21 September 2001 ~ "Philip Glass is our dad..."

I know, it's been a few days since I've written... I've been a bit tied up. I've got a new job, I've been working on my little project, I've got school, I've got friends and family to think about... So. Sorry.

So.

My younger brother is in the process of getting kicked out of his dad's house.

I hope that last sentence makes your blood boil as much as it does mine.

My younger brother: tall and quiet and intelligent and kind of brooding and antisocial until you know him. He's a little bit of a freak -- it kind of runs in the genes -- but in a nice way. I'm a bit of a freak in a dweeby, hyper way, and John is a freak in a Beavis-and-Butthead sort of "let's-set-fires-and-look-at-girls'-boobs" sort of way, but Joseph is just a nice normal freak.

The "good kid," if you will.

The one we guessed would be the first to marry and settle down into a nice, normal job that he enjoys, the one who'll be responsible about money and maybe make a pretty good parent, the one who'll go to social functions and concerts with his freaky-yet-normal friends from marching band... The "good kid." Really. Not to say he hasn't made his share of trouble, but comparatively, the other two of us have been WAY more rambunctious and rebellious.

Dear old dad is kicking Joseph out of the house because he had his feet on the coffeetable. And! If you can't live by the rules of the house, move the hell out.

This makes me sick. Just makes me sick. And SO angry.

No, I didn't deserve to get kicked out of the house. I didn't deserve the disrespect and the accusations. I didn't deserve ANY of the shit that I got in that house. I didn't deserve to be treated like a whore, to be forced to change my clothes because tank tops are slutty. I didn't deserve the accusations about being on drugs, and I CERTAINLY didn't deserve to have to walk twelve miles a day to and from work because pop's TV show was more important than taking ten minutes to drive me. I didn't deserve to be denied access to the refrigerator, I didn't deserve to have my food thrown in the garbage, I didn't deserve to have to justify where my money came from... I didn't deserve to be yelled at for playing quiet music. I didn't deserve to be locked out of the house at three in the morning when I came home from work.

But you know, I can see where I was a bitch, and I can see where I was difficult to live with.

But Joseph? Man, what the hell has HE ever done wrong?

The kid wants to grow up to be a trauma surgeon in a hospital. He's got two jobs, he's going to community college, and he's actually making something of himself. I have no doubt that he could acheive anything he wanted to acheive. He's SUPER smart -- not even in a pretentious English-major way, just SMART. He's not too bad-looking (this coming from his sister, so I'm not about to say, "gee, my brother's a hunk..."), he's got a lot of friends and not a reason in the world to have enemies. He's just a damned nice kid. He doesn't drink, he's never experimented with drugs, he doesn't have random sexual hook-ups. (Okay, I admit, at his age, I was doing all of those things, although not to any really dangerous extent...) He's the one who ought to bring a middle-class American family a lot of pride. The successful son. The one a typical set of parents would brag about to their friends.

John and I once tried to smoke a cinnamon stick on the back porch one night. John's had a few sips of mind-altering beverages, and obviously so have I. John looks up girls' skirts, and I hang out with homos and kids with pink hair and people I meet on busses. But Joseph just doesn't DO that stuff. He's just a nice normal kid: quiet and happy, a pretty good musician, a pretty good actor, with pretty good grades and the motivation to suffer through two jobs...

And Joseph's getting kicked out of the house for putting his feet on the coffeetable.

I've got some freaking NEWS for all you loving parents out there: your kids are going to piss you off sometimes. We're going to be rebellious, and we're going to sneak out sometimes, and we're going to do weird shit that you told us we shouldn't do. We're going to talk on the phone too much, and we're invariably going to hang out with people YOU don't like. We're going to forget to do our homework, we're going to play doctor in the bushes with people you think are scum, and we're going to eat junk food and ask you for ten bucks every now and again.

But you know, we're also going to grow up to do TWICE as much good for the world as you did. We're going to graduate from various institutions, and go into various career fields, and we're going to do stuff we're very happy with, and very proud of. Maybe we'll get married, maybe we'll have kids, maybe we'll have nice houses with white picket fences, maybe we'll become teachers or rocket scientists or trauma surgeons. Or maybe we'll slack off and be bums. But if your kid WANTS to be a bum, then you encourage him, and you help him to be the best damned bum he can possibly be. Likewise, if your kid wants to be a trauma surgeon. Or a quirky writer. Or an arsonist. Whatever. You encourage your kids. You support them. You try to be an uplifting and positive influence on them.

You don't kick them out of the house for having their feet on the damned table. If it's the same table I'm thinking of, it's a shitty table anyway.

Oh yeah... and one more thing, for all you wonderful parents out there...

Not only do your kids have the potential to carry your genes and your family name into a new time, and to do great things with it, but we're also the ones who determine whether you go to a nice nursing home when you become senile, or whether you end up on the streets. If you're really so selfish that you'd practically disown your own kin for not following a couple of dumb rules, maybe the nursing home thing is the only thing to motivate you to be nice to us at all. But if you're really that much of a dick, you really shouldn't be having kids in the first place.

So, Joseph... A little secret I'll let you in on. Aaron and I have decided, as biological children of dads who couldn't care less about us, that we're going to pick ourselves a new dad. We've picked Philip Glass, just because we like his weird face, and the fact that he's probably insane. If you'd like, we can let him be your dad, too. And you know, he might be insane, and he might have a weird face, but he probably wouldn't kick you out for having your feet on the damned coffeetable.

If I was a person with an evil streak, I'd sneak in the basement window sometime and smash that fucking coffeetable. Into little tiny bits. And I'd leave the scraps all over the house. Of course, it would probably get blamed on my brothers, so I wouldn't do it, but gahd damn -- how evil to value your cheap furniture over your own child.

We'll show you, man. We're gonna be great. We ARE great. And we're SO much better and smarter than you'll EVER be.

So go to hell.

~Helena Thomas*