Chapter 6 - My Parents Had Raised Bethany and Me the Same Way
The phrase “toughening up” was older than Rosie.
I remembered that slowly.
My father used to hide my shoes before school if I complained too much.
My mother once locked Bethany outside on the porch for twenty minutes because she threw a tantrum.
If we cried, Dad mocked the sound until we stopped.
If we protested, Mom said:
“You’ll thank us when you’re stronger.”
I had spent years turning those memories into funny family stories.
Bethany had done something different.
She turned them into parenting philosophy.
To her, pain followed by laughter meant resilience.
Fear followed by relief meant a lesson.
Humiliation meant children learned not to be dramatic.
My parents supported her because admitting Bethany was wrong would have required them to look backward too.
If what Bethany did to Rosie was abusive—
what did that say about what they had done to us?
It was easier for them to call everything a joke.
That did not excuse any of them.
But it explained why the dining room had stayed calm while Rosie cried down the hallway.
They had all been taught the same family rule:
If adults decide suffering is educational, the child loses the right to complain about it.
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Rosie was the first person in our family young enough for me to finally see how monstrous that rule looked from the other side.
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