Michael Jackson and out living the family legacy

I can remember arguing over who was in love with whom. My older cousin loved Tito and planned to marry him. I wanted Michael, but being less assertive I ended up with Marlon. Little did we know what those kids were going through. When Latoya came out with stories people accused her of making it up, but I said no one with a family like that has to make up bizarre stories. What struck me tonight was the fact that Michael got stunted somewhere in adolescences and didn't have the encouragement to continue to grow. He struggled somewhere between the innocence of childhood and the realities of manhood. This post didn't start with the death of the king of pop. I've been actually turning this one over in my mind all week long, and had come to some conclusions.

He's not alone in getting stunted. People tend to think of "stunted growth" in physical terms, however there are lots of people walking around with a 12 year old mentality in one or more areas of their lives. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be to realize your wife or husband is 12 years old in his/her handling of finances? The theory is that people sometimes stop at the age of a trauma. I think people stop growing whenever the opportunity to grow ends. For example a pregnant teen may stop some developments at that age. I also think some people start to grow again but others struggle in frustration, unwilling or unable to accept their responsibilties and feeling picked on by everyone. The move from adolescence to adulthood is a tough journey. My good friend's daughter had her first boyfriend at 13. I had more difficulty with it than my friend. Her premise was and is that she wants her daughter to experience these growing up moments while she is still open to talking with her parents and willing to allow their input. Phone calls and other contacts were joked about as two girlfriends would talk about it. This made it easier for mom and daughter to have honest open conversation. Critical thinking components were worked into it without a big deal. Unfortunately many of us didn't have that experience. I remember sitting on the back side of my parents bed with their door closed calling a boy in secret. I remember my cycle starting inconsistently, and being on a Girl Scout Trip out of town when it came on again. I had no clue what to ask for or what to do with it. I only knew name brands and not what the items were. I thought tampon sounded so much nicer than Kotex. So when the mom in our room showed up with a stick, I looked in shock and wondered what the heck that was for. I remember starting junior high with the geekiest clothes possible. I had no clue that this was a new time in my life or how adolescent girls are as cruel as a hungry bear after hibernation. I had lots of questions, some I didn't even know I had and no clue how to get them answered. I spent much of my time reading books, Seventeen Magazine, Teen and the occasional Cosmo my sister left around. I spent a summer with my pregnant sister and learned much of what I knew about sex thanks to an impressive collection my brother-n-law had of Playboy, Penthouse, and erotic books. Then my other sister slipped me a copy of the Joy of Sex. They allowed me access to all of this with the intent of me not being as ignorant as them when I went out into the world. Funny with all of their 70's wisdom and resistance to being their mom, they did the exact same thing as their mom. She came home one day with brochures on development and sex. Gave them to me and like everthing else I read it. Hmmm, thats like putting coffee in the coffee pot without a filter. You end up with hot water and coffee mixed in the coffee decanter but its not really coffee. I had all this knowledge, no one to talk me through what the lines are that adolescence might have allowed me to try out. No discussions on my body so when my college roommate jokingly made a derogative comment about my heavy cycles I internalized and still hear that statement in my mind at least once a month. There were no discussions on how to communicate with a boy, how to flirt, how to negotiate dates and no advise on taking chancing and rolling with the punches. I had the fear of becoming pregnant or catching something, and I knew the risk of ending up in a bad relationship like my mom. So rather than grow I opted to keep boys at arms length and stunt my own growth. I mentioned the importance of a father in a previous post and I'm going there again. I don't think I'm the only one in the family who didn't completely develop. I think all the females stopped growing. Lets start with my mom first. In the movie Joy Luck Club, one character was so hurt by her husbands actions that she kills her child. She spent many years carrying the guilt of that murder. She had been a very young bride and didn't know how to fight back. My mom was the same. On her way to becoming a nurse, but opted for marrying my father instead when HE TOLD HER that she was pregnant. She stopped having babies, even though he wanted more, once she realized he was drinking and seeing other women. She hints at doing other destructive things. She carries the guilt of whatever her "sins" may be. We've had more than one discussion on trying to know for sure if you are forgiven of your sins. Her dad died young, and she didn't find the support and love of her man to continue the process. In an era where your husband's life defined yours, she fought to keep a life, but never dared to fully take the one she had. She allowed it to be defined in what she helped others to become.
My sisters and I each slowed at a different developmental stage and I think it had to do with when we each became disillusioned with the first love in our lives, our father. Their journeys are there own and I will not disclose it here. For me, it stopped at about nine or 10. I realized getting promises met were a hit or miss proposition. I knew it was a sure bet he would be drunk on the weekends and possibly some weekdays. I learned to expect nothing from him, to want nothing from him except to prayerfully be left alone. All those interactions that should have occurred between a daughter and her father didn't happen. No chance to see myself fully accepted and adored in his eyes...so I didn't know what it looked like or that it was possible until I saw it in a man's eyes almost 20 years later. I didn't know what it was like to accomplish something and see the pride of a man in love...until I saw it in a man's eyes last year. I didn't know what it was like for a man to clearly sacrifice his own personal comfort for the woman in his life...I've seen what that looks like for other's, so I know it exist. Its heartbreaking when you sit down and think about how much you have to learn on the run when there is no father or strong male figure to lay that ground work. I was hungry in ways I didn't know, and I know I'm not alone. Steve Harvey's book would not be such a huge success if daddys had only done their job. Yes, I'm reading a new book, "Think like a man, Act like a woman". He gives so many examples of what a woman should expect and says they are the things that fathers passed on to sons and did for their wives and daughters. Well somewhere along the way alot of us didn't get it and we have no expectations, no standards. We are often judged as silly women, easy women, angry women, cold women, frigid women and so on. The label depends on where we stopped in our developement, but how can you be judged for something you don't even know you should know. If I have never had cake, only seen it, heard about how good it is, then I make my first cake BUT the recipe I have is missing a key ingredient, and my cake looks like cake and I've put all the trimmings I see for cake around it, I will not recognize the bland taste of my cake because I have no reference point for good cake.
Somedays I feel as though I'm in the chess game of my life, some days its a dance, some days its an epic battle fought to the death and other days its the stuff love songs are made of. I crawl in my bed and wonder how much more is there to learn about me and the world around me that I should have known years ago.
What a madhouse Michael Jackson's life must have been. To be treated like, worshipped as, and looked at like a god, but to be missing the very basics of what he needed to be a full man in command of his home, business, and family. To only be able to play at being an adult. One of my all time favorite books is "Manchild in the Promise Land" by Claude Brown. In my opinion it is a Black classic. He writes about his experiences of growing up in Harlem in the 40's and 50's. He had a violent and rough time of it, but he talks about his mom telling him to be good, but having no reference for what good was. So he would sit on the stoop of their brownstone hoping this was being good. It never lasted long and he eventually got into trouble. Michael Jackson, Claude Brown, me and lots of others struggle every day with trying to "be good" and we only play at it without a clear understanding of what it means. I think if honoring Michael's legacy is a person's desire then they might want to consider finding those adolescent spots in their lives and finding out how they an grow up or deciding to ensure that the loved ones in their lives have what they need to become the mature people they can be.