In some respects, the assault on my womanhood, which I had experienced as a foster child and before, continued into my marriage. It was not a physical assault, but rather an emotional deprivation. My young husband often withheld sex and affection. He was still incredibly attractive and charismatic, but the lack of affection and the contrast in our different values and ambitions began to weigh heavily.
The marriage was so painful that after several months, I loaded up a few possessions in my rattletrap car and left Dick and drove to Florida, where I visited a friend who gave me a parakeet in a cage. The parakeet and I went to live with Aunt Eileen and Grace and David. I got a job and considered going back to college. But I missed Dick, and I missed Doris, my surrogate mother, and I missed my hometown.
So after a few months, I gassed up the rattletrap car and drove back home to Dick, leaving the parakeet with Aunt Eileen. Other people kept giving her more birds. Eventually she became known as the Bird Woman of Seventh Terrace.
My absence had not been a wake-up call for Dick. Sharon was still a factor, and, in some ways, the hardest part was Dick’s playing at being unencumbered. Then there was his obsession with speed and fast driving and racing cars, enlivened by alcoholic encounters and police at the door at least once.
He ran the roost and earned a living. I took in ironing to add to our income. When my son, Rick, was six months old, Dick vanished for three days, leaving me without a car or a telephone. After a thorough discussion of that episode, we got a phone, and he never disappeared quite that long again.
I wanted desperately to own a home, and I struggled to save money so we could buy a house, but it was an uphill fight because my husband spent every spare penny for fast cars and accessories.
We had a cheap apartment above Tribe’s Tavern in Toledo, and our living-room floor was strewn month after month with auto parts. I took in other people’s ironing, and I babysat.
When Rick, my first baby, was two years old, a neighbor hired me to take care of her three preschoolers, aged five, three, and two. All four children were breakfasting in the kitchen one day when I got a phone call from a girlfriend and stepped a couple of feet outside the kitchen so I could hear. It became ominously quiet in the next room. The five-year-old neighbor had discovered a new skill and somehow managed to open the refrigerator door. My little Rick grabbed an egg carton and systematically broke twelve whole raw eggs all over the kitchen table and the floor. Anyone who has ever tried to mop up one raw egg can imagine what a job I had cleaning the floor and four egg-bedecked little kids. Today it sounds like a funny scene. It wasn’t then.
I pestered Dick until we bought a rundown little dump in a blue-collar neighborhood. The first night in our new home, I put my boys to bed (at that time there were two) and worked for hours to set my home in order. Then I sat and wept.
As long as we were in an apartment and just starting out, I could delude myself as to what my life was about. Now I had to consider that this was it. Somehow, I thought, I belonged in this house in this neighborhood in this world. Get used to it.
I was faced with the reality of marriage, motherhood, and a decrepit little old house that was eleven hundred square feet of shoddy construction. Downstairs, I could sit in one spot and survey the entire floor plan, which consisted of a small living room and a kitchen with eating area. Upstairs my little family slept in the two bedrooms, both of which had sloping ceilings making it impossible to stand erect anywhere but in the middle of the room. There was a small landing at the top of the stairway, which ultimately became another sleeping area under the eaves. Between the house and the garage was an attached, enclosed, unheated breezeway, which would serve as a playroom. The space between the unpainted walls and the floorboards provided an unobstructed view into the crawl space, as well as some interesting drafts.
I didn’t know it that night, but six months later, the cranky old furnace would catch fire. The fire did not cause extensive damage beyond destroying the furnace, but the firemen created a number of new holes throughout the house. I will never forget the young firefighter who yelled at me to get out of the house immediately as, totally unaware of the very real danger, I carefully gathered food and clothing for my babies.
That first night, as I sat in my new home, I was more despairing than I had ever been in my life. But after making myself a cup of tea, I thought, “No, this is not where I belong. I can make a difference. I can make my life matter.”
I began to create a plan. First I looked at the positives. The exterior of the little house was attractive, and the great big yard was lovely. I would enjoy the yard and fix up the house. As to the rest of my life, I knew that I had to be patient. When my boys got a little older, I would go back to school. As I examined those things that had worked for me in the past, I knew that education was the key to getting ahead, that having fun and enjoying the now would sustain me, and that viewing the present living arrangement as a temporary growth opportunity would provide me with a positive perspective. Life would improve. I had already learned some of the techniques of reframing (which I’ll discuss at length later), so I knew how I could keep improving my performance at whatever I tried to do.
Our son David arrived when Rick was in his terrible two’s. Daniel was born eleven months after David, so I had three exceptionally lively little ones at home.
My brother, David, came to live with us when he turned fifteen.
Somewhere along the way, I quit ironing for pin money and got a job at the Betty Crocker Division of General Mills, Inc.
The best thing that Dick and I managed to do was to produce our three healthy sons. Some of my insecurities from my father’s desertion affected them much more than I realized. I never wanted them to think that I would leave them, and I said so often. I didn’t learn until they were grown that my words were frightening, instead of reassuring.
In spite of everything, they have become fine men, and I am very proud of them.
I haven’t included most of the bleak times. The greatest disappointments occurred with romantic relationships. My early abandon-ment and the sexual abuse certainly shaped my view of men and romantic love. My first marriage to my children’s father was a union of two people with opposite values and conflicting goals. He was the feisty marine, home from Korea. He seemed much older than the other boys and was obviously attractive to all the girls. At first I felt that I didn’t deserve his attention. Before and after we married, he spoke so scathingly of everything I did that I actually began to feel that I deserved his disdain. It was not a good feeling. He never expressed affection, but was crushing with his criticism. He withheld sex as a means of controlling me. When I finally sought to end the marriage, I was astonished to learn that he was devastated.
In the end, all that Dick and I had in common was our three sons. I will spare you the unhappy details of the breakup of the marriage. Suffice it to say that we were divorced in 1973.
By the time of the divorce, my life was wrapped up in my sons and my work at the plant. I had been hired for the production line and then (to Dick’s displeasure) was promoted to supervisor. I was the second woman at all the plants of the company to become a supervisor.
My second husband was Scott Skutt. That marriage was based on pure fantasy. The man I fell in love with did not exist. I thought that he was understanding and poetic. He was, in fact, very good looking, soft spoken, aware of world issues, and sensitive to people’s feelings. What I didn’t know when we married was that he was also homosexual and entirely conflicted about his sexuality.
I married Scott in 1975. Less than a year later, we were divorced, and I was saddled with a humongous debt on my credit card that Scott had incurred in extravagant gifts for me and my sons and the lavish entertainment of a homosexual lover.
The demise of this union shattered me. Not only had I failed again, but my rival was not even another woman. As dreadful as that would have been, I knew it couldn’t approach the deadly blow I suffered by losing my husband to a male. It felt
as though my very womanhood had been trampled in the dust.
As outward physical evidence of my pain, I lost twenty-five pounds. When I dropped to 107 pounds, my surrogate mom, Doris, threatened me with hospitalization. My hair was drab and untrimmed, my complexion had gone sallow, and my energy level was at lowest ebb.
Scott had left in August. Six weeks later, I went for a walk and noticed that the leaves had changed and the world was aglow with amazing color. I went home and wallowed in one last purge of self-pitying tears. Then I made an appointment for a haircut and splurged on some clothes that fit.
The beauty of nature had touched me and called me back to join the living world. My sense of my human worth returned, and I reviewed my short-term relationship with Scotty from a different perspective. That was useful. I realized that I had learned a lot about myself. I knew that never again would I be so captivated that I lost my identity or sublimated my needs and ideals.
My third husband, Russ McConnell, was sixteen years my senior, and a lot of people have accused me of looking for a father. I can only tell you that I finally found a man who dearly loved and valued me and whom I respected and loved. He had a great sense of humor, danced superbly, and was always eager to frolic. He liked joking and really loved women. He was also serious and hard working, and life with him was always good and mostly fun. We were together for more than twenty years before cancer robbed me of my best friend.
It had taken two failed marriages, untold strain on my children, and disastrous consequences to my bank account before I got it right with a good, rewarding relationship with a man.
CHAPTER NINE
The Six of Us
When sister Grace was married in New York in 1975, all my brothers and sisters went to the wedding, and we have gotten together periodically ever since.
My brother Larry grew into a fine man of honor. He is an engineer and worked for the same company for years. Now that he is approaching retirement age, he is exploring other opportunities. He married a beautiful woman, and they have two sons.
Sandra came next. My father and Sally had four lovely daughters, and Sandy is the most striking of us all. In some ways, she looks less like our mother and more like Aunt Mary Louise, who mothered her after my father sent us to New York.
Sandy learned to read before she went to school. (I know because I taught her.) Aunt Mary Louise died when Sandy was in college, so she has suffered the loss of two mothers. As an adult she worked in journalism, has published several successful books, and mothered a talented and athletic son, who is now grown. Her husband, Mark, has been an environmental and business reporter and is the author of two acclaimed books.
Patricia May was Sally’s fourth child. She was a very sweet, gentle girl who loved animals. She would crawl under the dining-room table with our little dog as company during her naps. She was always an obedient, compliant little girl whom adults liked. She grew into a successful adult.
Grace is a beautiful shining star. My children and grandchildren adore her. She has become a pillar of her community as a volunteer. The children who visit the library where she is the Story Lady clamor to be around her.
She has developed extraordinary skills in working with children with special needs, including autistic children. She has accomplished all this despite having to fight the demon depression – a physiological disorder that has taken down some of our greatest writers. She has a supportive, loving husband, a handsome, intelligent son who is following his dream as a teacher.
David was the baby. Our mother died when he was three. He grew up to be a sensitive, attractive young man. In his teens and twenties, he made poor decisions, but he was never malicious or mean spirited. Ultimately he married a lovely young woman, is the father of a smart, athletic, and attractive daughter, and has trained and self-educated himself as an engineer. Today he is the manufacturer’s representative for one of the largest companies in North America.
I have written elsewhere in this book about the gains and triumphs in my life that my resilience techniques have earned for me.
As for all six of us, from the time my father dropped us off on various doorsteps like unwanted puppies, from Toledo to New York to Florida to Chicago, he never initiated communication with anyone. Not a single greeting card or letter or telephone call came our way, with one exception: After ignoring Larry’s existence for more than twenty years, out of a clear blue sky, our father called his first son to ask if he felt that Grandpa John’s modest estate had been fairly administered. During that conversation, he spoke of his “son,” meaning not his boys Larry or David, but Marge’s adopted child. Larry was so stunned that he couldn’t say what he was thinking, “Dammit, I’m your son!” It was the first and last conversation between father and oldest son since the days in Toledo.
When Great-Aunt May, Grandpa John’s sister, got disoriented and sick, a Detroit bank became her financial guardian. It compiled a list of her assets and sent copies to potential heirs. My father then called Aunt Eileen for the first time in decades to find out what that was about, saying that Marge told him to make the phone call. It was a terse conversation.
Over the years, he and Marge visited and called his parents from time to time. I have heard that when Grandma Lucile died, my father called Grandpa John to ask what was in her will, and when Grandpa John died, he phoned my step-grandmother to ask about will provisions.
I have never forgotten what my father did to me that awful night, but perhaps the greatest damage came from his abandoning me and my brothers and sisters.
Children are sensitive. We didn’t have the maturity to say, “This is an unfeeling man. He has big problems.” Rather each of us individually felt a deep sense of personal rejection. We didn’t think, “He rejected all of us.” We each felt, “He rejected me. What bad thing did I do? My dad didn’t want me.”
Today he is an old man in his nineties living in Louisiana. Only one of us ever made an attempt to communicate with him. He was unresponsive.
My Uncle Lyle considers him an unfeeling monster. After he disposed of all six of us children, he showed no interest in us. Nothing for Christmas, nothing for birthdays, nothing for illnesses, nothing for graduations. It was as though we were dead.
Poor dad. He’ll never know what wonderful, bright, creative children he fathered. He’ll never know what excellent, intelligent, outstanding grand-children he has missed out on.
PART THREE
Reframing for Success
The house that Karen built.
CHAPTER TEN
Capturing Resilience
I hope my history will extend your understanding of resiliency. The topic has barely been explored. Maybe it’s because scientific interest is focused on specific problems and finding answers to the perennial question: “How do we fix what’s wrong?”
The study of resilience examines a more positive question: “What went right?”
Throughout my years as a social worker, I have been astounded by the resilience of children. I wish we could pass it out in a capsule. As I checked the meager research, I realized that my life can illustrate how a child may grow into a competent, thriving adult after bad things happen. Children survive much worse abuse than I experienced. I’ve got to admit that when I read A Boy Called It by the very successful Dave Pelzer, which describes unspeakable abuse by his mother, I thought, “There is adversity with a capital A. Such unrelenting, daily savagery is beyond my ken.” Certainly, what I survived was more tolerable.
Many children suffer adversity and flourish more or less successfully whereas others are crushed and never recover. Why? What are the factors that contribute to resilience?
I have explored the currently emerging body of research, and I have examined my years in social work. Here’s what I’ve learned. Here are the qualities that I found best sustained me:
A sense of personal competence
Consistent emotional support from one or more caring individuals
A sense of playfulness
&
nbsp; A spiritual connection to something greater
A capacity for learning and creative expression
A willingness to work on problems with reasonable perseverance
The ability to positively reframe
Of all of these characteristics, the ability to positively reframe or look at things from different perspectives has been the single most successful strategy for me. I want to spend much more time on the art and ability to reframe, but first let’s explore the other characteristics of resilience.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My Self Has Value
The first aid to resilience is “a sense of personal competence.” How do we accomplish that? Not every therapeutic fad is helpful. Some “esteem-building methods” have included looking in the mirror and telling yourself how smart and attractive you are, chanting mantras such as “I am important,” or leaving lists on the fridge crowing about your many positives.
In a 2002 syndicated column, John Rosemond, M.D., asserted that this type of “self-esteem building” produces “counterfeit positive self-assessment” that can set people up for disappoint-ment in the real world. Dr. Rosemond and I are often not on the same page, but on this issue we agree.
I don’t question that it is a whole lot more productive to face the mirror and describe yourself positively than to look at your reflection and tell yourself you are fat and plain and poor. Positive thinking is good.
But I think Dr. Rosemond is right in that artificial exercises are not useful over the long haul. When I was a caseworker for a state social service agency in child welfare, it was the collective thinking that we should positively reinforce the aspirations of our foster children.
Girl Called Karen Page 6