Welcome to Not Fit for the Feed, confessions and conversations about parenting through the hard stuff. I'm Brettne Shootman. I'm not a therapist or an expert on parenting. I've just survived a lot of things I didn't see coming, and it often felt like I was going through it alone. But here's what I've learned. When we release our fears and our pain out into the sunshine, instead of keeping them locked away, they lose their power over us, and we stop being alone in them. So pull up a chair, and let's get started. For this next episode, I'm going to take you back to my own childhood, to the main characters and events that shaped the person and the parent I was going to become. But before we begin, you should know that today's information includes a discussion of childhood abuse and parental abandonment. So if that's a tender spot for you today, take care of yourself first It's the middle of the night. I'm six years old, and I wake to my parents fighting. I don't know what's wrong, but I can tell they're very angry because they're yelling at each other. I don't know if the screaming caused the neighbors to come over or if my mom went to get them, but soon the husband and wife are at our house. Frankie's in the kitchen talking with my mom, and Larry is on the front porch with my dad. I feel nervous because I don't understand what's happening. My parents have fought many times, but this is different. The neighbors have never been involved before. The adults talk for a while. My mom is crying, and my dad is angry. And then at some point, my mom is leaving the house with my sister on her hip. So I follow them out the front door and to the car, and I ask where they are going, where we are going. When she gets to the car, my mom turns and asks me if I want to go with her or stay with my dad. This feels like an impossible question to answer. I don't wanna have to choose. But I also realize at that moment that if I go, Daddy will be left alone. He'll have no one, and I don't want him to be lonely. So I take a deep breath and say, "I'll stay with Daddy." And then I start to cry as I watch my mom and sister get in the car and drive away The next year is just me and my dad living together and trying to create some sense of normalcy. I started first grade, and my dad would help me get ready in the mornings by brushing and styling my long hair, which I wore loose in braids or a ponytail. This is one of my favorite memories of that time It was also at this time that, uh, I became a latchkey kid. The key hung on a post on the front porch. I came home every day on the school bus with the boys that lived across the street, but I wasn't allowed to go outside and play until my dad came home from work. He'd instructed me to stay inside for safety. So I watched TV shows like Zoom, Looney Tunes, and Star Trek. I was a total Trekkie, even though the show often scared me, and to watch it, I'd have to turn on every light in the house. Then when the TV shows I liked were finished, I played pretend by myself, or I listened to my parents' eight-track tapes of Sonny Cher, B.J. Thomas, and Faron Young. My dad came home almost every day by 5:30 PM. Dinner was usually hamburger or Tuna Helper and a salad. Occasionally, he would try to be creative and come up with something new, like a mix of canned pork and beans and tomato soup with crackers on the side. I think I felt I should be contributing and helping out because I remember once placing a pot, a can of Campbell's soup, and the stepladder by the stove, and when my dad came home from work, I asked him to show me how to cook it. He did, but six-year-olds and cooktops are not a good combination if there's no supervision, so he remained the primary cook in the family and life carried on. I don't have any memories of my mom or sister during that year, but I know that at some point the divorce was settled and my mom received visitation rights. I saw her and my sister twice a month for an overnight stay. By this time, my dad had a girlfriend, and after about 18 months they decided to get married. The new stepmother had three children of her own, and although I didn't understand it at the time, she also came with a history that caused her to favor me I remember liking the idea of having siblings living in our house because I missed my sister and didn't like being alone quite so much. I wanted to be able to be like other kids and play with neighbor friends after school, or have friends ride home on the bus with me. I wanted my family to be like the other kids I knew. I didn't actually know anyone else at school who had divorced parents. With the new stepfamily, it felt like maybe life could return to some sense of normalcy. It wasn't going to be the same, but maybe that would be okay. At least there was a mom waiting at home with, when me and my older brother got off the afternoon school bus. My stepmother was a very talented cake decorator for Mrs. Johnson's Bakery, so she went to work early in the morning and then came home in the early to mid-afternoon after picking up her two younger children from daycare, and she was nice to me. I got along well with her children, and in a lot of ways, she brought the kind of structure to the home that I craved. To me, it seemed like things were going to work out, that we could be one big happy family, especially when my dad gained full custody of my little sister. This may seem odd now, but in the early 1970s in Texas, it was rare for a man to gain custody of a child in a divorce case, much less two little girls. And this was because most judges at the time followed what was called the Tender Years Doctrine, which assumed young children needed their mothers. But my mother's lifestyle of leaving my sister with a sitter while she worked well into the night at bars and restaurants, and then sleeping till noon, wasn't exactly conducive to child-rearing, and observations from her own father helped seal the deal. The judge ruled in my dad's favor I loved being back with my sister, but the impact was that the dynamic at my dad's house began to change very quickly, and not for the better. My sister was only three years old and didn't understand why she couldn't be with her mommy. She didn't want the stepmother, who already had both a three-year-old daughter and a baby girl. She didn't want a mommy substitute. My sister's temperament has always been one of a fighter. Even at three, she knew what she wanted, and she made it known. She wanted our mother, not the stepmother. Looking back, I can only imagine that this probably hurt my stepmother's feelings, but when she was hurt, she became angry, and she would lash out for revenge. It didn't help that she also hated our mother and was extremely jealous of her. She didn't want to be reminded every day in her own home that our mom was in the picture at all. She even instructed us to call her mom and to call our biological mother our other mother The new stepmother was very artistic, and she expressed her abilities by making us clothing, even bathing suits. She also painted art for the bedrooms. She made large macrame hanging tables, and she was both a good cook and baker. She could be fun, but she ruled with an iron fist. She was a strict disciplinarian, and backtalk was not tolerated at all. If you were reprimanded and you cried, she would say something like, "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about." She would swat our backsides and sometimes our faces if she felt we were being sassy, and she'd pull her hand back as if she was going to slap us if she just wanted to threaten us with the idea. But she didn't have any problem with the idea of actually hitting us if she felt we deserved it Because of this, I tried my best not to get in trouble. My personality was opposite of my sister's. I was a peacemaker. I didn't like conflict or when someone was upset with me, so I always tried to do what my stepmom wanted Life was definitely different with the stepmother. When we kids came home from school, we could watch 30 minutes of Looney Tunes, but then we were sent outside to play until dinner. No snack, and no if, ands, or buts unless it was raining. She made dinner every night, which we ate together as a family at 5:30 PM when my dad came home from work. We were expected to have table manners. Even if we were eating on paper plates, we were taught to set the table with a folded napkin next to the plate with a fork on top, and the knife went on the right side of the plate. When we sat down to eat, our napkin was to be placed in our lap, and we had to chew with our mouths closed at all times. If we didn't, we risked being slapped or poked on the back of the hand with a fork or whatever the stepmother was holding. Also, we kids were not allowed to talk at the dinner table if my dad was home. This was dedicated time for the parents to discuss their day. Then after dinner, it was bath and family TV time or homework if we had it. Bedtime was a strict 8:30 PM until I started high school, even in the summer when it was still completely light outside and all the other neighbor kids were playing in the street and surrounding yards. As much as it was nice to have some structure and routine that the whole family followed, living with my stepmother was always like walking on eggshells. You just never knew when you'd set her off or if someone else had. As time went by, her drinking increased, and if she started, she didn't stop until she went to bed, and when she drank, she became mean and belligerent. Once during a fight with my dad, she got so mad that she threw a chair at a large mirror which was leaning against the wall in our bedroom hallway, and it shattered, sending shards of glass to the floor. In and of itself, this was dangerous and destructive, but my little sister happened to be sitting on the floor beneath the mirror A couple of years later, we were at my dad's mother's house on Christmas Eve. My nana decided for some reason to pull out and play old home movies. I was in the movies as a baby, which meant that my mom was also in the movies. Because my dad went into the room to watch the reels, my stepmother became enraged. She felt my grandmother was goading her on purpose. She'd been drinking, and the situation began to get ugly quickly, so my dad decided we should leave the celebration early. The seven of us had barely made it to the station wagon before my stepmom started in on him. She yelled and screamed at him, and when he started to yell back at her, she mocked him with, "You're such a big man, the great white hope." He must have acted like he might hit her because this just fueled the fire. She taunted him over and over again, yelling, "Go ahead, just hit me. Hit me. Hit me," while all five of us kids cowered in the back seats. We tried to be as quiet as possible because we didn't wanna be pulled into the fight. But being pulled into their fights became a common occurrence over the years. We three middle girls shared a room, and if our parents were arguing, my stepmother would just barge in in the middle of the night and turn on the light. My dad would follow her to try and stop her, but she would just continue yelling at him, and she'd often grab my sister by the arm and point out some mistake she'd made during the day, or to say that my dad favored her over her own children. She screamed and taunted my dad until all of us girls were crying and begging them to stop fighting. My stepmom never forgave my sister for wanting our mom over her and made her the scapegoat for any argument, whether it was between her and my dad or between my sister and one of her children. I wouldn't have known to say this then about an adult, but she bullied my sister. One time, her daughter and my sister were arguing over something, so she made them put on boxing gloves and told them if they wanted to fight, they might as well do it in front of everyone. Me, my older brother, and youngest sister were told to come into the living room to watch. My dad wasn't there, so he must have still been at work. In any case, my sister was embarrassed by the attention, but she also knew that if she was actually physical with our stepsister, she'd get into way more trouble, so she refused to engage, and she just stood there and cried. This made our stepmother even more angry, and she began to sneer and heckle my sister and encouraged her daughter to hit her, even though she wouldn't hit her back. It was awful. We all felt so sorry for my little sister. Even the stepsister couldn't put her heart into the fight, and the rest of us didn't feel like we had the power to do anything about what was happening. During these years, my stepmother kept a wooden spanking paddle in one of the lower kitchen cabinets. It was about ten inches long and three to four inches wide, and it had Mom's Helper written in marker on one side. All of our names were written in ink on the other side, and a tick mark was added each time one of us received a spanking. My sister, by far, had the most tick marks. It felt like she was spanked for everything, and the bullying didn't end there, though. There were also times when our stepmother refused to feed her. I don't remember why or what precipitated her making that decision, but she'd cook dinner, and we'd all sit down to eat, only my sister wouldn't be allowed to join us. My dad would come home and be told that he would have to get food for my sister. None of us kids were allowed to intervene. I constantly felt afraid for her and bereft at my own inability to do anything to help her When my stepmother had been drinking, she often picked fights with my dad, which always escalated into screaming, hitting my dad, and throwing things. When she had worked herself into a frenzy, my dad would often lock himself in their bathroom while she beat on and scratched at the door like a wild animal. It was like she was possessed. She would scream at him to come out or let her in. Another time, when my dad was gone overnight, our stepmother wanted to drive into town to pick up burgers for us for dinner. We kids were really excited because eating out was a rare treat, so we piled into the car and headed into town. The road into town was a two-laner that turned into a steep bridge to make room for the trains that traveled below it before flattening out again. I was about 14 and sitting in the front passenger seat, and the younger girls were in the back. As we headed up over the bridge, the car began to move into the other lane, the lane with the oncoming traffic. We were halfway across it before I realized that I needed to do something about the situation, so I quickly grabbed the wheel and steered us back into the right lane. Luckily, there was no oncoming traffic. I think our stepmother had just nodded off, probably from her drinking. Obviously, that completely changed the mood of the evening for me because for the first time, I began to understand that her drinking was a problem that could get us all killed My stepmother was mean-spirited, and she could turn on you with no notice. Even when she was trying to be funny or playful, there was an undercurrent of meanness. I once bent over in front of her to pick something up off the floor, and she pinched me between the legs. She thought it was so funny, but it was really physical and painful for me She thought it was so funny, but it really was physically painful for me, and I yelled out in pain, which only made her laugh harder and call me a baby One of the last fights we kids witnessed escalated quickly, and when our stepmother hit my dad over the back with a potted plant, my sister and two stepsisters just panicked and ran screaming out the front door to the neighbor's house across the street. We were terrified, and we just finally had enough, I think. We knew we needed help. Running to a trusted neighbor's house seemed like the best plan of action My stepmother finally moved out of our house when I was sixteen. But, of course, she couldn't do anything without dramatic flair. I was out of town at the state gymnastic meet with my high school team, and my dad was on a business trip. I called the house to let everyone know that our bus was running later than we'd anticipated, and my dad answered the phone, which surprised me, and his demeanor seemed really down, like he was sad. I asked him if anything was wrong, and he was quiet for a beat too long before saying, "We can talk about it when you get home." He didn't sound angry, which really made me worry more. When I got home an hour or so later, all the lights were on, and nothing was inside. Well, my bedroom furniture had been left, but pretty much everything else had been taken, including my sister. This was so alarming that my dad had been making calls to his mom, my mom, and her parents, trying to figure out where my sister was. Turns out she'd been left with my stepmother's mom, who was a lovely person and had treated all of us kids, step or bio, the same. And she agreed with my dad that my sister should just stay the night with her, and my dad could pick her up in the morning. When he hung up the phone, he sat at the bar in our kitchen. He put his head in his hands, and he cried. It was the first time I'd ever seen him cry. So life had shifted beneath my feet once more, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it. One part of me was relieved and so happy I wanted to jump up and down. The other half was worried that this was some sort of cruel joke and that the stepmother would come back. And then there was the fact that my dad was sad. I don't know if he was upset that his wife had left or that he'd failed at marriage for a second time, or, I don't know, maybe it was just a relief that we'd found my sister and she was perfectly fine. I'll never know because I never asked him. I hugged him and told him I loved him, then I went to bed. And we did. Tomorrow came, and my sister was brought home. It was just the three of us, and to my sister and I, this felt really good. The continuous current of high stress and anxiety that had been palpable in our home subsided. But really, the stepmother was only part of the problem. She was gone, but I still had my dad, and that's a whole other story Dear listener, if you grew up in a house where you learned to read the room before you learned to read a book, where you knew by the sound of the door closing whether tonight was going to be okay, this one is for you. What happens to children in those houses doesn't stay in those houses. It follows us into our own kitchens, our own marriages, and our own parenting, not as an excuse, but as an explanation. We need to understand where we come from if we wanna take the first step toward choosing something different. Thank you for spending this time with me. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it, and if you're finding value in these conversations, it would mean the world to me if you'd take a moment to follow or subscribe wherever you listen and leave a review. It helps other parents who need this find their way here. You can find resources related to today's episode in the show notes. I'm Brettne Shootman, and this is Not Fit for the Feed, where we say the hard things out loud so they lose their power over us. See you next time