My Mom Was An Underground Railroad For Abused Women: What She Taught Me About Feminism And Fear

The writer reflects on what her mom did to help others:

“As a child, I didn’t understand most of the midnight phone calls to my mom, or the times women would come over with children in tow, sometimes even in pajamas, and I would be told to go entertain them while Mama ensconced herself in her bedroom with their mother.

“Once, my mom spotted a bruised woman with three children holding a cardboard sign in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was pouring down rain. I was seven.

“‘Stay in the car,’ she said, locking me in. She went to talk to the woman.”

Source: XOJane
Published: Jan 3, 2013
Length: 9 minutes (2,259 words)

How a Gun-Loving West Texas Girl Learned to Fear Assault Weapons

A personal history of guns in the writer’s life:

“I have no idea where that gun is now, I only know that he took it back from me and that I don’t own it, and frankly not knowing where it is also fucking terrifies me.

“If I could have taken it apart and destroyed the pieces, I would have, for reasons I didn’t even understand then; I only knew that I hated it, and something I had such a strong, immediate spiritual reaction to was not a good thing.

“I’d understand those feelings a lot more intimately after college.”

Source: XOJane
Published: Dec 19, 2012
Length: 11 minutes (2,871 words)

My Parents Adopted a Murderer

From Doree Shafrir’s Best of Longreads picks: A woman looks back on her father’s abuse—and how their relationship changed when her family adopted a teen who had killed his adoptive parents:

“He is sending these virtual photo bombs because I have stopped speaking to him. Three months ago, my sister and I mutually agreed that we were breaking off all contact — divorcing him, disowning him — and by extension, our mother, who apparently just doesn’t have it in her to defy him. We did this over email (admittedly, perhaps not the best way to do it, but you try verbally telling a parent it’s over — it’s hard, y’all) and held our breath. After an initial barrage of angry emails, which devolved into apologetic emails, we’ve arrived at the photo bomb stage. No actual email, just the photos.

“The thing is, though, those happy little children in the photos? They’re nothing but ghosts, tiny spirit-girls haunting old Polaroids. When you are used to pretending that everything is ok, that you are a normal family with loving parents, you develop a really excellent false smile. You can do it on command, like a trained dog. But if we’re going to get real, if we’re to bring any semblance of verisimilitude into this, let’s look at the true pics: my father drunk and vicious, smashing up a bedroom suite, or beating the dog, or whipping my sister and me with a belt, or getting blind drunk and forcing us into the car, where he’d drive and scream at us for hours, or, in a series of nightmarish images, like some flipbook from hell, let’s see my father wrap his hands round my mother’s throat and strangle her. See me and my sister punching and kicking at his legs, trying to stop him? See our little teeth biting ineffectually at his pant cuffs?”

Source: XOJane
Published: Dec 12, 2012
Length: 8 minutes (2,153 words)