Surviving Society:
What My Parents Taught Me and How
11-29-16
I grew up in rural Indiana. The nearest country store was five miles away. The nearest fire truck two hours away. We had a good quiet life. Mainly it was my parents (mom and dad) and myself. Occasionally cousins or friends or acquaintances would stay with us. We had a gazillion chickens and pets, a giant garden, and beautiful nights under the stars.
It was far from perfect. My father carried on a lesser form of the abuse he suffered growing up. We were poor which meant we didn’t always have the food or medication needed. Still, it was far from the worst it could be. There is much that my parents taught me, but perhaps the most important thing was how to survive in a world that is broken a million times over.
My earliest memories are of lessons for surviving life. The earliest memory is of walking with my parents in a protest in downtown Indianapolis to fight a power plant being built in Indiana. I still remember shouting, “HELL NO! WE WON’T GLOW!” The cold war was still very real to my parents- it was the late 70s. My father survived Vietnam. Both of my parents had a healthy distrust of the government. They taught me how to survive on canned food and how much of the iodine tablets to take (I’m sure there were other ingredients, but I was a child after all). Mom taught me about the environment and to write letters and give money to save the wales and the earth. We never had much money, but we always had enough to support causes.
Some of us do not get to choose whether violence will find us. I was three or four when I first heard someone call my mother a n****r. When I was six my first grade teacher shook me by the arm painfully because I was wearing jeans. She repeated her abuse always in response to the clothes I was wearing. Being gender variant was something I exhibited young and she didn’t like it. Kids would play with me at school until the first parent teacher night. One sighting of my mother and suddenly some kids couldn’t play with me anymore. When I was older, the fact that my parents and I didn’t go to church became a problem for some- including members of my own family (what some would call extended family). I knew the face and sounds of hatred and oppression before I could read- as is true for the majority of us on this planet.
My mother made sure that she stayed engaged with the world. My parents had friends of all races, classes, cultures, and experiences. Once or twice a year, there would be a big party at our farm. People would stay for as long as a week. It was a place with only one set of rules- respect each other and you can stay. Fail that respect and one of my parents would escort you away. From this, I learned that people could coexist and have fun.
My mother made sure that I had access to a diversity of books, symbols and texts from every religion she knew of, and a constant reeducation around history to counter what I was learning in school. Far from some notion that “Columbus discovered America,” she taught me indigenous peoples- our people- had been here first and that the genocide was slow and intentional. She taught me that we were not myths to some false past, but living beings with a connection to Earth and culture and community. I learned to listen to nature and the world around me. I learned to read people, too. Mom made sure that empathy was central to my life and that sympathy was an unkindness.
As I grew older, I was encouraged to resist injustice at school and in the world. My mom made serious waves in our small town (where we moved when I was ten) when she resisted the first Iraq war by wearing a pair of jeans with the American Flag on the butt. Having lost a husband, a partner (my Dad), and many friends to the living ravages of being a veteran of the Vietnam war and those who died, she was not about to see it happen again.
Over and again, my parents taught me not to be a silent witness to injustice personally, locally, or globally. My father taught me to question everything. Never take what is said in the news or socially at face value. Systems of power always strive to maintain power. If they say, “Look over here!” look in the opposite direction. When Waco happened, mom pointed out that that was when they were able to approve funding for parts of the war less popular with society. Question constantly and don’t look away.
They taught me to survive all of this through creativity and art. Write in a journal, create music, paint a painting- anything to take the venom within and put it outside. It eases pain and helps other know they are not alone. Play lots of games with trusted friends. Laugh a lot. Find strength and solace in community- you are never alone.
As we face, again, an intensified time (for it is always there) of uncertainty, hatred, violence, oppression, and injustice, I keep in mind the lessons of my parents: participate, name, learn, change, create, connect, laugh, repeat.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
I grew up in rural Indiana. The nearest country store was five miles away. The nearest fire truck two hours away. We had a good quiet life. Mainly it was my parents (mom and dad) and myself. Occasionally cousins or friends or acquaintances would stay with us. We had a gazillion chickens and pets, a giant garden, and beautiful nights under the stars.
It was far from perfect. My father carried on a lesser form of the abuse he suffered growing up. We were poor which meant we didn’t always have the food or medication needed. Still, it was far from the worst it could be. There is much that my parents taught me, but perhaps the most important thing was how to survive in a world that is broken a million times over.
My earliest memories are of lessons for surviving life. The earliest memory is of walking with my parents in a protest in downtown Indianapolis to fight a power plant being built in Indiana. I still remember shouting, “HELL NO! WE WON’T GLOW!” The cold war was still very real to my parents- it was the late 70s. My father survived Vietnam. Both of my parents had a healthy distrust of the government. They taught me how to survive on canned food and how much of the iodine tablets to take (I’m sure there were other ingredients, but I was a child after all). Mom taught me about the environment and to write letters and give money to save the wales and the earth. We never had much money, but we always had enough to support causes.
Some of us do not get to choose whether violence will find us. I was three or four when I first heard someone call my mother a n****r. When I was six my first grade teacher shook me by the arm painfully because I was wearing jeans. She repeated her abuse always in response to the clothes I was wearing. Being gender variant was something I exhibited young and she didn’t like it. Kids would play with me at school until the first parent teacher night. One sighting of my mother and suddenly some kids couldn’t play with me anymore. When I was older, the fact that my parents and I didn’t go to church became a problem for some- including members of my own family (what some would call extended family). I knew the face and sounds of hatred and oppression before I could read- as is true for the majority of us on this planet.
My mother made sure that she stayed engaged with the world. My parents had friends of all races, classes, cultures, and experiences. Once or twice a year, there would be a big party at our farm. People would stay for as long as a week. It was a place with only one set of rules- respect each other and you can stay. Fail that respect and one of my parents would escort you away. From this, I learned that people could coexist and have fun.
My mother made sure that I had access to a diversity of books, symbols and texts from every religion she knew of, and a constant reeducation around history to counter what I was learning in school. Far from some notion that “Columbus discovered America,” she taught me indigenous peoples- our people- had been here first and that the genocide was slow and intentional. She taught me that we were not myths to some false past, but living beings with a connection to Earth and culture and community. I learned to listen to nature and the world around me. I learned to read people, too. Mom made sure that empathy was central to my life and that sympathy was an unkindness.
As I grew older, I was encouraged to resist injustice at school and in the world. My mom made serious waves in our small town (where we moved when I was ten) when she resisted the first Iraq war by wearing a pair of jeans with the American Flag on the butt. Having lost a husband, a partner (my Dad), and many friends to the living ravages of being a veteran of the Vietnam war and those who died, she was not about to see it happen again.
Over and again, my parents taught me not to be a silent witness to injustice personally, locally, or globally. My father taught me to question everything. Never take what is said in the news or socially at face value. Systems of power always strive to maintain power. If they say, “Look over here!” look in the opposite direction. When Waco happened, mom pointed out that that was when they were able to approve funding for parts of the war less popular with society. Question constantly and don’t look away.
They taught me to survive all of this through creativity and art. Write in a journal, create music, paint a painting- anything to take the venom within and put it outside. It eases pain and helps other know they are not alone. Play lots of games with trusted friends. Laugh a lot. Find strength and solace in community- you are never alone.
As we face, again, an intensified time (for it is always there) of uncertainty, hatred, violence, oppression, and injustice, I keep in mind the lessons of my parents: participate, name, learn, change, create, connect, laugh, repeat.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.