Paychecks were something she insisted we give to her. Thankfully, my dad put a stop to that. Any mention of our mom was anathema to phrazle her. My mother passed away before she could marry my father. She constantly criticized my mother and everything she did.
My stepmother was a horrible cook, and now that I think of it I probably did pray that she didn't kill me. She absolutely hated it that at 15 I was a better cook than she was.
She was a feminist born decades too soon????
My mother, born 1906, grew up with women who I heard say, “If he hits me once, he won’t do it a second time.” I never heard my father raise his voice to her. He raised a hand holding a leather belt to his two boys; he raised only his voice to my older sister and she raised her voice back.
Circa 1960, when I started dating, I wondered if women were masochists.
@yvilletom No, my stepmother was an abused child who never had kids of her own. She got 6 when she married my dad, 3 were out of the house already, I was the oldest at home. She not only had issues, she had full subscriptions. She liked to spy on the neighbors and discuss what she saw with anyone she could. She wanted us to turn over our paychecks to her. Fortunately my dad stopped that. She hated any mention of our mother. My mom died 6 months before she married my dad. She would talk shit about how my mother did so much stuff wrong. Both my sisters went to live with other relatives, they figured I was old enough to stand up to her. I joined the Army after HS to get out of her house.