A Genealogy of Discontent

"Yes, but we need to analyze what contributes to the emotionality of this piece."

Dear father and mother,

You must have sensed the growing emotional distance between us. Mother was the first to have noticed or spoken out about this, the way I remember it.

"Our mother, too, likely sensed that we were different. She moved in to protect us from what she rightly sensed would be a slow and subtle betrayal by our fathers. She nurtured. She favored us. She over-validated us to compensate for the betrayal she saw us suffer."

Dear Papa,

My first recollection of having to need mother to interfere between us was when I was 11, when we ran out of stamps at home and I needed you to buy them for me. You were in the bathroom, me standing outside arranging words in my head. Mother saw me and had to encourage me to speak with you. I don't know the exact reasons which made me anxious about asking for money to buy stamps. (Fucking stamps!) Years later I learnt that was a stressful period of your life. That contributed, partly, to your stricter parenting style at that time.

"Of all the invalidation we will receive in our lives, this is by far the most damaging. The first man that we love - arguably the man we will love the most in our life - is incapable of validating us at a time when we need it most. It is emotional betrayal of the worst sort."

I'm sure, as I later learnt, that your change in parenting style is somewhat intentional. You believed that as my adolescence drew near you needed to instill a stronger sense of discipline before my teenage rebellion kicks in. Somehow I felt I have never really been rebellious in my teenage years, unless you count the time when I kicked you as you threatened me with that 30cm wooden ruler during a heated quarrel. I was 13. If my lack of rebellion was anything desirable, I credit it not to my personality but your recognizing the need of a new and more liberal parenting style. Of course, I was quite possibly a boring studious A+ student myself. Now I look back at my teenage years I hope I had been more assertive and adventurous. For example if I were a girl I wished I had run away from home with some random, tatooed guy and fucked around. (I LOVE SEX! I LOVE MEN!) Somehow this social drama script is not available for boys. There is something against The Script about a teenage boy who runs away from home. I can imagine how I would as a parent forbid my son from coming home for a long time if he were ungrateful enough to run away from home. There is some independence and abilities required of boys in order to rebel, something I definitely lacked in my teen age.

Around some time when i was 8 you started criticizing my supposedly feminine effeminate mannerism, from the way I walk, my table manners, and the way I speak - in your words "don't speak through your nose." I tried to fit my behavior to your expectations with little success. At one point it was impossible to walk or speak in front of you without inviting some form of scolding. And so it became impossible to walk or speak in front of you. I honestly believe you were just trying to rectify what you saw as my weakness, some wrong, and that none of the strong words were used with the intent to hurt.

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(to be continued)