Elizabeth

Content note: This story includes reflections on emotional abuse in childhood and a controlling partner with alcohol issues. 

Growing up, it was just myself and my sister. We pretty much had our own friends in our youth, and we didn't interfere with each other. Back in those days, the parents pretty much told you what your career was going to be, and they didn’t want to waste money educating us because who would waste money on girls? You just didn’t at the time. There were some more liberal families that gave their daughters more direction and encouragement to move on educationally, but those were rare where I was. But I really liked working. I worked to have more independence because my mother had none. She had to do what my father said. It was an emotionally abusive sort of household. My parents wanted me to work in an office, be secretarial until I married, and then become a housewife. I pretty much did what they said until I’d had enough of people telling me what to do. I did love my parents. And they were sometimes good to me. But they didn’t view me as a person. I really loved my grandmother though—my mother’s mother. She treated me like I counted.

So, I decided I was going to find somebody, get married, and get the heck out of here, you know? Because I couldn’t have a life around my parents, or they would dictate the rest of my life for me. I would have to stand up, and it would have to get ugly. So I decided to go with my husband at the time and make a new start somewhere else when I was 22. I was born in Vancouver, but I was away for about 22, 23 years once I got married, before I returned in 1983. I’ve been here ever since. I have two children in the United States, one child here, and one child is deceased. They have dual citizenship, and they are living and working in the United States because that’s their birthplace.

After a while, I wanted to save my children from my ex-husband because he was an alcoholic and a little unhinged. I didn’t see that before I married him, but you know, as things gravitate, things change. Also, at that point, the world had changed. We were getting computerized. I was trained on the typewriter and the diaphone and the correction tape and all that kind of stuff, not computers.

So, I became a waitress after that in 1979, and my employer saw that I was punctual, I took care of business, and I didn’t just fool around. He got me to be manager the year after. That was the worst choice I made in my life as the waitresses got paid more than I did. I did try to be a nurse’s aide, but it had to be a graveyard shift from midnight to 8 in the morning because I had three children at the time. After three weeks, I gave up because I was hearing music where nobody was playing any music, so I knew I couldn’t do that. Then, to slow me down, my husband decided we were going to have to give her another baby to shut me up. He didn’t care that I didn’t like him, he just wanted services. We lived on a five-acre, 2,700-square-foot house that was beautiful, but he kept bringing farm animals home for me to take care of—with four kids, a big house, and a garden. And it just was impossible. Not to mention, I’m not a farmer. I didn’t know how to care for these animals, and it was cruel because I didn’t know what to do. But anyways, I got out of that situation.

In 1983, I came back to Canada, and the idea was that I was to live in my father’s house as he was in a nursing home, and I would look after his dogs and try to look for a job. Two children came with me: my six-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy.

I would recommend to any young person: get your education before you get married and have kids, because it’s really tough later on in life. Those basic foundations that parents give you about morality and values; not stealing, being kind, trying to help other people are solid and should remain throughout. But when your parents are dictating you, making all your decisions, and it’s like they’re protecting their reputation more than trying to protect your life? You have to get away from that. And the only way you can get away from that toxicity is not to let them into your life that much. If somebody wants you to do something that really transcends conscience, morality, and other things, get away from them. That’s about the best thing I can say.