Behind Closed Doors
Both my parents worked full-time when I was born, because having a second kid after one with special needs is expensive, so they hired a woman in her mid-20s to be a sort of nanny to me and me alone. Basically, she would wake me up, feed me breakfast, bring me to school, pick me up, watch me when I played, put me to bed, etc.
She was my nanny until around I was 5, so I don’t remember much except a few scenes: her shaking me violently by my shoulders when she was mad, slapping me, not feeding me more than a few biscuits for a meal, or threatening to tell my dad that I wasn’t behaving, saying that ‘he’d do worse’. I also have a memory of being yelled at by my parents for biting her, when I have no recollection of that (also, I was the one with a severe wound then).
According to my parents, it was only after she left that they learned about what she was doing to me after I would innocently remark things like “aren’t you going to hurt me?” after I broke something or whatever. It apparently took a while for me to not be afraid to come to them when I did something wrong (tho I still don’t sometimes).
I’m in my 20s now and aside from my parents, only two college friends know only because I was intoxicated. It isn’t something I think about a lot, but I’m wondering now if it has more far-reaching consequences than all of us realize.