The Signal
My childhood was difficult.
I came from a two parent home in a nice home in a nice neighborhood. We had two cars, a Video Cassette Recorder, and three full sets of encyclopedias. Our extended families were close-by and nearly every weekend there was a birthday party or holiday gathering. All four of my grandparents were alive and most of my great-grandparents (1 still is!) were alive and within a day’s drive. We had a cat AND a dog, a large backyard and went to church regularly. By the standards of 1986–1996, our lives were perfect.
It was important that everyone believed that. The most important thing was to always project the correct image. Deviations were not permitted.
The thing is… keeping up appearances is hard. A lot of abuse is permitted in the system that prizes silence over accountability. Sometimes I forget that my upbringing isn’t typical and accidentally shock people with anecdotes from my childhood. My family isn’t an outlier. The silence is suffocating us all. Perhaps we need a support group or a ribbon to unify around. In sharing my story, I hope to pierce the silence and yield some understanding.
A few years before I began developing breasts, my mom sat me down to talk. It wasn’t the sex talk. Or a discussion of puberty. My mom alerted me to the dangers I would soon be facing. Men begin staring at my tiny nubs and plot ways to grab them. Male relatives would soon ask me to sit in their laps for their own carnal pleasures. Due to the impending threats, we needed to create a signal. To help me to feel more safe, I was allowed to create the signal. In times of need, I would
- lift right arm and raise hand to face
- Crook the right index finger
- Rub right eyebrow in a deliberate horizontal motion
- Maintain deliberate eye contact with my mother during entire process
We practiced it before certain family functions. A pattern began to emerge of which functions received the warnings and which ones did not. Sometimes she was really insistent that I never leave her side or her sight. Fear and family became intertwined. When my grandfather hugged me too long and too hard, I couldn’t give the signal because my face was buried in his belly and my hands were pushing him away. When my cousin wanted to show me “something really cool” and my mom was distracted or in the restroom, I couldn’t maintain eye contact. The signal only worked once and she never asked if I used it without her noticing. As I developed breasts, the long hugs became unbearable. The comments about my “development” or my clothes were lewd references disguised with social niceties. When I sat in my uncle’s lap, his “keys” pressed against my hip.
The abuse began long before the talk. When I was 4, my parents attended a party at my aunt’s house. Her house was a giant playland with a pool and a waterslide. They had a gigantic TV and it seemed, every movie and album in the world, an entire room dedicated to entertainment. They were living the good life and my father loved basking in their radiance. He often drank too much and my 24 year old mother was left wrangling a 30 year old man being egged on by his older sister and her drunkard, coke-addled husband. My brother, a toddler, must have been a handful as well. In the chaos, my mother lost track of me. By the time she noticed, I was in my 7 year old cousin’s bedroom with the door locked. She could hear him trying to persuade me to remove my clothing. He wanted to play doctor with me. My mother had to scream at my aunt and uncle to get him to unlock the door. I remember her crying and being so mad. I remember my aunt and uncle laughing at her because she was “overreacting” and “making a big deal”. I remember my father being angry and embarrassed and I remember the confusion of a 4 year old innocent girl.
Lessons were taught that day. My mother learned to avoid situations that could cause difficulties. She taught me to do the same. All men were scary and the only way to protect ourselves was to be cunning and proactive. I wish she had learned a different lesson that day: that her love for me and knowledge of her nephew prevented me from being raped when I was four. We need to do a better job crafting messages to ourselves and each other. If I could go back to 1988, I would look that 24 year old in the eye and say “Good job! Good job listening to your instincts and checking on your daughter! Good job standing up for yourself and your daughter!”.
My mother is an extraordinary woman that has been through some shit. If her mother had taught her that a strongly stated “NO!” is more effective than any tactic, things might be different for all of us.
No signal is as effective as self-confidence and equitable access to resources. After many years of therapy and improved socio-economic status, my mother and I both know how to self-advocate and will no longer (I hope) degrade ourselves to make someone feel bigger.
