it in words. The feeling of gritted teeth. Desperate searches for escape into sci-fi and video game worlds. Everclear songs.

I will never be safe

I will never be sane

I will always be weird inside

I will always be lame

Now that I'm a grown man

With a child of my own

I swear I'm not going to let her know

Of the pain I have known

Though my feelings absolutely resonate with that, I won't resign myself to that kind of thinking. I am taking steps every day to get better. I think about how I act to Lalita, my students, and myself.

I'm not ready to give up.