David McElroy

When I was a very small child, my life was easy to understand. I was my father’s son. I adored him and wanted to be like him. And I needed him to be proud of me.

I wanted and needed my mother’s love and attention. I saw myself as a tiny protector for my younger sisters. Nobody actually told me these things about myself. This was simply an acceptable role for a little boy in my culture. It was my identity.

As I grew up, I added bits and pieces to my identity. Without realizing it, I was choosing from a limited menu consisting of what my culture believed was acceptable. Bit by bit, I developed a definite identity.

I knew who I was. I knew where I belonged. A lot of things were wrong in my life as I grew up, but I firmly understood my place in this world.

Eventually, I broadened my view of myself and who I was. I became someone whose identity diverged more and more from what traditional culture considered acceptable. I made choices which would have once seemed unimaginable to me, but which had come to be acceptable by the culture.

And I’m left with a seeming contradiction. I’ve found a wonderful array of choices which previous generations never had. I’ve had freedom to make my life into things which cultural norms would have prevented for my grandfather or great-grandfather.

But those choices I’ve had — the choices I’ve made for myself — have also taken me further and further from the cultural grounding which gave their lives stability and meaning. And I’m not certain whether my life is better or worse than the lives of those who lived before such choices were possible.

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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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