The Struggle: The Flip Side – Parenting by Necessity or The Stockholm Syndrome

Every day, we hear stories about drugs and perceptions of the people who sell them. I’d like to take you on a different journey and outline the struggle behind the life of our male interviewee. We will call him Sunshine for anonymity. He is a dedicated father of three children–all girls.

When I contacted Sunshine to do an interview with The Struggle Corner, he insisted that his story, in his opinion, was not a “struggle.” To him, his story–selling drugs to raise his children–was simply doing what he had to do.

So, I began by asking him if he believed it was normal for a man to have to sell drugs in the street, or, for a woman to have to sell her body to provide for a household? His response was one that I really wasn’t ready for.

Sunshine: “Where we come from, it is!”

“Where we come from,” means the underprivileged, the under-educated, the underpaid, and the lower-class section of his city, Anytown, USA. It is where individuals have been left to unconventional methods to maintain their household necessities. How could anyone believe this was normal?

What is normal? By my definition, this is definitely not normal! But, apparently, by his definition, such family-supporting jobs are normal. I guess when everyone around indulges in the same behavior, then unconventional methods of income appear to be normal. This got me thinking.

Many of us are familiar with the Stockholm syndrome.

It is a psychological response that occurs when hostages or abuse victims bond with their captors or abusers. This psychological connection can develop over the course of a few days, weeks, months, or even years of captivity or abusiveness. This term is commonly used for the individual victims of these random circumstances, not for an entire community’s psychological adaptation to inhumane living conditions. Yet, this was the first thing that popped into my mind when listening to Sunshine:

Have lower-income citizens lived in these abusive conditions for so long that this syndrome now applies to them as a collective? 

It was clear. This interview was going to be difficult and that I had to, creatively, introduce the fact to “Sunshine” that he did, indeed, struggle.

My next question to my interviewee: What if you were not using your street knowledge to support your daughters, do you feel that having an official job would have been a struggle?

Sunshine: pausing for a moment, he then replied, “Yes. I would have probably had to work two or more 9-to-5 jobs to make ends meet. Even then, I wouldn’t have had enough money to provide for all of us, and I would have lost the precious time that I was able to spend with them.” 

I was saddened by the reality that this young father did not consider risking his freedom for doing what he considered a normal job. His perspective opened a cultural runway of how others walk through his normal world every day! He confirmed that community fathers, just like him, risk their freedom, health, and walk a narrow moral compass to make ends meet. These men are doing this while being held hostage in this unfair society–a society that is blind to their normal. They work without realizing that they have succumbed to the exact conditions of the Stockholm syndrome!

This interview was going to be a doozy.

ibronze: Do you feel raising three girls alone was a struggle?

Sunshine: No, because I had some support. My sibling and the different girlfriends who filtered in and out of my daughters’ lives helped as well.

Again this answer baffled me. I was starting to understand that the male version of this struggle aspect was so far-fetched from the females’ experience. Since neither of these support systems was actually financially, mentally, or physically responsible for the children, especially the random catnaps as I will call them, I was still confused about his chain of thinking.

ibronze: Then, I just flat out stated, “So, do you feel that it was their responsibility to make sure the girls had what they needed, cook for them, do homework, and such?”

Sunshine: No, it was mine.

 

ibronze: OK, good now that I’ve established that fact, I laughed as I reviewed mentally how much of a STRUGGLE this interview was becoming. I could only muster up the “MEN! Boy, I tell ya,” comment. So for all intent and purposes, raising them–the weight of the responsibility seemed to fall on Sunshine. Do you think it would have been easier if you and their mother were partners in this situation and the bulk didn’t fall on you?

Sunshine: Yes, but I still didn’t feel it was a struggle. It was my job to raise my children. 

ibronze: I wiped my forehead and inhaled. Once again, I had to revert to attempting to understand how a man didn’t see single-parenting with sibling and friend-support as a struggle. There was no acknowledgment of any conditional implications like the Stockholm syndrome. Was it because as women, we feel it’s no one else’s responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of our children? Yet, a man can clearly view any help, from whatever source, as a form of relief, and therefore as having no struggle.

As I now felt this Interview was becoming more of an information piece on the difference between the male and female struggle versions, I decided to get in one more question: If there was one piece of advice you could tell your younger self, what would it be?

Sunshine: Stay strong and keep pushing!

Stay strong, people, this interview has been a knockout, drag-out event about the fact that this MAN felt that he didn’t struggle and now the advice he wants to give to his younger self is STAY STRONG!! KEEP PUSHING!!! I’m sure you can’t feel my pain but I’m certain you get the gist. I will leave his last note to himself for you readers to decide if there was or wasn’t a STRUGGLE: Despite his income source, Sunshine raised three beautiful, respectful daughters. They are well educated and have never been in any trouble with the law. He did something right!

ibronze: Until next time readers–from the Struggle Corner, I hope you enjoyed it! As for me, I now have to retreat and take two acetaminophens and a nap to recoup!!!!