My sister, brother and I did make our parents life easier. We were there for whatever their need was. Some typical requests were to get their shoes when they were going out, get something out of the refrigerator while they watched television, go for a drive when they didn’t want to be alone—none of these out of the ordinary for children. But if we didn’t act fast enough we were yelled out. Our mother had a penchant for giving us humiliating names. I was “fingala” because I dropped things or “nincompoop” when I didn’t do something up to her standards. Janette was an “animal”. I can’t remember Aaron’s nicknames—though I’m sure there were some.

Though the punishments never seemed to fit the crimes.

During the New Rochelle years, I remember sitting at the breakfast table with my siblings waiting for mother to put the food on the table. She had poured orange juice into small jelly jars (which were the fashion back then) and set it in front of each place. When I picked my juice glass up to drink, the bottom fell out. Well you would have thought by mother’s reaction that I planned this! She screamed, yelled and grabbed the dish she was going to place the eggs on and cracked my head with it. I cried of course and she belittled me some more by saying “Stop crying, it was only a cracked plate!”.

Every day I walked to school with Nancy Liptak. She walked from her home to the apartment building I lived in. She always rang the bell and I would greet her, grab my school books and lunch, say goodbye to my mother and off we would go. One morning, and for the life of me I can’t remember what exactly started mother on her crusade, she told me I couldn’t walk to school with Nancy, just as the doorbell rang. I didn’t know what to do and just froze for a moment. Mother yelled at me to “get rid of her”. And I started to cry that I couldn’t, “what would I say”. And my mother turned into a screaming, violent banshee. She attacked me and screamed “you do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it” and then slapped me, pushed me, pinched me, pulled me to the ground. And for a grand finale, she put two fingernails together and squeezed some skin off my face. I stopped crying and went into shock.

Mother pulled me up viciously and said “now get rid of her”! When I went to the door shaking and crying, and I saw Nancy’s frightened face, I knew our friendship would change forever. She saw the blood dripping down my face and when I said I couldn’t go to school with her any more I didn’t give her a chance to respond…I just shut the door.

My mother cleaned up my face with peroxide, but it was red, black and blue, so she tried to cover up her handiwork with makeup and then sent me off to school. I cried all the way to Jefferson Elementary school and I think I was in 5th grade at the time. When I walked late into my classroom, I remember Mrs. Meltz just giving me the once over as I sat in my seat. I cried the whole day and not once did anyone ask me what was wrong.

The times were different then and parental abuse was not such a big deal.