Member-only story
I Don’t Care, or Do I?
We’re going to not care ourselves into a world of trouble if we’re not careful
I was a sensitive child. I cared a lot about others. To be fair, I’m a sensitive adult. It’s a bit easier navigating my sensitivity now than it was during my childhood. My dad seemed to hate that I was sensitive. In his words, I was “soft,” and softness was weakness. He would tell me that the world would chew me up and spit me out if I didn’t toughen up. 6-year-old me did not understand that he was reacting to his trauma and fears. Truthfully, my dad was sensitive. I think he hated that about himself. I can only imagine what it was like for a sensitive little black boy growing up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s. I can’t imagine it was easy for him to be abandoned by his father, mistreated by his brother, and watch his mother die of breast cancer (while none of the adults around him explained what was happening). I imagine it must not have been easy growing up having an idealized version of masculinity ingrained in him. Men don’t cry. Men don’t care what people think or say. Men don’t hurt. But the truth is that yes, they do, and my father was no exception.
Like most of us, my dad internalized those hurts and decided (I can’t say whether it was conscious or unconscious on his part) that the only way to avoid pain…
