Dysfunctional

I was watching Oprah today and a woman said she came from a dysfunctional family, that she was beaten when she was little, that her mother wouldn’t tell her who her father was. And I heard another woman on a talk show say that there are so many dysfunctional families that it seems to be becoming the norm -- that dysfunctional is becoming functional.
And then I see a commercial on t.v. from the Church of Latter-Day Saints that tells your family to communicate and shows a picture of a man teaching his son to ride a bicycle and I have to leave the room.
And then I watch a movie with a scene where the father hugs the daughter and tells her he loves her and I cry.

I was working in another room while my parents were watching t.v. in the living room. They must have heard a stat that said one in five children are abused. I’m the last child of five in my family.
Well, I heard my mother say to my father, gee, that would mean that one of the kids was abused. And then she said, I didn’t abuse any of them, did you? And father said, no.
I think that’s when he proceeded to say that that figure is probably for lower class families, and not families like ours.
And I just stopped my work for a moment. A moment of peace. A memorial, you could say.

He doesn’t think I know. But I do. How about sexual abuse? Yes, I know what you did to your first daughter. Twenty years later, and the thought still brings tears to her eyes. How about emotional abuse? Yeah, I’d call what you’ve done to me abuse. You still have to power to make me cry at the drop of a hat. Sixty-three, and you still have it in you.
And there is a lot about you I’m sure I don’t know.
According to my figures, we’re above average.

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