Member-only story
On Being Raised Angry
By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD
When I was growing up, it seemed like all of the adults I knew were angry all the time. They would rant about things they considered to be unfair with such malice. Even as a child, I could see that many of these things were exaggerated, at best, or that the adults were being hypocritical. Someone who worked for money under the table (because he was on disability and wasn’t supposed to be working) might complain about seeing someone on welfare buy steak, for example. Churchgoers would judge those around them vehemently, referencing a Bible they either hadn’t read or didn’t remember very well.
I couldn’t understand it. They all seemed so unhappy. I was unhappy, but a lot of that was because I didn’t have choices. I was stuck in my situation. They could do whatever they wanted. But they didn’t. They seemed to prefer to complain. What I didn’t understand at the time was that their anger was an addiction.
It’s hard not to think of this anger as temper tantrums. It’s a luxury, after all, to be able to get angry without consequence, to think that anyone would care about your anger. Partly, I think, these folks were angry because they had this idea of how the world was supposed to be, that there were certain rules the world was supposed to follow — rules that would put them at the top, coincidentally — and the world wasn’t…
