Reviving Ophelia (14 page)

Jody said, “Everyone plays ball in my family. All my uncles coach and my cousins play. We start as soon as we’re old enough to catch a ball. The family business sponsors several softball teams. My grandmother has a master calendar she uses in the summer to keep track of all the games. In a record week she attended seventeen games.”

I asked what role her father had played in her life as an athlete.

“Dad has a great philosophy of sports,” Jody said. “He taught us to play for fun. He thinks that we learn more from losing than winning, and that our goal should be to improve with every game.”

I asked, “How does he deal with your mistakes?”

“Sometimes he might show us something we did wrong, but he doesn’t say much.” She laughed. “Dad does get upset about bad sportsmanship. He never lets us get aggressive or blame other players.”

Jody had great respect for her father. Her church taught her that men were in charge of decisions. Her father decided where the family would go on vacations and how they spent money. He led the family prayers and made the rules and punishments.

“How are you disciplined?” I asked.

“Until sixth grade we got spankings, after that, groundings. There was no back talk. If we did something wrong, we got punished. Dad didn’t let us off when we cried or apologized.”

I asked how she would discipline her kids. Jody said carefully, “I know it’s not popular to say, but I would spank my kids too. I think it taught us right from wrong.”

“Does your family discuss problems as they come up?”

“Not as a family. I talk to my mom, and my brothers and sisters talk to me. Mom talks to Dad, and he doesn’t talk to anyone.”

She paused. “I’ve only seen Dad cry one time—when his mom died. That scared me.”

Jody sipped her tea. “Dad is hard to get along with sometimes. If he’s had a tough day at work he can be impatient. I wish he spent more time with the family.”

She brushed her hair from her face and said quickly, “I know he loves us, though. He takes care of our family. When we do something that makes him proud, he doesn’t compliment us directly, but maybe he’ll punch us in the arm or give us a noogie.”

Jody answered the phone. It was her aunt inviting them over to Sunday dinner. Jody’s family spent most Sundays with this aunt’s family. The parents played cards on Saturday nights. They all played ball together and attended the same church.

I asked about Jody’s mom. She smiled. “Mom’s a total sweetheart. She’ll do anything for us kids. She won’t buy anything for herself until we have what we need. She dropped out of high school to get married, but she wants us to go to college.”

“How do your parents get along with each other?”

Jody shook her head. “They fight quite a bit. Mom tries to do what Dad says, but sometimes she gets mad at him. He’s picky about housework and that bugs her.”

“How has it been being the oldest in the family?”

“I take care of my sisters and brothers when Mom is doing the bookkeeping for Dad. I cook most nights. My parents were strictest with me because they wanted me to set a good example.”

She rubbed her upper arm. “They made me take vaccinations first in front of the little ones. I was expected to be brave and announce that the shots didn’t hurt. I’m not complaining, though. I am close to my family, much closer than any of my friends.”

We talked about junior high, which was a big change for Jody. She got teased about her hand-me-down clothes and cheap tennis shoes. Her dad wouldn’t let her wear makeup.

Jody looked at me. “Do you have any idea how much drinking goes on?” I nodded and she continued. “I was thrown in with kids from all over town. Kids tried to talk me into drinking and smoking. They swore all the time to prove they were tough. I got left out of things. I’m glad I had sports to keep me busy.”

I asked about difficult times and Jody looked sad for the first time in our interview. “In tenth grade I started dating Jeff. He was a caring person, very sensitive. But after a few months Dad told me I had to stop dating him. At first I was mad. Jeff made me happy and I thought, Why would Dad take this away from me? We even sneaked around for a few dates, but I couldn’t take it. I gave up trying to see him. I still see Jeff in the halls at school and feel bad.”

I asked Jody if she was angry. “I wish Dad would have let me decide, but I’m not mad. He was worried I’d have sex before marriage, and I don’t want to do that. Also, he wanted me to keep my options open and not get serious too young. I can accept that.”

Jody looked out the window. “My locker is in the area where hard-core kids hang out. When I go to my locker I hear a lot of sexual talk. Guys hassle girls and girls come on to guys. I’m sorry that they value themselves so little.”

I could hear Jody’s sisters returning from ball practice. I asked her what else she wanted to tell me. “I want to follow God’s plan for me. Maybe I’ll be a phys. ed. teacher. I want to marry and have a close family like mine.”

She thought for a while. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m too close to my family. I try so hard to be like my aunt and my mom. I wonder if there is a different side of me that I don’t allow myself to look at. Sometimes I feel myself thinking thoughts I’m sure no one in my family ever had.”

“What might that different side of you be like?”

Jody shook her head. “I don’t know. There are so many things I haven’t tried: drama, music, things my family isn’t interested in. Would I like those things?”

Jody’s sisters burst into the room. We greeted them and then I said good-bye to Jody. She hugged me. “I liked this interview,” she said. “It made me think.”

For a high school girl, Jody had a lot of responsibility that she shouldered without complaint. Her life seemed all of one piece. She loved her family and believed as they did in the importance of God and softball. Her appreciative and respectful attitude toward her parents, her lack of self-pity and her industriousness reminded me of Vietnamese girls like Leah.

Psychologists would condemn many of the elements in Jody’s background—the traditional sex roles of the parents; the physical punishments; the lack of lessons, camps and other enrichment experiences; the strict religion and the conformity of family members. They would note that this wasn’t a family that talked much about feelings. Particularly the father’s injunction against dating seems harsh by 1990s standards. Psychologists would question the family’s rigid beliefs. Interest in philosophical questions and self-examination were not encouraged. The parts of Jody that were different from her family would not flower.

I struggled with the questions this interview raised for me. Why would a girl raised in such an authoritarian, even sexist, family be so well liked, outgoing and self-confident? Why did she have less anger and more respect for adults? Why was she so relaxed when many girls are so angst-filled and angry?

I remembered some facts from sociology. There are fewer suicides in authoritarian countries than in more liberal ones. Those facts seem somehow related to Jody’s strength and happiness. In neither authoritarian countries nor Jody’s family are there many opportunities for existential crises. Someone else is making the important decisions. The world is black and white and there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. The rules are clear, consistent and enforced. There simply aren’t enough choices to precipitate despair.

The diversity of mainstream culture puts pressure on teens to make complicated choices. Adolescents don’t yet have the cognitive equipment. Young adolescents do not deal well with ambiguity. If the parents are affectionate and child-centered, teenagers are comforted by clarity and reassured by rules. Teens like Jody are protected from some of the experiences of their peers. Jody had challenges that she could be expected to meet—challenges that had to do with work, family responsibility and sports.

But there were costs. Jody’s family had limited tolerance for diversity. Obedience was valued more than autonomy. Jody hadn’t been encouraged to think for herself and develop as an individual. As an adolescent, Jody looks stronger than her peers, who are at odds with their families and overwhelmed by all the choices they must make. I wonder how she’ll look in her mid-twenties. By then teens raised in more liberal homes may look as strong as Jody and they may have even more creative and independent spirits.

One of my favorite families was the Boyds. Bill was a warmhearted man who played the ukulele and had formed our state’s chapter of Men Against Rape. Nan was an organic gardener who brought extraordinary dishes to political potluck dinners. Once she brought a casserole made of nettles, once a salad of morel mushrooms and wild onions, and another time a mulberry cheesecake.

Bill and Nan were community organizers and political activists who drove a beat-up pickup and spent their money on good causes. I saw them at marches for human rights or the environment, at peace workshops and at tree plantings. They had lots of company—foreign exchange students, friends of friends driving through our state, relatives and political allies. Every summer they took their daughters on month-long camping vacations.

Bill could make anyone laugh. He could cut the tension in a room of angry people with a joke or a song. He gave everyone nicknames they wanted to keep forever. Even though he was a socialist, Republicans liked him.

Nan’s vegetables took over the neighborhood in late July. She traveled door to door begging neighbors to take her zucchini and bell peppers. Once their cat Panther had a litter of six black kittens whom they named after their friends in order to entice them to adopt. Not surprisingly, it worked.

Abby was blonde and willowy, the most serious member of the family. In elementary school she won the statewide spelling bee. Elizabeth was shorter and red-haired. As a girl, she was the leader of a pack of adventurous pranksters we called the Crazy Kids. Abby and Elizabeth were involved in everything—politics, drama, music, sports, camps and their church. The family had parties—for the first snowfall, the first day of spring, a straight A report card or May Day. Their parents were loving and low-key. Problems were handled by discussion. Neither girl had ever been spanked. The parents trusted Abby and Elizabeth to make their own choices. They had the freedom to grow into whomever they wanted to be.

Both girls had trouble with adolescence. Abby got depressed in eighth grade. She missed weeks of school because of allergies and stomach ailments. Her grades fell and she dropped out of activities. She skipped the family parties and no longer marched beside her parents at demonstrations.

Much to her parents’ consternation, Abby dropped her neighborhood friends and joined a group of “druggies.” She became secretive about her whereabouts and locked the door to her room. Her parents wondered if she’d been drinking or smoking. Once she came home red-eyed and confused and they took her to an emergency room for a drug test. It was negative and they never tried that again. It was too traumatic for everyone.

During Abby’s adolescent years, Bill would suggest a bike ride and Abby would give him a withering look. Nan would bake a gooseberry pie and she’d refuse to eat it. She quit coming to meals with the family. When they tried to talk to her about the changes, she clammed up or attacked them for being unreasonable.

Nan and Bill couldn’t understand what was going wrong. Nan had some family history of depression, but she’d never worried about it. Abby had seemed calm and stable. They took her to a therapist, but Abby wouldn’t talk. She claimed she could work her life out on her own.

Two years later Elizabeth was in trouble. She dropped the Crazy Kids and stayed in her room, which she turned into a dark cave. She listened to her radio and read science fiction. Elizabeth also hated school and managed to flunk three courses in her eighth-grade year. Her only friend was Colin, who shared her interest in science fiction.

Elizabeth managed to pull her grades up and by high school she was again an honor roll student But she remained distant from the other students. She and Colin formed a small world of their own. She argued with Bill and Nan, who tried to push her back into the world of her school. Unlike Abby, she never used chemicals, but she was an angrier daughter. She hurled insults at her parents and told them nothing about her life.

When Elizabeth first had trouble, Nan and Bill again found a therapist. This one talked to Elizabeth alone and then assured Nan and Bill that they were doing everything right. She said, “I’ve never seen quite so much trouble in such a healthy family.” Nan told me later that she wasn’t sure whether to feel good or bad about that remark.

The therapy may have helped some, but both girls remained in trouble. They blamed Bill and Nan for the difficulties they were having, as if somehow perfect parents would have protected them from the chaotic world they were entering. In spite of her intelligence, Abby barely graduated from high school and never attended college. Elizabeth got pregnant her junior year and decided to keep the baby.

At first I was baffled by this family’s trouble. I wondered if there were problems I didn’t know about, if Nan or Bill had secret vices or if the girls had been assaulted by a relative or family friend. Reading the research on families with different control strategies and levels of affection helped me understand this family.

The Boyds were an affectionate family but had minimal controls. Their daughters turned out much as the research would have predicted. They had low self-esteem and problems with impulsivity. Clearly in their early adolescent years they would have benefited from more structure.

The Boyds believed in autonomy, tolerance and curiosity. They wanted their girls to experience the world in all its messiness and glory. They raised daughters who were open to experience, eager to try new things, socially aware and independent. Because girls like this are so open and aware, when they reach junior high they are hit full force by the gales of the hurricane. When all that force hits, they are temporarily overwhelmed. It’s too much to handle too fast. Often they handle it in the way Abby and Elizabeth did, by withdrawal and depression. They screen out the world to give themselves time to process all the complexity.