Make Me A Scapegoat Any Day!

Or Why I Couldn’t Trade being a Scapegoat for Being the Golden Child

(This post is a bit tongue and cheek. It is not meant to disregard the deep and profound pain that comes with being the scapegoat or suggest that one would ever choose such a role, rather it is an acknowledgment of some of the very valuable qualities and values that have landed some scapegoats in their role.  I believe that my place in the birth order was the beginning of my painful childhood.  The qualities of sensitive, strong and truth teller emerged over time and increased my struggle even more.  If the stories my dad told me are true, and I have no reason to doubt him, it was long before I was old enough to be living out these values that I was singled out to suffer the wrath of my mother--I would never suggest anyone choose such as that for themselves or anyone else.  This is just a reflection on what I value and am unwilling to sacrifice in myself.)
                                               

I couldn’t be my Golden Child sister.  I wouldn’t want to be.  She rarely if ever talks about her feelings or even her life in general.  Over the years, she has gone through nasty spells of moodiness and sullenness, and panic attacks plagued her for years.  In other words, I am glad I didn’t master the art of suppressing my feelings.  As difficult as it is to be sensitive and feel acute pain, I prefer it over a mysterious cloud of moodiness and panic.

                     

But it is more than this that keeps me from longing to be the Golden Child.  Here is a story that sums it up for me.

Within a year of my grandparents moving in with my mom to be cared for in their old age, my mom got abusive.  My family (my husband and kids and myself) went to my mom’s house to eat lunch with her and my grandparents every Sunday.  During those Sunday visits, I would hear my mom snapping at my grandma for all manner of insignificant things:  for losing this important piece of paper or that bottle of pills, for breaking another dish, or for getting the pills all mixed up in the pill caddy again.  One day, my grandmother dropped a crystal glass that was a part of the Christmas china.  My mother went maniacal.  She was raging and screaming.  My nine year old, began to exclaim, “The antique store has those!  The antique store has those!”  My mom heard her and quickly calmed herself, taking rapid deep breaths and saying over and over, “yes, yes, I can get another.”  But the damage was done.  Trauma to all of us, especially my frail grandmother, who was sobbing. 

Each Sunday, I would leave my grandparents at my mom’s house feeling sick.  It was too much to watch.  My grandparents, they were stuck there.  They had sold their house and almost everything they owned, under my mom’s pressure to do so.  Now here they were, old, fragile, dependent and being treated as burdensome inconveniences. 

I would tell my sister about the things said and done.  Consistent with her way of being, she gave little response.   One day as I was expressing my angst and concern, she said, “They have been doing this dance for years.  Let them do it.”  Jaw drop.  What?  Yes, they paved the way with their treatment of mom when she was little, but come on!  That doesn’t make it okay or give us permission to turn a blind eye.  This is abusive! 

I still really can’t understand this response.  The strong, sensitive truth teller in me can’t watch these sorts of things quietly.  My sister always watched quietly.  She learned not to make waves and gracefully to accept the tyranny that existed, at times even to justify and excuse it; are these the necessary coping mechanism of a Golden Child, I wonder?  I don’t know, but if this is what it takes to keep oneself Golden, please God, make me a scapegoat any day!