If you don't want to read the whole thing, the punchline of this post is that my mom would routinely throw pots and pans at my dad.
Last week I decided to short-circuit a parental visit to my home in San Diego by randomly driving four hours to my parents' house in Tehachapi. It was my dad's birthday, but more importantly, it was mother's day. When I spoke to my dad on the phone before my visit, he said they were coming to visit me because "it isn't good for you to isolate yourself from your mom" and "your mom really needs to see you." This is the nature of my parents' relationship with each other and my dad with me. Men serve, women demand. I decided, packed, and started driving at 8:00am on Thursday, with four packs of cigarettes and a plastic red cup full of rum-coke in the cup holder of my car. Sue me. I drove with an open container, and no, I wasn't drunk. I arrived 1/6th of a day later with 1/2 an empty cup.
One of the keynote events of my childhood occurred when I was 12 years old. I had just arrived home from soccer practice after school when my mom burst through the door and announced that she was leaving. She packed a suitcase, grabbed my sister (who she instructed to also pack a suitcase), and left as quickly as she appeared. I didn't know what had happened. The last I saw of my mom and my sister was at the door when my dad walked in with obviously bowed grief. As my mom and sister were at the door walking out, my dad was summarily slapped in the face by my 13 year old sister with the explanation: "How could you!!!!!" And suddenly, without a word otherwise, the door slammed shut.
My mom and sister were gone for two days, staying in a vacation hotel. Throughout their leave, my dad was on the phone constantly, taking days off of work, buying things, not speaking to me, grieving. Just prior to their return, my dad called my school to say I was sick. He instructed me to the clean the entire house, paying special attention to my sister's room and my parents' bedroom. I was thrilled to get out of school, so I cleaned vigorously as instructed. When my dad came home from work, he had purchased two dozen roses for my mom and a bouquet of flowers for my sister. We set them up at strategic locations and my mom and sister arrived home shortly thereafter. Two weeks later, my mom was happy to tell me what happened that day to force her to leave. To this day, my dad hasn't spoken of it and I haven't asked.
According to my mom, here's what happened: My parents had driven to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. During that time, my mom had told my dad of the money she had spent shopping for new outfits, furniture, decorations, etc. My dad became upset because the balance in the checking account was now a negative, and they couldn't buy groceries without bouncing a check. They parked in the grocery store parking lot and continued to argue about money. At some point, my mom had enough and told my dad to "screw off" whilst leaving the car to go buy groceries. It was at this point that my dad grabbed my mom's wrist and said, "No, Karen, we need to talk about this more." In response, my mom said "Marty, let go of me," took the car keys and drove home. My dad walked. I saw the rest. Again, this is her side of the story.
Domestic violence is a prevalent talking-point amongst my youthful college student peers, political leaders, and feminists. It's particularly a feminist protest-worthy problem, which is completely fucking funny to me. Did you know that " Domestic Violence Awareness Month" is a female-only event in October according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)? The October picture of abuse according to the NCADV is of a woman bowing her head in hurt shame. That is a tax-dollar government website. My dad grabbed my mom's wrist, let go at her request, and as a result she took her daughter to a hotel for two days. He should've been jailed, fired (since he was law-enforcement), and forcibly removed from our house.
When I arrived at my parents' house last week, I noticed a few pots and pans sitting scattered in the garage. It gave me the idea to cook dinner before they came home from work. I went to the grocery, bought a few whole chickens, potatoes, lemons, spices, veggies, etc., and set them on so my parents would arrive home with a cooked dinner and me. They arrived in perfect timing two hours after I started cooking, and we ate in festive surprise at our stories and changes over the past few months. They were thrilled.
Now, if you don't know my childhood history of being raised like Mogali amongst women, then you won't get how completely shocked my mother was at my cooking that day. My mother fought nearly every day of her "stay-at-home-mom" time with both me and my dad. She daily found it atrociously absurd that she had to make us (my sister and I) shop for groceries, clean the house, and cook dinner while my dad was at work. It was painful and abusive for her, a violence perpetrated by my dad. I remember this line being yelled repeatedly at my dad during my childhood: "You know, raising two kids and three home-cooked meals a day for [# of married years at the time] gets a little old." I remember this line first being spoken when I was 8 years old, just after I had made scrambled eggs and bacon for my family for breakfast. I didn't understand it, since I had just made breakfast without my mom's help. My sister and I never had lunch or "lunch money" during school days. My dad worked weekends and holidays, and he never packed a lunch. My mom almost never cooked. If I add the times my sister and I made meals "with" my mom, then I think my mom only cooked during holidays and extended family gatherings.
While my parents were eating the dinner I cooked them last week, I received some great feedback. My dad exclaimed, "This is the best, most moist chicken I have ever had in my life." My mom questioned, "Ben, where did you learn how to cook?!" I thanked them for their compliments, said I was glad they were enjoying it, and told them the recipe and technique. My mom told me about the old pots and pans she put in the garage since buying an entirely new set of kitchenware. She said I could have some of them if I wanted, but most were reserved for my cousin Tracy (female type), and others needed to be saved for "sentimental value." When I asked why she wanted to save some, she told me that she wanted to save the pots and pans that she had thrown at my dad's head throughout the years, which had bent and warped upon impact. It was one of those sigh-laugh-"ah marriage!"-laugh-sigh moments of comment.
Did you now that women are more likely than men to stalk, attack and psychologically abuse their partners? Did you know that the majority of all domestic violence cases involving physical harm and assault are initiated by women? Did you know that Harvard Med School found 70% of domestic violence is committed by women against men? Do you know that abuse against men is commonly accepted by the legal professions and even celebrated by women in society? Do you remember when I told you that my dad should've been jailed, fired, and removed from our house for grabbing my mom's wrist? If that should've happened to my dad, what should've happened to my mom?
"Oh yeah!"-sigh-laugh-hamarriageha-laugh-sigh, "I remember when you hit dad in the head with a frying pan! You kept the pan?!?" I said with a humored poker face. "Yes! I love it!" My dad was stone silent, eating his vegetables. Nothing happened. I didn't know what to say, so I quickly switched looking between my parents' faces and humorously scanning the room. Suddenly, out of nowhere, nothing continued to happen. Then I remembered why.
I think my dad dipped his heart into a boiling vat of acid and lye when he was 18 years old, the year he went to prom with my mom. He's been numb to all emotional and physical pain, including pots/pans to the head, ever since. He killed all emotional contact with humanity after my mom told him she was just using him so she would have a prom date and broke up with him shortly thereafter. To this day, my mom still tells the story of how "abusive" and "violent" he reacted after she told him how she just used him for a prom date. He showed up to her door and said "I never want to speak to you again", then walked away. According to my mom, she "saved the relationship" by apologizing to him and throwing herself at him as a provider, resulting in a marriage two years later and my sister two years after that. At 22, my dad began working 60 hours a week for the next 34 years. He avoided most everything else, including pots and pans.
Remember when my mom came home and escaped her wrist-grabbing husband, saving her only daughter in the process? What would a 12 year old boy learn by watching his mom rescue his sister and completely ignore him alone with an "abusive" dad? What would a boy learn from watching his 13 year old sister hit his dad in the face, and then watch dad buying her a bouquet of flowers in response? What should a pre-teen boy learn about manhood from watching his dad dodge and get hit in the head with (potentially lethal) steel pots and pans from his mother? What should I have said, now that I'm 30 years old, about my mom nearly leaving with my sister over a wrist-grab and leaving me behind, while she laughs about bending steel with a force she meant for my dad's head? Fucking nothing, suddenly absolutely nothing.
Keep those pots, mom, and go ahead and give them to extended female family and your non-sons.
I learned how to cook during my childhood, even though somehow you cooked three meals per day for my dad. I love you and I'll always cook for you, anytime you wish.
