Protection

To what ends would you go to protect your child? I use the train analogy frequently, "I'd throw myself in front of a moving train..." but it's scary that the real example is that I wouldn't knowingly put her in the presence of an abusive person. Not knowingly. Not in the mix of a large or small crowd. Not at all. My daughter's paternal grandmother (if you can call her that) is abusive. She's emotionally and verbally abusive to me, horrible to her third grandchild, whom she openly hates & belittles and is emotionally abusive to both of her 2 children. So that is why I refuse to let her near my 3 year old daughter. My own mother didn't afford me this level of protection, and whether it was intentional or accidental, I can't forgive her this oversight. From the time I was 10, she threw me out. She did this frequently, asserting that I was a "piece of shit" and she couldn't take another minute of my presence in her house. I'd usually go to my grandmother or aunt & uncle who lived about 4 hours away. They were hellish car rides with my mother spewing every kind of vile thought my way. Interestingly she didn't ever lash out at my 2 sisters, one older and one younger, in this particular way. One summer, I might have been 11 or 12, she took me to my grandmother's, who lived in new Jersey. This summer my grandmother was staying at the shore with her brother-in-law Joe & his wife Fran. My mother stopped for gas and as she was filling up she warned me, "Don't be alone with your Uncle Joe." I didn't understand why and must have asked, but have no recollection of this part of the conversation. Perhaps I knew better than to engage & just accepted her advice. But I distinctly recall the warning. I got to my grandmother's, we headed to the shore and I wanted to go to the beach. Of course the 2 old ladies didn't want to go, so Uncle Joe volunteered to take me. We weren't technically alone, since we were heading to a very public place and I REALLY wanted to go to the beach. So we went & I must have swam in the ocean and played in the sand, but I don't remember any of that. I only remember the walk back to the cottage & Uncle Joe says, "Give your Uncle Joe a kiss." And, of course, having been indoctrinated in the school of respecting your elders and kissing old ickky people, I complied. And as soon as my lips met his, his tongue shot down my throat and his hands were all over my budding breasts. I knew it was wrong. Amazingly, at this age I'd done enough petting and stopping short of sex to know what sex actually was. And I knew that I had been told not to be alone with him, and I'd done it anyway & so I was at fault. I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't be rescued. Once again, I was on my own. And somewhere in my 30s it occurred to me that it wasn't my fault at all. My mother fed me to this wolf- this pedophile- this asshole. How could you put your CHILD in this position and expect them to come out OK?

So I have a not of sensitivity and, perhaps, drama, when it comes to this stuff. And I won't EVER let my child be in the presence of a known abuser. No matter what.