“It
is not uncommon to feel hurt when the food you have spent money on and lovingly
prepared is rejected by your toddler.”- Your baby
and Child, Penelope Leach”
I don’t remember what the fight was about,
but it was the start of the violence in our home that would run for 4 years and
cause me decades of trauma. We were eating dinner and he yelled, swore and
cursed .
You fucking bitch, dog, slut.
He disappeared and I thought it was over
for the night. He came back however, holding an iron bar. He threatened us,
then put it down his pants like Peter Pan. He picked up a potato from his abandoned
plate and threw it at the window.
Mum ignored him. The next one at the wall.
She kept eating.
He threw the next one at her head and still
she ignored him.
He stood beside her and shouted words of
abuse and then pushed her from her seat to the ground, kicked her in the
stomach. I jumped up but just stood there paralysed.
“Please go and get John” she said to me.
quietly
I ran next door crying out for our big
burly beautiful neighbour.
Please can John come and help, he's hurting mum.
Please can John come and help, he's hurting mum.
I felt sick and didn’t have to go to school the next day.
It escalated, and got worse over
time. It didn’t stop until I was 15 and supposed to go on holidays to Canada
for a month. I said I wouldn’t go if he was
still in the house because I was worried he would kill her. She realised that
she couldn’t say this to other people and finally made him leave. Family
friends took him in. He was 17 by then. She had many broken bones. I remember days when she couldn't drive because her hand was broken, or she couldn't carry shopping because her ribs were broken. I held so much fear and anger.
Years later, when I hold my baby and feed
her, I wonder what it must feel like to have this beautiful little creature
turn against you.
