MEMOIR | PERSONAL ESSAY | CHILDHOOD

I Was Kidnapped at Four Years Old

In some ways, I never returned

Content warning: Domestic violence

I barely remember my childhood. I was never a child, really — I was old long before my time.

There are many others like me.

I was kidnapped when I was four years old. My mother had left my abusive father, taken me, her two older children from her first marriage, and fled to her family in Ohio. When she allowed him a visit, my father never brought me back.

Instead, he hired my grandmother’s aging sister to watch me and run the house. She wasn’t up to the task. I wanted nothing to do with that woman, and she wasn’t able to control me. My father had never corrected me, never raised his hand to me. Never allowed anyone else to, either.

He saved all the beatings for my mom and my half-sisters, who were six and ten when I was born.

Mom was glad to tell me years later that she’d never spared the rod, though, at least until I got old enough to rat her out. She was very proud of that.

I’m not sure how long I lived with my father, but one day, my mother turned up to take me back. I was still small and so excited to see her. She and my father got into a terrible argument in our living room. As I stood there clutching my few belongings, Dad punched her in the face, hard. I can still hear the horrible sound she made.

Only years later, after I was a wife and mother myself, did I realize that day was the reason my mom had a partial plate where her front teeth should have been.

Dad would put me in the backseat of his old car and drive me to visit Mom once in awhile. I always knew that’s where we were headed when I saw the huge, brightly-lit billboard advertising Sunbeam bread glowing in the night sky. It was motorized and the slices appeared to be tumbling out of the loaf.

I still remember the smoke from his cigarettes as we sped through the darkness, and rubbing my hand over the fuzzy, upholstered car seats. There were no seat belts back then — kids just rolled around in the backseat like peas in a can.

Mom lived in a cheap downtown apartment in the city. She worked as a waitress in a fleabag hotel nearby that reeked of sin and lost dreams. There were few jobs available then for single women.

Dad and I lived in a ramshackle, drafty old farmhouse a few miles out into the country. When we got to Mom’s apartment, we had to climb up a lot of wooden steps in a dark stairwell.

When our visit was over and time came to leave, I always begged to stay, but it was not allowed. Neither of my parents seemed interested in that scenario at all. Mom and my sisters eventually moved back in with us — I suppose it was so she could be with me.

But I’m not sure. It might have been simply a matter of finances. Children who were not loved understand these things.

My poor mother, so thin and careworn in her pictures! As a woman, my heart bleeds for her. For my unfortunate sisters, too, who had no other choice but to go back to my dad with her.

It was a terrible decision.

But those were different days. A woman without a man was a disgraceful thing — even a man like my father was better than no man at all. When my mother left my dad, her family sniffed but let her in. When their Christian charity quickly ran out, those godly people told her to go back to her husband, where she belonged.

And I suspect my father could be incredibly charming when he needed to be. From his pictures, he sure looks like it.

I had no choice, either. I had to go wherever they took me. I was born when my father was 44, and his only child. My mother was 29. He had lied about his age to her. He’d also told her that he was unable to have children, so I was a bit of a surprise to Mom.

When I was small I adored my dad and followed after him everywhere. When I got older, and saw the reality, I hated him.

That never changed, not even after he died.

Children who grow up in violent and abusive environments usually go one of two ways: they either continue the cycle of destructive parenting, or they become the exact opposite — incredibly loving, protective, nurturing parents.

I chose the latter.

I’ve always harbored a lack of respect for my mother who didn’t put her children first, who didn’t protect them. She was indeed a product of her times, but I’m still very much aware that part of her actions came from a place of selfishness. She wanted to party a bit. She didn’t want to sleep alone, even if it meant her two older daughters had to live in abject misery and fear.

They were simply collateral damage. Every human life has a price.

Unsurprisingly, my sisters detested me. They blamed me for their situation. If not for me, things might have been different.

But I doubt it.

I try not to judge too harshly. My mother’s first husband had abandoned her and their two daughters. She obviously felt powerless and without value, grasping for whatever little piece of joy she could manage to find. The cycle of dysfunction that she set in motion didn’t stop with my sisters, either.

Yet against all odds, it did stop with me.

At 17, I was a very young mother, but took to motherhood like a duck to water. Even with no role model, I still managed to pour all of the love and attention into my girls that I never had. My children were always squeaky clean, well-fed, happy, doted upon. I would have protected them with my life, without hesitation.

That remains true to this day.

I would never have allowed anyone to strike my girls, berate them, treat them like indentured servants, kick and threaten to kill their pets. When it comes to my daughters and their children, I’m an old she-bear. You don’t touch what I love, no matter who you are. You don’t want to see that side of me.

That little girl who had no choice has grown up, into her power. The child who grew up without love, loves deeply. The woman who never had the opportunity to have a childhood is warm and loving, gentle and kind.

But she is also fierce.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you, always.