Dear Myles:

Maybe he thought he was a good father because he didn’t have you stand in a corner the whole day and because he didn’t hit you with hoover pipes. Maybe he thought that being called “an idiot, stupid etc.” was nothing, a thing of no consequence for a child, because it was not hoover pipes. Parents make use of all kinds of reasoning, convenient thinking, to make their behavior okay in their own minds. Thing is, a child being called names does not stop and think: this is not hoover pipes, in comparison it doesn’t hurt. It hurts because it hurts.

anita