Spoiled Children of Divorce

There isn’t a lot of comedy performed by Children of Divorce. There seems to be a silencing effect of participating in one’s parents’ divorce. And, also, no interest in being heard from the rest of society. I think I initially got the idea for trying to worry about this stuff when I went to a comedy show in New York City. It was just put on in a cafe and one comic got up on stage and almost immediately asked if anyone in the audience grew up in a divorced family. One girl from the South raised her hand as high as she could. She must have said something because I remember she had a Southern accent and I remember dreading having to hear whether or not her Mother’s boyfriend had molested her. Nobody else raised their hand including me. And, the comic let a weird sound blow out of his stomach and moved on to another topic.

Anyway, Amazon Prime is featuring a comedian named Dina Hashem called “Dark Little Whispers.” Hashem speaks very quietly and introverted and every once in a while there is a comment about her childhood in a household where the Father has left. Her parents are from the Middle East somewhere and her Father currently lives there or at least that is the story. She says that she voted for Donald Trump because she knew he would keep her Father from returning to the U.S. In another segment she talks about locking herself in the bathroom because it was the only place she could lock the door and find peace. She didn’t have a bedroom of her own and had to sleep in a corner of the living room. For just a short while I had to share a bed with my Mother. It was soon after the split and was mixed in-between her suicide attempts and first boyfriends and lots and lots of screaming. We had been really close and now she hated me because my best friend’s mother had stolen her husband and her life and her friends (almost) and wealth and at 40 years old figured she wouldn’t find a way to deal with it.

Immigrants have a voice and are eager to speak their reality. I guess they don’t have much awareness that this stuff already has existed here for a long time. Thanks Dina Hashem for sharing. And thanks to your mother for allowing you to still speak.