Content warning: The following article contains details of physical abuse that could be triggering. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at: 800-799-7233 or chat online at thehotline.org.
As a child, I knew that being hit at home wasn’t part of the acceptable American lexicon. I knew it in the way that sitcoms like “Boy Meets World” and cartoons like “The Rugrats” depicted parents as loving, doting, always looking for that advice from Dr. Lipschitz. I knew it from the sleepovers I went to, sitting at family dinners where warm bread rolls were passed around and parents asked their children how their day was. I knew it in the way that failure to my friends didn’t seem as big of a deal as my own failure— perhaps their parents might yell at or scold them for a bad grade, but the A’s didn’t hinge upon happiness or death like it did in our household.
The first C I ever received was in first grade. I had failed to complete an assignment for the teacher who liked cows. Dread consumed me as I stared at that C. An incomplete circle, that C was. C was for cowards and clowns, both of which I must be. I imagined all of the worst-case scenarios with Umma. Would this be a time when snot would clog up my nose and drip onto the report card underneath me? Or would my head remain stiff as my hair fell in front of my face like a black veil at a funeral? Or would I run up the stairs and shout back at her? I realized the best time to tell her would be in the car, when she had both hands full and a busy road in front of her. That way, I could hop out as fast as I could when we got home and lock my bedroom door behind me.
As predicted, Umma was furious. She ranted on the 20-minute car ride home, asking me rhetorical questions like, “How could you let this happen?” and “Are you proud of yourself?”
I sat still and silent, the fear encasing my body like an ice chest of cold, dead meat. I…
Read the full article here
