Growing Up and Out of Childhood Misconceptions

Do you ever feel like you didn’t receive the handbook on certain social norms? Like, there are times when everyone seems to know exactly what to do and you’re like, “Oh shoot… I would have done the opposite”  Or rather than not receiving the handbook, do you ever feel like the culture surrounding your childhood–family, but also the wider culture of your school, church and friends–was just a little (or a lot) off? And as you grow up you realize that what everyone deemed normal in this particular community is most definitely NOT normal or acceptable once you’ve crossed the boarders out of your childhood influences? I have definitely felt that way and I wanted to share two specific ways I now believe that what I was taught in my childhood were way off.

The first is my sense of humor. I recently spoke with a friend of mine that I’ve known since we were 9. We grew up together in Littleton, Colorado a suburb of Denver and I was asking her if she ever felt that due to the culture of our local friends and most especially friends in our church, did she feel like she had a skewed sense of humor? Her answer was an emphatic YES. The culture where we grew up was that nearly everything was something to be laughed at as long as someone said it was a “joke.” There were certain families and individuals who seemed to have more influence in this belief system than others, and everyone else, it seemed, played along. One example I remember was a family in our church that I now recognize as all having a cognitive disability–the parents and all the children. At best there was a very low-level of tolerance for them. But most of the time there was exclusion, avoidance, and teasing–not usually to their faces, but there was plenty of teasing behind their backs and I found it curious when the adults who witnessed this teasing, either audibly laughed or stifled their smiles. Of course as this all seemed normal over time, I also engaged in this teasing and exclusion. One particular time that I am too ashamed to write about.

No surprise, a lot of the boys and young men got away with aggressive behavior that I know now to recognize as abuse. Name calling, putting girls down for their looks/weight, and I personally experienced plenty of physical aggression. But it was a joke. They didn’t mean it. We were to lighten up. (And if they did mean it, well what about my mouth? I was quite the smart alec afterall… I probably deserved it.)

One of the few times my parents intervened in me being physically hurt, we went up to one of the offending boys’ homes and had a talk with his parents. They seemed to take everything seriously and tell him he wasn’t to do that again. The next day, at church, this same boy came up to me and sneered in my face, “Once you left we all had a good laugh over that one last night.” I believed him. His parents seemed to find his antics particularly entertaining. (It might be helpful to note his parents also held high callings in our church and were in most ways what I would consider to be good people. People are complex.) And honestly I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t being sexually assaulted or really beaten, it was more like the kind of physical fighting siblings might engage in, but a little harder and at an age past when most would deem “kids being kids.”So over the line, but “not that bad.”

And make no mistake, I was just as much enmeshed in this culture as well. My older brother and I got into physical altercations regularly (I was mostly on the defending end of these bouts) and as for my younger brother I mostly remember occasionally holding him down and doing a spit or tickle torture (seemed mild to me by comparison–but again my measuring stick for comparison was way off.) I don’t remember ever just outright hitting him, but I could be wrong. Most of my assaults were verbal low-blows, and doing somethings that may have been “all in good fun” but taking it just a little too far.

In high school one of my friends of a different faith was commenting about the general culture of our faith once said, “It seems like as long as you guys aren’t drinking or having sex your parents are pretty much cool with anything.”

“Pretty much.” I said.

TP-ing (toilet papering) other people’s homes was practically encouraged–often with the parents driving the kids to their target house, or giving them money to go buy TP. Mostly this was a “all in good clean fun” type of activity that wasn’t meant to be done in a hurtful manner–something I still generally feel the same way about today–except that even in this realm we sometimes crossed the line and called it humor. Like when we also used eggs. And maybe tampons, with a little ketchup for effect. Overall the kids in my church group were seen as good kids, with high moral standards and values. But when I look back and remember some of the things we laughed at and brushed off, I am embarrassed to have been a part of it.

The other thing I now recognize as NOT OK but I totally thought it was OK as a kid, and maybe even much of my younger adult life, was to immediately ask prying, bold questions about a persons life when I didn’t know them well or at all. This one is a little more subtle. I can’t say its negative all the time, but what I thought was a display of how bold and unafraid I was to ask difficult questions, now I know shows that I was, at times, just being an ass. It’s hard for me to think of a specific example of this, but I do remember one time reading an interview (or perhaps her book?) with Tina Fey. She said that one of her tests to know if someone was a cool person or not was how quickly they asked about her scar. If they asked right after meeting her, she knew they wouldn’t be friends. And, from what I remember, most of her best friends waited a long time or never asked at all. When I read that I immediately realized I would have been in that first camp.

Honestly the main problem I see with all of the above, is that I don’t ever remember being taught kindness. Wait, I do remember it at church. I do. But when the wider culture was such that a “joke” was often code for “it’s OK to be mean” it was hard to take it seriously. There was definitely a “hunt or be hunted” kind of mentality.  And at home, I really don’t remember kindness being emphasized or taught at all. Not sure why. (I have my theories.) The longest lasting effect all of this has had on me is not so much in the realm of not understanding where to draw the line on jokes–I get that now–but rather, the idea that no matter how angry you might be there are some things you should never say out loud because there are somethings you can never take back. Below the belt comments were just a way of life for me as a kid and it has taken me a while to realize, “Wait… when you’re mad you don’t immediately say the most hurtful thing you can think of?”

In turn, I grew a tough skin (it’s softer now, but not as soft as I’d like) and in college many people in my life commented on my emotional “tough” surface and how I never cried. But I can say I consider myself to be genuinely kind. I may not always be the nicest person (the one who has a huge smile on her face at all times, and goes around giving compliments away like candy) as that’s not my personality. But I am KIND. I care–and despite my upbringing I believe I always have–about people and their humanity deeply. I’ve never enjoyed violence, even mildly like in a mosh pit, and I emphasize kindness in my home. (Even though I still yell at my kids occasionally and my own tone often comes across as abrasive. Working on it all!) And if there is anything I hate more, it’s when a criticism is wrapped up as a “joke.”

Oh man… that was a little heavier than I thought it would be. It was hard to write some of that out, but it also felt good at the same time to openly share and discuss these very real cultural problems I experienced as a kid. I should probably mention here that many of the people who may have been a part of that problematic culture have grown up to be good people. Even the grown-ups from my childhood are certainly not terrible human beings, but like all of us they had their blind spots. Also, as a society in general we are having conversations now that we didn’t have when I was a kid–conversations about bullying, race, disability, LGBTQ issues and embracing differences in general. It wasn’t only my church culture where I found these problematic areas–middle school was awful–but my church culture might have been the most damaging because it was mixed up with “the church.” But what about you? I would be so curious if any of my fellow Latter-Day Saint peeps also had this experience? If not, what were some of the misconceptions you’ve had to grow out of as an adult that you thought was “normal” as a kid? Humans are fascinating.