GROWING UP TOO SOON

Lost & Insecure, originally uploaded by purplebeats.

When reading Rosie and Skate, our book of the month, I kept thinking about those of us out there who have had to grow up before our time. So many of us assume a lot of the adult roles in our house and don't ever say anything about it. We take care of things for so many different reasons--our siblings, our parents, survival, or because we don't want the world to know about our family troubles.

Do any of you feel that the weight of your family is riding mostly on your shoulders?

In the book, Rosie and Skate deal with having an alcoholic parent and all of the hurt, anger, and crushing hopelessness that comes with that territory. A lot of girls go home to a place like this every day, and feel like they don't have anywhere to turn. I had a friend in high school who I knew for an entire year before she let me come to her house. When I would ask about coming over, she usually said, "My dad is a drunk. It isn't worth it." She was right. The week I ended up coming over to her house for the first time, she had called me crying. Her father had ended up in jail from a drunken brawl and she had no where to go. My friend was humiliated. It was so hard to watch.

I said to her, "This isn't your fault. You didn't do this."

She had said, "It doesn't matter. He is still my dad. What happens to one of us happens to all of us." She was right about that too. She felt guilty for his crime by association and thought that he cared more about the booze than about her. While her father had been the one who had gotten into the fight, the family was dragged through everything that resulted from it.

My friend's father got help. Ironically, it took getting locked up to start his recovery, but he is still sober today. My friend is still working through the years of hurt that the addiction caused her and the entire family. While she has learned that alcoholism is an illness, she is working through understanding that he was sick and had to have a lot of help and determination to overcome it. Basically, her mind tells her that it is a disease, but her heart still fights her to know that she is more important to her father than a bottle from the liquor store.

She isn't the only one that I know who has had to deal with an absent mom or dad, whether the parent is physically or mentally not present. One friend of mine has practically raised her younger siblings, for the simple reason that her parents had gotten divorced, her dad and moved away, and her mom fell into a crippling depression. Instead of letting what was going on at home make my friend slip too, she took charge of her family as best she could. She was an honors student, and really involved in school, but it was rare that you would see her around town without her two siblings in tow. It wasn't a choice she made, she felt it was her job to make sure her little brother and sister were okay. While she was working on Alegbra homework, she would simultaneously be yelling at her siblings to get ready for bed. I was amazed that she could alternate from talking about boys with me to making sure they had lunch money for the next day.

Many girls face this burden of responsibility, and it shows up in many different ways. Divorce, death, addiction, depression--they all leave a lot of us grappling to understand and having to grow up before our time.Those of us that know what growing up too soon is all about, often ask why. Unfortunately, there isn't usually an answer...

If you are affected by the abuse of alcohol by someone you love, like my friend mentioned in this post, Alateen is a wonderful organization meant to help you get through it. Click here for their website.