The Rant-Monday Blues: Good Ole Sayings

Do you remember these dangerously, famous words? "What's done in my house, stays in my house!!!!!

Ooh, those words meant business. If you told outsiders what was going on in your house, meant...Annihilation, you got your ass whooped, and would be put on punishment. You became the liar in the family. The black sheep that could never do anything right. That fear of being forever known as, "that one right there" was too much for your childish mind to handle. When your parents/guardians said those words to you, you kept your mouth shut. No matter what was going on in your house, you said nothing.

Parents knew how to put the fear of God in their children, come hell or high water, (another ole saying), but this particular saying was one of the most damaging threats you could tell your child. That threat was the reason why it was so easy for secrets to stay quiet for so long. That threat is one of the many reasons why so many families struggled to connect after the loss of a matriarch or patriarch. It's also the reason why so many families stop connecting the way that they used to. That statement is why molesters, rapists, pedophiles, and abusers got away with leaving a trail of damage behind.

That is one of the reasons why kids, who are now adults, kept their rapists, molestations, and abuse quiet for so many years. Those words are part of why we may have that family member who gets drunk during the holidays and curses everyone out, or the one who constantly goes to rehab because of constantly having to see the person who hurt them, sit at the dinner table for years with the family like everything is all good.

This is why certain family members refuse to come home for the holidays because the memories are too painful to deal with. These are the family members that everyone talks badly about and always make comments like, "Damn she/he can't keep a lover," or "She/He changes men/women like they change their draws." Most of the time this family member will end up in abusive relationships, but never tell anyone about the abuse.

You know who they are. You might be the one everyone has been talking about. That's because they don't know your pain or you're reasoning because they don't know what you've been through and what you've had to go through just to wake up every day. They don't know what it feels like to deal with the pain of having your spirit crushed by a family member that you were supposed to trust. They all know that this person is a sick-minded individual, but all the family does is whisper about it and allow it to be "swept under the rug". (Another good ole saying)

Since that's the way things are handled in the family, that's what you do when you grow up. You "sweep your problems under the proverbial rug," and you continue to sweep all of the secrets in your life under that damn rug until the rug wears out then you're stuck with trying to figure out how to take those secrets and lock them in the back of your mind. Eventually, they began to spill over into your dreams and affect your life.

This is why good ole sayings are dangerous for children who already are told, "You are to be seen, not heard." When children's voices are silent by a parent or guardian at a young age, they become easy targets for predators.