I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household, and didn’t realize how batshit insane my parents are until I got out. My brothers escaped about the same time as I did, but our afterthought of a sister still has several years to go. It kills me when she starts reciting crap about Jesus riding dinosaurs, or all Muslims plotting to murder decent white folk, or AIDS being God’s revenge on gay people.

I know that my brothers and I managed to turn out quasi-normal despite my parents best intentions, but I can’t help thinking that we only did because we had each other to egg into rebellion. She’s all alone with their extremist home-schooling, and if all goes to plan, she’ll be ready to submit to her husband and start birthing Good Christians the minute she turns 18.

And it makes me SO MAD.
How do I counter 15 years of intensive brainwashing and tell her that she’s worth so much more?

I’ve always been more invested in my loved ones’ suffering than mine, in part because I grew up in a fairly safe environment, so unsafe things directed at them were magnified, but in part because as you and many commenters have said: it’s easier to just put up with it when the shit is directed at me.

There’s a lot to tease out here, though. One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn has been to hold back and trust my loved ones to be able to cope.

My husband, who is a wheelchair user, gets tired of kids staring at him, people calling him ‘buddy’ and “generously” slamming their brakes on in heavy traffic so he can cross the street, but he can handle that. Just because I might have more privilege to leverage doesn’t mean I *should* get up in somebody’s face on his behalf. First, it would embarrass him; second, he’s perfectly capable of getting up in their faces himself if he wants to.

But okay, he’s an adult. What about my best friend’s three-year-old son internalizing gender policing? What about my cousin’s intelligent and bookish tween girls getting all of these hypersexualized messages from every direction? What about my husband’s sensitive and creative teenage nephew who has learned through his dad and friends and video games and movies that violence is the Way to Solve Problems and stoicism is the Way to Be a Man? I can’t truthfully say they’re fully capable of taking care of themselves. Don’t I have some responsibility to guide them and help counteract the damaging narratives?

I comes down to finding a balance. I can be an ally without taking over.

Of course, I can think about all of this calmly right now, but in the moment, that white hot RAGE can make it hard to know what to do.

Also, this:

“But … real meaningful social change takes so fucking long. And the slow-progress timeline that I’ve learned to live with for myself no longer seems acceptable when I’ve got someone I love, wrapped in my arms, in pain.”

I feel that SO HARD. God DAMN.

I had a lot of rage as a child at people who called my disabled sister “retarded” or made fun of her looks or acted as though she couldn’t live a normal life (today she lives a perfectly normal happily married life, goes to work every day and posts a lot of pictures of her cats on her FB page). Some of these people were even members of my own family—a different side of the family than hers—and that made me FURIOUS. I still haven’t forgiven my late grandmother or my aunts for some of their ignorant bullshit. So yeah, I get that seething protective sisterly rage. (High five Verity Khat and Drahill !)

I’m also kind of on a ragey warpath with a number of my white friends with regard to the Trayvon Martin case right now. I have a number of black friends who are parents of boys his age and I see their outrage and their fear for their sons and when my white friends pull out some casually racist dismissal—usually without really understanding how racist they’re being—it sends my blood pressure through the roof. Let’s just say folks have been defriended on FB recently.

@Ms. M — so completely hear you on the overwhelming rage when it comes to the poor (or worse) parenting of a spouse. Even more so in my case past domestic partner violence. There are times when I want to hunt down my partner’s ex and just dump all the crap we’re still dealing with on *her* shoulders. I wanna be like, “YOU deal with this, so we don’t have to. We’re done. Bye-bye.” I hate that the damage other people do and walk away from can linger for years.

My husband gets sexism on the other end of the spectrum. He is less of a man for being at home with the kids and a “pussy” for being in constant pain from fibromyalgia. He’s a loser, a leech, a freeloader, and not worthy.

I get all the sexism I can handle, whether overt or in the form of microaggressions. I get shit on for how I parent even though everyone agrees that my kids are pretty bad ass. I get fat shamed and told that I am not fuckable.

The worst fat hatred comes from myself though, seeing as I’m one of those bitter women who used to be conventionally hot, gained way too much weight, never lost it and cry at old pictures wondering what could have been…..

1) I’ve been ripping new assholes for people who dismiss and criticize teachers since I was about 10. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with education or that bad teachers don’t exist, but as a profession teaching is one of the hardest and most thankless tasks I have ever witnessed. And, oh, have I witnessed: My mother is a teacher. (A damn good one, too!) So if you insult a teacher, you’re insulting my mother, and I will take the time to tell you in great detail exactly what is wrong with your assumptions.

2) My brother has autism. Casual use of the word “retarded,” telling autism jokes, and spouting ignorant anti-vaccination nonsense are all really good ways to meet my Ms. Hyde. (Seriously, when anti-vaxers start up, all I hear is “I’d rather my child die of a painful disease than risk them turning out like your brother.” My brother is kind, funny, musically gifted and gainfully employed. You could do worse, assholes.)

3) I have a real problem with people who tell kids making art “You’re doing it wrong.” Art is about the joy of creation; it’s about process, not product. It doesn’t matter if their puppy drawing looks like a giraffe, it doesn’t matter if they color the sky lime green, it doesn’t matter if the project was about fish and they painted Spiderman riding an airplane instead. Their technical skills will improve naturally with practice and age. Every time you say “No, you do it like this,” I see the light in their little eyes die a bit more. You’re just teaching them that their imagination is wrong, that competency is more important than creativity, that they should conform to your idea of good. That is BULLSHIT. And I will politely tell you so to your face. And my boss applauds when I do.

It’s been 15 yrs since he’s had any relationship wtih them beyond a few emails or phone calls each year, but each time one happens I am SO ANGRY that they should continue to act like he is the one that is at fault for separating from his family , when it is his father, THE ABUSER’s, fault.

So I agree Anna, that rage on behalf of someone you love can be stronger than one’s own. I get very angry at a lot of kyriarchical things, but this thing with my husband, it is of an order of magnitude greater.