Family: what is it good for

I have had more opportunities than I would have liked to ask for these past couple weeks to observe my newer family's dynamics. A family that comes together to lavish approval on the unwed mother, pretending they have not damned her behind her back. A family that brings the behind doors aggression into the light of day at seemingly random occasions. Throwing around accusations of attempted murder because of hurt pride, and telling the firstborn his life is over without the military. No matter that he's the only one that has even tried for something like a dream. Fuck dreams, something even remotely like stability. This is what the patriarch of the family claims to hold above all else, and yet he disowns one at the slightest provocation and then turns around with beaming face to the name of "grandpa". Ah well, it is a story too old and too overtold to dwell on for long here.

Because there is the matter of how this all began. How a man like Tom's father has not just one accidental child, but keeps having them and pawning them off on women made permanent babysitters. I watched him last weekend looking around with so much pride with the obvious thought in his head, "well, it all worked out in the end didn't it?" Now let me say, being happily married to one of his products, it is hard for me not to agree with him on many fronts. I am incredibly grateful that he was so incredibly dumb and selfish. Not only a great partner for me, but two unbelievable women for mothers in law. Not too bad. That said, I have also been watching the three sons in our house this past week and I wonder how great it all did work out. He has left deep gashes on these psyches that have distorted and contorted the personalities of these three in very different, yet very heartbreaking ways. Dalton is the simplest example, bearing nearly perfect imprints of his father's personality. Exploding almost randomly and assuming that what feels like embarrassment is actually just righteous rage. He demeans those around him (I am currently exempt, though I have no doubt my time will run out one of these days) one moment, and then is the most likeable kid the next. Jordan, on the other hand, has a bizarre mixture of spoiled laziness and remnants of harsh mistreatment. He is both neglected and abused while somehow given so many of the objects he wants that he gets the worst of all worlds. I have yet to see him finding balance within himself. He doesn't have the heart to finish a task or get himself out of his various pits for reasons that have both to do with his ridiculous father and for the lack of a strong mentor and guide. He is alone and he is too stimulated by the video games and cartoons that are left to raise him for him to even notice. Tom is almost crippled by incessant self-questioning ("am I my father", "have I fucked my life up", "am I worth it..." etc.). He was raised to be the ultimate progeny but was also made to feel utterly worthless wherever he deviated. He has internalized the faults of his father and the screams of his father. The bruises of his childhood are still visible on his inscape that is beautified despite the ravaging. Almost because of the scars.

But who can separate these complexities? Who can say what these children would be without their father? All I can say for sure is whatever there is to be proud of in these three (and there is so much), their father cannot attribute to himself. The look of pride I saw on his face was devastation to me. How dare such a fool allow himself to take claim of what these children have made of themselves. The fact that they have escaped utter self-destruction (some better than others) has only to do with their ability to take the ash of mistaken parentage and form for themselves what they could to survive. May they continue and may he wipe the smug satisfaction from his undeserving face.