MY FATHER THE BULLY

I think I was about age five when I received the first beating from my father. I no longer remember what offense I might have committed to warrant such a savage attack.

He ripped off his belt; and, proceeded to thrash at me with the edge of his belt. It was an uncontrolled outburst of anger, until he ran out of steam. I had painful black and blue marks on my arms, legs, back and stomach.

I remember that all of his beatings hurt. Not only from the device he used to beat me, but by the mental hurt as well. How could a father do something like that to his son?

Maybe it was work related. If he had a bad day at work, he would look for ways to take it out on somebody else, somebody who was smaller and unable to defend himself against such an attack.

Maybe he had trouble dealing with the death of my younger sister. She died when I was three. Back in 1945, there was no grief therapy. People expressed their sorrow at such an event, and life continued.

My younger brother arrived in 1947. I could tell that our father favored my younger brother. However, even though my younger brother was “the favored one,” by the time he was three or four, he too experienced abuse. It started out as spanking, but gradually escalated to beatings. There is a distinct difference between a spanking and a beating.

Even at an early age, maybe when I was eight or ten, I knew that it was wrong for our father to administer a beating to my younger brother. If something like that happened, I would make faces and noises to draw our father’s attention toward me. That would result in him coming after me. I stepped in to take a beating for my brother countless times, and that is something forgotten by my brother. He has no recall of that ever happening.

Over the years, the belt gained a few assistants. Our father developed a range of items to inflict punishment. A rubber hose, an oversized ping–pong paddle (with holes cut into it, to make it work better as a hitting device), a three foot section of washing machine hot water hose (heavier than the cold water hose), a three foot long dried apricot twig (with the nubbers). That apricot twig was something else. It would leave welts that would hurt for days.

I now believe that our mother lived in fear of our father’s anger. She seldom did anything to intervene, probably in fear of what he would do to her. She was not the innocent bystander. If my brother and I misbehaved in any way, she would report our activity to our father. Thanks to her snitching, my brother and I had many more beatings.

However, during one particular beating, our father “lost it” when beating me. I think our mother thought he might kill me. So she grabbed the cast iron skillet and whanged him on the head with it. That frying pan rang like a church bell, and it stopped him. He suddenly stopped beating me, looked at everyone, and went into the living room to sit in a chair. It was as if he had been brought back into the present from another dimension.

My brother, who is five years younger than me, and I learned the hiding spot for our father’s instruments of torture. One by one, his items would disappear. As soon as he would replace a missing item, it would disappear if he used it. Soon, the only item remaining was his belt.

When I was in high school, I was envious of Alan, Jerry, Ralph, Joe, Don and Bruce, because they had fathers who did not beat them. At least they did not show purple welts when they took showers. I had many PE class excuses, mostly for the purpose of not taking a shower, where others would be able to see my black and blue marks. Believe me, it was very embarrassing to have to take a shower with purple bruise marks all over my legs stomach, and back.

My last beating took place when I was 18, a few months before graduation from high school. It was another unprovoked savage attack on my brother and me.

That is when I realized my father was a person, and a mean, cruel, bully. Later that evening, I approached my father and mentioned that I needed to let him know something. I told him that if he ever laid another hand on me or my brother, that I would kill him. “I will wait until you are asleep. Then, I will take a butcher knife and slit your throat.” Somehow, I got the idea that he knew that I was serious. There were no more breathings.

Within a few months, our parents divorced and our father moved out of the house to go live with another woman, who he later married. During the divorce proceedings, the judge asked my brother and me about our father beating us. Under oath, we told the truth.

Due to that testimony, our father believed we told lies about him in court, and made the choice to estrange himself from us. Apparently, he was in denial about his behavior, and actually thought or believed that he had never beaten us. He died at the age of 83, and by his choice without ever knowing his only grandchildren.

All of this was a learning experience for me. I learned how not to treat children.

I made a vow before God. If I ever got married and my wife and I had children, I would never beat them. I maintained that vow. We have a daughter and a son. Both grew up without beatings, and both are very good, responsible people today. (Yes, I did yell at them every now and then, but I never spanked them or beat them.)

Father's Day is always a day of mixed emothions for me. Mostly I am thankful that I was able to break the generational chain of violence from father to son.

Even though my father was a mean and cruel bully, he taught me how to be a better parent, by not emulating his behaviors, and for that I am very thankful.