Stephanie Keuhnert writes a haunting tale about abandonment in her novel, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Set in the nineties punk/grunge music scene, the novel will remind anyone who came of age during that time of the soundtrack of his or her youth. The story is not just about the music scene of Nirvana and Social Distortion fame, but rather music is the setting for a drama about family relationships.
Louisa feels responsible for her role in the death of her violent boyfriend. Years later, her continued guilt over this event causes her to leave her husband, Michael, and their infant daughter, Emily. Louisa believes she is not a good enough person to raise a baby and make a life with Michael. She runs from her memories and finds herself merely in a more painful present and future, with nothing but regrets littering her past, which takes her all over the United States. Emily grows up thinking her mother left to follow her passion: punk rock. She is told a story about her mother being too big for the small town in which Michael raises Emily. The story falls apart as Emily herself faces similar circumstances and rebels into the drug, alcohol and casual sex-fueled world that is rock n’ roll. For most of her teen years and into her early twenties, Emily pretends she’s not searching for her mother, yet every song she writes is a message in a bottle that she hopes Louisa will find.
We see that Louisa is blamed for abandoning Emily, and for Emily’s multiple tumbles into volatile relationships and drug abuse. Her father, Michael, is painted as a saint, a man who wears his wedding ring for over twenty years without ever having heard from Louisa. He is portrayed as having done the best he could, given the situation, and escapes blameless for not picking up on the alcohol abuse or promiscuous behavior Emily exhibits starting around age thirteen. Emily’s best friend, Regan, whose mother, Molly, was Louisa’s best friend, is the only adult who sees yet does not stop the self-destructive behavior, either.
Why is Michael not shouldered with some responsibility for his daughter’s behavior in her early teen years? Why is he not admonished for his ignorance, which has to be self-induced, since he was a part of the same scene, wherein he met Louisa? It is clear in the book’s tone that the author doesn’t think there is anything strange or wrong with the father of a teenager who allows her to be out all hours of the night, to hang out at an abandoned building where there is under-age drinking, violence, drug use and sex going on every night there is a band playing.
No, it is the mother’s absence that is seen as the problem. The daughter’s lack of counseling in her youth to deal with the loss and her father’s inability to move on from heartbreak are not issues. If only the mother had not left. For, it is not the mother’s broken person for whom we might feel sympathy, but rather only her abandoned husband and daughter. When Emily’s self-destructive behavior continues into her early twenties, we still don’t blame her for not growing up and becoming responsible for herself. No, we see her as a little girl inside, impetuous, and flighty, and all because her mommy left long before she even knew her.
Like in Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE, (see July 21, 2011 inContext) women have reasons for leaving when they do. Sometimes it is to discover a self they never knew or never allowed to develop. Sometimes it is to escape pain or to run from a past they feel they might escape by leaving. Whether one finds reason or justification for such behavior is irrelevant. What needs to be addressed is the blaming of the woman for everything that happens to those left behind. So, I leave inContext readers with a rhetorical question: At what point does the present and future become the responsibility of the remaining parent, or the child him or herself? This question not only applies to those who have been left by a parent or spouse, but might also apply to other areas wherein we’ve suffered past hurt. By asking the question in this way, the blame is moved from the woman/mother who left, and responsibility is given to those remaining, so that they might heal and make a life with less rather than more pain.
First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/11/10/12859/
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