David McElroy

I was only 5 years old, but I remember everything about the incident with startling clarity. I was a child who never did anything wrong — not intentionally, anyway — but I was about to do something destructive. And I never could explain why I did it.

We lived on Holly Hill Drive in Atlanta. My mother had some friends over to the house one morning. They were in another part of the house, having coffee and the sort of conversation which bores little boys. I was alone in the living room. It was fairly dark.

I felt deeply unhappy and alone.

Without any conscious thought, I picked up something sharp. I went to an expensive piece of furniture — a dark mahogany console into which our stereo was built — and I carefully marked a large “X” onto the polished wooden lid.

That ugly damage was a part of my childhood from then on. It couldn’t be repaired and I saw it every time we played music. But I was always baffled about why I did it.

In the last 10 years or so, I‘ve finally figure out what happened. It wasn’t rational. I wasn’t really trying to cause trouble. I just wanted my mother to look at me. My unhappy little heart was crying out for her attention.

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The fight wasn’t so different from what her daughters had seen a hundred times. The family had just watched a movie together — mother, father and two daughters — when something set off a fight between the parents.

There was screaming. There were threats. Then crying. Anger and quiet fear were in the air.

After the worst was over, the mom stepped out onto the front porch to get herself together. She was crying when her daughters came outside to check on her. Then she put on a brave face and reassured the girls that everything was fine.

The 13-year-old was silent, but the 11-year-old asked a question.

“Mom, is this what love will be?” she asked with fear in her voice.

After years of putting up with ugly fights and threats, that was the moment when everything changed for the mom. She told me the story tonight — about the night she decided to leave — nine months after this family drama played out.

For years, the woman had been in denial. She believed her husband’s promises to change. She accepted his excuses. She told herself that her girls deserved to have their father. But if this is what her daughters were learning, it was time to get out.

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If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade later this year, I don’t plan to talk about it publicly.

That doesn’t mean I won’t have thoughts about it. That just means there will be nothing useful for me to say. If you thought the country was divided by opinions about Donald Trump or George Floyd, wait until you see this.

If you think social media is polarizing now, just wait until what such a decision will bring. And I have nothing to say that would make any of the extremists — on any side — happy. In fact, I can’t imagine an opinion such as mine being read at that time. So if that happens, I won’t be talking about it.

Why?

Because either extreme on the issue brings about an end result which I believe is morally wrong and is socially destructive. But in this social and political environment, you are required to be on one side or the other — in the extreme — without fail. If you express concerns about what either result will bring us, you will be shouted down as a heretic.

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