Links in the Chain: Untangling Dysfunctional Family Ties

To achieve self-knowledge, we must look both within and outside ourselves to focus on and understand why we are the way we are. It seems that we must first sort through our many different selves within to determine which our true self is. We need as well to wade through the norms and mores that depict what is expected of us. That said, we are required to evaluate the very nature of our souls, not just our presentations of our selves in public. Our sociological imagination depends on our perception of our realities both within and without. As the saying goes, if you don't know where to begin, start at the beginning. A few pieces of relevant background information about my life may be useful in this regard. Without such knowledge the reader may not adequately understand the unique nature and interplay of micro and macro forces shaping my personal life. I was born out of wedlock in the early 1970s into a large, dysfunctional family. My father had five children from his previous marriage, with whom he had no visitation rights. It has been explained to me by my mother that this is why I exist today, i.e., as a sort of consolation prize for him. The theory presented to me was that he would not feel the absence of those children of his former life if he had children with her in his new life. My immediate family also included seven siblings from my mother's first marriage. I think my mother married at eighteen to escape her role as mother, not just a sibling, to her brothers and sisters after her mother abandoned them. My grandmother made this decision because of my grandfather's alcohol dependence and physical abuse. My grandmother took only one child with her, who remains institutionalized in a hospital to this day--a common practice at the time for those who suffered from birth defects. The four youngest siblings from my mother's first marriage lived with her and my father. Given their actions, we seemed not to be welcome additions to the family. The sibling rivalry our existence induced resulted in a more hostile, tense environment. Presently all of our siblings continue to refer to us as half-sisters, if we are politely acknowledged at all. My mother's children made it obvious that they were resentful that they had to live with my father versus their own. To this day, they do not accept her position on their divorce. Their father was an abusive alcoholic whom our mother had to escape from, or die trying. Those who were older and had also married young, with children, did not have much contact with either of their parents. However, to hear them speak of him, their father was a victim and should have been crowned with a halo. Also, the older children have accused my father, rather than their own father, of abusing our mother. My mother alleges--and outside sources confirm--that my mother's first husband would work long enough to earn money to sit at a local bar, holding all the household's money and making my mother sit and watch him drink it away while she pleaded with him for hours to have enough money to buy some milk or bread to feed their children. Other accounts include her having to walk to the local grocery store and beg for groceries on loan until her next paycheck arrived so the children would not starve. Their allegations against my father include attempted murder by injecting our mother with needles, putting a rope around her neck and beating her in her sleep. In contrast to the many accounts of abuse and neglect inflicted by their father, this and other lesser allegations have not been corroborated with witnesses, police reports, or even pictures. I cannot recall them taking in my mother or any of us in response to these allegations. I must question the idea that if they knew this was occurring, why did they do nothing to assist her? They did not contact the police or the Department of Social Services to perform an investigation. They did not come to the house to bear witness (as I had done) to the (non-existent) needle pricks, rope burns, or bruises. …