Anger v. Apathy

As we watch the anger arising all over our country during this godforsaken thing we call our election, I wonder about what is the cause. And then we watch an interesting TV series on Netflix called, This Is Us. And, it is loaded with Father anger issues.  And what are they?  Well, apparently, many fathers go through life unfulfilled and they toss their anger at their kids, often their male kids. So, for whatever reasons, Daddy grows up unhappy, and has a lot of Daddy anger. And so, the kid grows up with lots of anger tossed his way, making him also feel unfulfilled and diminished.  Now, do the moms of the world grow up angry and toss their anger at their female kids?  Maybe, but I’m a male and possessed an unfulfilled Father, so mostly I see the Father anger issues.

My own family had a Daddy who was seriously flawed for reasons known only to him and his parents.  His Father died fairly early, so my Father grew up in a largely female household.  Now, as I grew up in Manhattan, we visited my Dad’s mom, my Grandmum, fairly frequently, along with her two daughters, my Aunties Helen and Elsie.  Now Grandma and her two daughters seem to be fine humans and certainly always treated my mom and me and my siblings wonderfully. Sunday dinner was always a fine repast, filled with great food and family camaraderie. Oddly, my recollections almost always reveal our visits to be without my Father.  I remember him to be a Hit or Miss figure, mostly Miss. When he lived at home (infrequently) I recall him almost without any defining characteristics. And remember, I grew up in Manhattan during WW II. My Uncle served in that War, but not my Dad—he was too old I guess (38??). Actually so was my Uncle Bill, but he served in the Seabees, so maybe they had fewer age issues than for dudes toting a gun. Mainly my memories of him were things like this. I’m sitting at home in the kitchen with my mum, sis and bro. Rudy the Dad is missing. Then Rudy comes to the door of our flat and he knocks and then asks to see me. Mind you, I am about 6 or 7.  He wants to see me. So, I go out into the hallway and sit down on the stairs. And he doesn’t yell at me or anything. He pleads with me to ask my mum to let him come back into our Flat to stay.  So, after a bit, I go back inside and tell my mum what he wants. I fail to remember the result, but I think he was allowed back inside.

But then, see, in not too long an interval, he managed to leave again.  So, mostly, I grew up not so much with an angry Father figure, but a missing person, aka my Father,  My last encounter with him was fairly typical. During that War, my mum managed to buy and save War Bonds. When the War ended, she made a big decision. My bro and I used to play on the street on 71^st Street near Second Avenue. And we kept having “incidents”. I broke my arm once. Then I tore a hole in my arm, requiring 12 stitches. Then my bro was run down by a lorry, requiring hospitalization.  So, after the War, my mum decided that she had to get us out of the City. So, she took her stock of War Bonds, and went across the river into Rockland County and bought a little house in a place called New City Park. My grandpa (the one from Scotland) was carpenter and he fixed up the place so it was livable.  My mum decided to keep on working at her company in Manhattan and send my bro and I up to the newly acquired house, with my Father, who apparently promised to behave.  She would stay at Gibbs and Cox in Manhattan and live in our Second Avenue flat with my sis.  My father would get a job (bartending) somewhere in New City or Nanuet and live in the new house, taking care of me and my bro.  So, we all went about our new lives. She even bought him a car of some sort. Now, I do not recall any incidents with our Father during that interval. No anger, nothing.

Then, Winter began coming on. And sometime in November, our oil heater failed. I awakened to a fairly cold house without heat. As I awakened, my bro and I noticed something odd. Our Father had gone. Yep, the heater failed. It was cold, and he apparently did not know what to do, and so he simply left with no word to my bro or me.  So, of course, we called our mom and informed her of Daddy’s latest. She fairly quickly quit her job and packed up and moved over to New City Park. She got a new job as a bookkeeper, got the heater fixed, and simply moved in with my sis.

 And that was the last time I saw my dad. Once, maybe a month later, he tried to return to the house, but my sis and my bro refused to let him in. So he left again and we never saw or heard from him again.

But, there was no visible anger. I guess there was a lot of retained anger, but none of it showed, or was revealed in any way. My mum just moved on, with a new job, and my bro and I just re-entered new schools.

Now, the purpose in talking about this is to examine how I wound up with none of the anger issues I see on TV and all around our Country. Why do people actually support Donald Trump? Well, they’re angry for some reason. I wound up, instead with an emptiness—no Father. But I experienced no real anger, except maybe a kind of intellectual anger. I had a weak Father, who doubtless produced fury within my Mother, although neither she nor my sis ever let it show.

So, I came away from my childhood with more of an emptiness than any serious anger.  And so, when I observe on TV these almost palpable anger issues caused by Fathers who dumped their anger on their kids, I view them from an intellectual distance.  I can understand them, but without any emotional attachment to them. And I remain uncertain why I never managed to acquire the anger. Mostly, I think, it is because my Father never dumped on me.  He never yelled at me, never tried to make me feel like a simpleton idiot.  So, I wound up with no serious Father Figure emotions at all.  Now I think I turned out ok without these Father anger issues.  Maybe I just never learned how to be an angry Father. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, when I observe all the anger around us all in America.