My Parents Have Kept Me Awake
Since I was a child I’ve worried
It started when I was ten. I lay awake at night, afraid my dad might lose his job, and we’d have to move again or worrying that my mom would be sad because she didn’t have enough money to buy groceries.
The older I got, the more I found to worry about. Sometimes, I worried about kids not liking me at the new school, but those fears shifted when my parents ended my education in the sixth grade. As fundamentalist Christians, my parents were afraid I’d fall into drugs, learn about evolution, or have sex if I went to public school. Their solution was to take all four of us kids out of school permanently.
My parents told me that it was against the law for kids to not be in school, and if we got caught, they could get arrested. They told me to lie to people by saying I was homeschooled. I hated this blatant lie because there was no teaching involved — they never bought one textbook. At the same time, my religious upbringing left me feeling guilty whenever I lied to my grandparents, pastor, and church friends.
When visitors came to our house during school hours, I soon hid under the car windows or in the shed. The guilt and fears began to eat at me, and I started laying awake at night, wondering how I’d take care of my younger siblings if my parents went to jail.
