no words

got into it with my sister-in-law tonight. Been going over for 'dinner' once a week (or so) for the last, oh, maybe 6 months? Wanted to be more involved in my nieces' lives, want them to have an aunt actively involved with them, unlike my own aunts. Didn't want them to grow up feeling like nobody cared, nobody was paying attention.

Well, tonight my 'meddling' apparently crossed SIL's line, or in any case she decided to stop putting up with it.

See, this is the problem: American parents think their children are their own personal property, to do with as they wish. And the whole social structure is set up to support that idea: Interference in 'domestic' matters is largely frowned on; people are expected to solve their own problems.

Except that in the case of children, it's like a battle between two unmatched sides, and the children always LOSE.

I've been reading about this stuff for years and years now, trying to sort out my own stuff, trying to figure out how to overcome the internal demons that came from own battles with my parents: One who beat me down (verbally and emotionally), and the other who continually abandoned me and left me to deal with my pain, grief, fear and anger alone, always alone.

And that's what I see them doing with the middle niece: My sister-in-law gets her completely backed into a corner, it's all about winning with her, about breaking her spirit, about beating her into submission.

The problem is, there's always one kid who can't take it. One kid who doesn't become 'tough' in response to the beatings (verbal), but who instead becomes black and blue, and becomes 'the victim'.

Which in our country is a position of shame. So, on top of already feeling shamed beyond belief (tonight middle niece, who is only five, finally broke down in tears and was sobbing. SIL just sat there, unmoved, dispassionate. I couldn't believe it. So I started to get up to go to niece, to pick her up and comfort her; SIL said No, _____, don't do that. All this over a single piece of asparagus that middle niece wouldn't eat. And this is a girl who has continual stomach troubles and is still wetting her bed; and the parents make no connection between the two. STUPID FUCKING PARENTS!!!!!!!!! And this is considered fucking NORMAL in this country. Jesus fucking christ, are we in the fucking DARK AGES here, or what??? Can we get out the fucking torture devices while we're at it?), now this little one has the additional shame of being banished, shunned, shut off from the family. It's just wrong, in every possible way imaginable. Nothing matters more than treating these children (and ALL humans) with fucking RESPECT.

I'm sure this is not making any sense at all, but I still have to get it out. I WILL NOT be party to watching my nieces go through the shit I grew up with, I just simply won't do it.

The problem is that parents learn bad coping methods in times of stress or other kinds of life trauma, and those patterns get set into the family 'lexicon', for want of a better word.

So then the pattern gets passed on down to the next generation, even though the family's circumstances may have changed drastically - the blue collar family is now white; the parents who lived crammed into a one-room dwelling have children who now live in comfortable middle-class luxury.

Googling again to find out if there are others who think the way I do, found this: The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander. In my quick perusal of the pages that came up as relevant to my search string ("parents use humiliation to control children"), this leapt out at me (bold mine):

Power in a brick-wall family equals control, and all of it comes from the top. It can be a great training ground for the child who would become a bully or the proving ground for the bullied child to affirm her own lack of worth, lack of ability, and lack of personal resources to fend off the bully.

Bingo. My middle niece is learning to be the victim from how she is treated by her own fricking mother. And rather than SIL (or brother) having the clarity to recognize this simple cause and effect equation, my niece is being further shamed for being 'weak', for needing help in standing up against this tyrant.

For tyrant she is. Her word is law; there is no appeal. No court in which my small niece may argue her case and have her side of the story heard.

No, my sister-in-law is the absolute ruler, the monarch of all she surveys, and worst of all, she fucking gets away with it.

But not with me.

The sad thing is, when SIL and I got into it, the littlest one (she's 3 1/2) came up to me and put her arm around me and said, It'll be ok, Auntie ______.

And in retrospect I'm thinking maybe the fighting between adults is frightening to her - it may be that she sees her world becoming unsafe, and wants us to mend things so her world becomes safe again? Or perhaps because SIL and brother hide their conflicts from the children (which is something I don't believe in, by the way), she's not used to seeing it.

In either case, I felt bad. But I felt it was necessary to bring it out in the open, to rip away the curtain (behind which the Wizard hides) and show the ugliness for what it is. It may cost me what little relationship I have with SIL, and possibly my brother; so be it. I will not compromise on this one. This is where I draw the line.

And I realize that if I am shut out of that family and am unable to have contact with my nieces I can't do them any good; but if I can only see them at the cost of having to remain silent on the principles I hold most dear, that is a compromise I WILL NOT MAKE.