I was smaller than I remembered.

Boys will be boys, but girls will be women. Because of the recent incident where my estranged younger sister reached out to me, I was sent some photos of myself as a (roughly) eleven-year-old child. I don’t have many photos of my childhood, and I cherish the few that I do. I was struck at how tiny I was as a child. I have struggled with dissociative behaviors, often referring to that child who was molested, abandoned, abused, and neglected, as “her,” that girl with whom I sympathize. The girl in the photos always had her arms crossed and hands folded. She looked skinny, almost malnourished. Her hair was far darker, and she looked more Italian than I do now.

I kept thinking, This is the girl they made responsible? I cannot comprehend how anyone could blame this young girl for “breaking up a family” or “seducing her father” or “lying for attention.” And it began to make sense why I rarely recognize myself, why I can’t picture my face without checking a mirror. I was always taught to be quiet, to only speak when spoken to, to stay out of the way, arms crossed, and hands folded.

I was never treated like a child.

When you are blamed, ridiculed, and held responsible for the actions of those around you, you are being treated as an adult. This kind of behavior continued in my mother’s house, though without the physical and sexual abuse.

In my mother’s house, the “boys will be boys” mentality loomed large, as unspoken as it was. My brothers were allowed to be so carefree, always running about, playing sports, entertaining friends. From the time I was twelve, I was responsible for them. I was the only one to cook for them or to clean up after them. I did the laundry. I vacuumed. I did dishes. I got yelled at when they missed the bus. I cried.

I spent all summer practicing to make the varsity basketball team at my high-school, only for my mother to tell me she was returning to nursing school and would be needing a babysitter. I begged. I did not get to play basketball that year, despite the fact that one of my brothers was fourteen, older than I was when I would be left home alone.

My brother confirmed my beliefs this past year when I visited him on the military base he now lives on. It was the first time I had seen him in years, and he told me he remembered me always being a “bitch.” I know that’s awful, but remember, he was actually a child when this was all going on. And my mother frequently called me a “bitch” in front of them, so this was normal behavior for them. Still, it broke my heart.

Then he began pressuring me about not speaking with our mom, telling me how I broke her heart and how she cries herself to sleep. All I could think is how amazing it is I am still being treated like the adult or parent in this relationship. Then when I began explaining how hard it was for me to be responsible for all of the cooking and cleaning (without mentioning the fact that I was a child in need of recovery for a decade of abuse), he said, “I thought you just liked doing all of that.”

That is what happens when we treat boys and girls differently. I knew there were expectations of me from a young age, from both my mother and father. All my brothers saw was a fourteen(ish)-year-old girl bitching and complaining about things she ‘liked’ doing.

I was the adult before I ever got to be a child.