Overprotective Mother Series: Part One

I grew up in a fairly dangerous city. It had (and still has) a lot of violent crimes and more reported rapes than almost every other city in the United States. My mother knew this, but as a 10 year old kid I did not. I had no concept of what a violent crime was, or that such a crime could happen to anyone, anywhere.

So when you combine those scary facts with an overly protective and paranoid mother, you get what I like to call a “Sandwich Childhood”. Please look below for further explanation.

Despite my mother’s excessive need to preserve my life, I was still able to make and have some friends. One day, I decided I wanted to walk to my friend’s house and play. My friend only lived one street away in the same neighborhood, a short and easy distance to walk. So I asked my mother if I could go, but before she answered she stepped out of the room to grab something. I thought she might be grabbing me a coat to wear, since it was a little chilly outside. Instead, she came back with this:

I didn’t know what to say, so I stared…speechless.

The conversation went like this:

Mom: Take this with you, just in case.

Me: In case…what? I find a nail?

Mom: No, in case someone tries to hurt you.

Me: Who would try to hurt me?

Mom: Grown men. Some of them hurt little girls.

Me: But how will I reach their head if they are taller than me?

Mom: Honey, you don’t aim for their head. You aim for their balls.

Me: What?

Mom: They will want to hurt you with their balls. Aim for their balls. And when they fall to the ground, that’s when you aim for their head.

 That little sentence opened up an entire new world for me.  People out there want to hurt me with their balls? And my mom wants me to attack them with a hammer? Did she really think that if a man wanted to hurt me, I could easily overpower him with a hammer? And then continue to crush him with it?

Me: I don’t want to take the hammer. I will look silly.

Mom: You’re going to take the hammer, whether you like it or not. And if you have to use it, don’t use the flat side. See those claws? Use that side.

I didn’t want to take the hammer, but it became abundantly clear that if I continued the argument, I would learn more things that I didn’t want to know about. My fragile child brain was already warped from the new disturbing information, so it didn’t occur to me to just ask her for a ride instead.

So I started my walk towards my friend’s house, and it very suddenly became dark outside. Images flooded my mind about men trying to hurt me with their balls, and I started to cry.

When I was halfway there, a friendly policeman was doing his usual tour of the neighborhood, and saw me alone in the dark. He pulled up beside me, and I think he was going to ask me if I was okay until he realized I was sobbing and wielding a hammer.

Him: Are you okay?

Me: Yes.

Him: Why do you have a hammer, alone out here in the dark?

Me: To protect myself from balls.

In the awkwardly silent moments that followed, I started to get paranoid. I remembered my mother telling me once that even police officers commit crimes, and sometimes criminals pretend to be cops to get children to trust them.

I raised the hammer a little bit.

Me: Are you going to hurt me with your balls?

Him: No…Have a nice day.

He drove off, and I broke into sprint. I was determined to make it to my friend’s house before anyone else could potentially hurt me. I finally made it to her house and rang the doorbell. Her mom answered the door, and saw me covered in sweat and tears, still holding the hammer.

She gently took the hammer from me, and told me to go upstairs. Not much later, my mother arrived with the car to take me home. Apparently my friend’s mom had called her and told her she didn’t want me to be her daughter’s friend, and that I couldn’t come over anymore.

Can you blame her?