I heard my entire name. It echoed off the houses that lined the street. It was enunciated as if each syllable was in itself an entire sentence that contained all of the rage that my father’s years of life could summon. I understood the threat level but had no idea what it was about. I knew that I had to go home. I didn’t want to go home. There were no other options. I was preparing myself for death as I walked towards the yelling.

As I got closer, the streetlights were just beginning to come on but the one in front of my house had something extra smashed around its base. I was curious as to how our avocado green Datsun station wagon could be backed into it. Nearly all the neighbors had come to see what the yelling was about. Then one of them noticed me and they all got very quiet as I neared my father and the smashed car. They stared at me with hard eyes, mercy was for other 10 year olds. The first one to say anything was my father. He began to yell at me for playing in the car and how it was my fault that the car had rolled down the driveway and into the light post. I had no idea what he was talking about. But that would have been the worst thing to say, so I said nothing. That got me in trouble too but not nearly as much as if I had disagreed with him in front of everyone else.

The details after that get lost but someone said that it was odd how the doors were all locked and the parking brake was still set. They thought I was Houdini. I still got in trouble for playing in the car and it was determined that it was my fault that it was wrecked. My father had the keys. The car was locked. I had never even considered playing in the car. It didn’t matter though. It began a trend that continued as long as my parents were alive. I was a convenient culprit for things that others needed to deny. A family’s black sheep wasn’t necessarily born as troubled, but it’s quite possible they were manufactured.

When everyone is sure that you’re the offending party it’s hard to prove your innocence. If they don’t want to believe, the likelihood of them changing their minds is very low. When this happens to a child it can and will affect them for the rest of their life. They might not even realize how much it plays into their daily lives, if they even manage to acknowledge its presence. I had a limited idea of how much harm this had caused in my life. I knew that I didn’t want to do this to my own children and I worked diligently to not repeat the behavior. Over time, I did get better at this. That led to examining whether blame actually mattered in most situations and if responsibility wasn’t more important.

Responsibility is something that one takes. It is mostly worthless if it is treated like a scarlet letter and imposed by others. It might free others by assigning it to someone, but if that person won’t take responsibility themselves then it will create no change in the long run. But, that’s how adults behave. Children, on the other hand, take on responsibilities that are not their own. The child of divorced parents who believes that it’s their fault their parents got divorced is one too common example. Children don’t understand that the world doesn’t always make sense and that fairness is a human concept. And children that grow up being given the responsibility, and the consequences, for things they have no part in will carry that into adulthood.

There can’t be any one reliable predictor of the adult responses to this type of childhood. Everyone is different. Every situation is different. In my case, beyond knowing that I didn’t want to continue that with my children, it has led to painful and seemingly over reactive, responses to situations resembling my childhood. It’s taken this many years to begin to see the ramifications of this taking responsibility for things that aren’t mine to claim. I think it also took my parents being gone to end the family dynamic.

I only saw this ramification for me today. I confess that I’m a bit slow at times. I couldn’t put my finger on why I was getting so upset that my internet provider had a technical issue and I couldn’t pay my bill. Then I listened to my interior monologue and realized that I was scared I was going to get in trouble. But, I was angry because I was worried I was going to get into trouble for something that wasn’t my fault. I would go to the mat to not be blamed for it. Reflecting on that, the image of that car smashed into the light post popped into my head and the light bulb of understanding went off. This isn’t solved by any means. But this is how it gets fixed; one step at a time. We can’t change things without seeing them in perspective.

Apparently my perspective is like my aging eyesight; it keeps needing to be reexamined and my prescription updated accordingly.