My adult niece is staying with us for a few days as she\u2019s in Wellington for work.<\/p>\n
She is a lovely person, like a younger, better looking, smarter and well adjusted version of me.<\/p>\n
This morning she asked me for the first time ever what her dad, my brother, was like when we were kids. I prevaricated, of course. In fact it was even worse – I just blushed, said \u201cUmmm\u201d and stared off into the distance until she changed the subject.<\/p>\n
The truth is, he was a terrible bully growing up. He was the oldest, and made the rest of our lives a misery with physical and psychological torment. It\u2019s no exaggeration to say we all still bear the mental scars from it, even so many decades later. Bizarrely, he himself apparently denies it, and has his own version of reality where I gather he thinks he was the victim, somehow.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know why my niece is asking about this now, and what would be gained by telling her the truth. On the other hand, doesn\u2019t she deserve to know why he\u2019s still on the outer, even after all these years? It must seem to her and her brother that the rest of us aunts and uncles are just overreacting, bearing a grudge, and that we just need to grow up and get over it. This is complicated by his treatment of our mother in more recent years, which I won\u2019t go into.<\/p>\n
I suppose families are complicated things, and it\u2019s not unusual that there be some murky stuff in the past. The best part is that he turned out – from the outside at least – to be a really doting father.<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019m just going to let discretion be the better part of valour – and keep my silence. Or am I \u00a0just trying to make excuses for being a coward?<\/p>\n
(If there\u2019s family outcry about this post I may have to delete it later, so enjoy it while you can!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My adult niece is staying with us for a few days as she\u2019s in Wellington for work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-1E8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8449,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/12\/its-a-trial\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":0},"title":"It\u2019s a trial","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Got a jury summons in the mail the other day (my husband\u2019s dog-proofing, postal protection set up is clearly working). \u00a0I\u2019m torn. I\u2019d be really interested to see our justice system in action up close and personal. I\u2019m supposed to make myself available for a couple of weeks late next\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/44A54FB0-0858-45A5-8945-7C59D8BC927A-300x219.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1321,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/22\/favourite-christmas-song\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":1},"title":"Favourite Christmas Song","author":"Interloper11","date":"December 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a toughie, but I think I\u2019d have to go with \u201cSanta Baby\u201d. Here\u2019s a woman who knows what she wants, and isn\u2019t afraid to ask for it. She\u2019s got the moxie, as we used to say in New York in the 30\u2019s. Eartha Kitt did the definitive version,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2343,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/09\/pond-life-breaking-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":2},"title":"Pond life – breaking news","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Mr Fluffypants is sadly MIA. He had been looking increasingly sluggish the last few days - and I was worried he might be on his last legs (or whatever the appropriate fishy version of that metaphor is). Seems my concerns were valid, unfortunately. So, that\u2019s two piscine vanishings in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/81C63F15-48D4-49D5-964F-E7F2D8F7870A-300x263.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4139,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/28\/twinsies\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":3},"title":"Twinsies","author":"Interloper11","date":"January 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Handing over a patient in PACU today, the nurse and I noticed we were wearing matching jewellery. It was the Karen Walker floral earring and pendant set, absolutely gorgeous, and they were identical, except I had the 9 carat gold generous insurance payout version, and she had it in nursing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2293,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/04\/inadequate\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":4},"title":"Inadequate","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"To properly illustrate today\u2019s topic, I\u2019m first going to print my work newsletter editorial from yesterday in full: \u201cIt\u2019s grey and dark outside today, but at least it\u2019s not windy. Lost my compost bin lid earlier this week, I think it\u2019s run away to join my wheelie bin which left\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/9FB0D948-D22C-466B-AA9D-B509C21A73B9-300x272.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1100,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/02\/summer-day-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6332,"position":5},"title":"Summer, day 2","author":"Interloper11","date":"December 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Another lovely day at the beach. \u201cPut down that stupid book and take us for a walk!\u201d The strange blacked out shape at the bottom of the picture is my lap. My bare legs demonstrate a sad lack of photographic preparation. The water was actually less enticing this morning than\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/F6B91E20-5A5E-48E8-9FDB-3B2DF0F893E5-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}