Or in my case? If anything went wrong without a clear culprit? Fridaaaaaaaaaaaay! (To be fair, I usually had a hand in whatever went wrong. It took me years to learn to hide the evidence of my misadventures.) I was the kid who was always breaking shit, always jumping off the roof, always getting brought back home by shore patrol covered in dust/mud/bits of jungle (jungle is sticky), always flirting with the sailors, always taking shit apart (and not putting it back together), always coming up with "better" ways to clean (come to find hardwood doesn't like water. I was like, 8. And the sponge shoes, for the record, worked awesome. In retrospect I should have staple gunned my own shoes, instead of my dads. But his were so much bigger, I figured they'd be more effective), always falling into whatever body of water was nearby, always taking a bat and my cleats when I went after people bigger than me, always cheering for the driver (motorbike) to jump the hill (I wasn't supposed to be using the dirt bikes or motorcycles, but if someone else was driving I figured I wasn't "using" them, so much as being ballast), always splitting hairs, always up past my bedtime, always finding the Xmas presents (and sometimes exchanging them before they were given, because it would be rude to exchange something afterward), always getting into people's love letters, always seeing if I would "fit" in the air ducts, always bringing home strays, always climbing shit I shouldn't be (including a few churches, which apparently, is "worse" than other buildings?), always asking bizarre questions in public (is this building now, or has it ever been, a church?), always coming home with grass stains and ripped up jeans, always the kid with the note pinned to their shirt (waaaaay past kindergartn), always forgetting my homework (done) or frantically searching for the (incomplete) homework I thought I'd done (and then accusing people of erasing it, or declaring it the "wrong" one, nope, just forgot it / had meant to do it so thought it was, when it wasn't), always playing my music too loud, always walking off with the lights still on (I turned the stove off! Sheesh!), always sent to the principals office, always getting As on my tests & projects and Fs on my report cards (how is that even possible? Homework. Homework is my enemy.), always carrying frogs -and other slimy things that my mom hated to find in the wash when she reached her hand in- in my pockets, always deciding thermite was the chemistry project to do instead of rock candy (to be fair I never blew up the chemistry trailer. I did, however, melt it a bit. And the aluminum dust didn't actually catch it on fire. It was just scorched. The so-called claims of my blowing up the chemistry trailer -twice- are gross exaggerations, perpetuated by my brother at thanksgiving, to deflect from his actual blowing up of the chemistry trailer).
So it's not entirely unreasonable that if the people delivering the curtains say they were told beige was the wrong color, and to come back with red? That they'd look to me (my SISTER'S favorite color is red... And she was also the family forger. I never forged a note from home. That was all her. Sadly, I just never thought that far ahead). Or if my dad slept through his alarm? That their first thought wouldn't be "Power went out" but that I might have had a hand in it (almost never). So there are a few things that no rational person would blame a child for... That I got blamed for. But mostly, we're talking "drive your parents nuts" stories. And after 10,000 -very clearly my fault- items in a week, it's hardly insane that 10,001 & 10,002 also landed at my doorstep. Even if you could have found a picture of me in the dictionary next to "affronted".
Does any of the above read like abuse? Nope.
What's even less like abuse? My being punished for what went wrong. Whether I had a hand in it, or it was someone else's actions I was being punished for. I've been sworn at maybe three times in my life by my parents? (Not a single day went by in my memory I wasn't in trouble at least once). Spanked, sure. Hit? Nope. Ditto never beaten, kicked, whipped, humiliated, starved, choked, tied up, locked up/locked in. <<< All things my son has been (by his dad, not me... for such "crimes" as dropping a fork, or my ex losing a job??? FFS in what universe does either rate the other? Not one. Because nothing rates that shit, much less noooooormal accidents, and shit completely not in my son's control.) . Grounded, often. (Although my mom considers that punishing herself, and avoided it whenever possible.) Privileges revoked. Not needs.
I left home at 17. To this day (almost 20 years later) my parents still blame me for shit. :rolleyes: Whether or not I'm on the same dang continent as they are. Whether or not they're actively yelling at someone else (my name just slips out of their mouth, and the person on front of them looks confused). Family scapegoat? Cha. What people from abusive or severely dysfunctional families mean when they say scapegoat? Not even the same durn universe. Scope & Consequences. Vastly different.
