Home Alone

She's a single parent. That's tough. It's tough on the kids and tough on the parent.

I was home alone a lot, after school, weekend nights, summers and winter vacations from school etc. My responsibility was to watch my brother, even when he was 2 and I was 8. Occasionally we did have baby sitters on the weekend nights but not consistently. I watched my brother from 8 until I was 18.

It was lonely and hard to keep entertained. Hard to pass the time. I think it's how I got into music, reading and writing. My brother and I fought, a lot, made up games, watched tv and did chores. We were bored, most of the time.

It seems normal enough to me for me to help her out with childcare (even when I was a child), housework and meal prep. There was no one else. Like I've said before I was her partner.

I do feel like a lot of that repsonsibility on my shoulders as a child kept me from participating in activities like sports or camps or clubs or even the chance to hang out with friends. I feel like it robbed me of some childhood experiences. It also forced me to grow up very quickly.

Anyway, being home alone with my brother, after school and during breaks from school, was one thing. I could accept that there was no other way. But. BUT being left while she partied with friends and men into the early mornings of the weekend, was something entirely different.

In the 90s, it was something that happened every weekend. It was about a 5 year period where going out to clubs and bars was the normal thing. I didn't spend the night at friend's houses because I was the baby sitter. I spent those nights drawing, writing, listening to music and watching tv.

There were some times she didn't come home until the next day. My brother and I would wake up to an empty house, scared that she had been raped and murdered or stolen or in an accident. No doubt about it, she always came home drunk. I could hear her stumbling around in the house and falling into bed. It hurt my stomach. It made me sick if she brought somebody home. It hurt to know she'd rather be out than with us. As I got use to her being gone, I got over it. I could handle it on my own. If my brother woke up scared in the middle of the night, I could handle it. We were fine.