A quick note: if you’ve read other stories on the website, you may recognize that the narrator is Emma, the daughter of Sage and Ben who have broken up. And you may recall, too, that for most of her pregnancy, Sage didn’t want to tell Emma that Ben wasn’t the actual father of JJ.
Serious Consequences gets at the inner thinking of a four-year-old faced with some tough feelings and difficult relationships. So much of her thinking and feeling is centered around the idea of separation and people leaving or being sent away. She’s told that JJ’s biological father is not only gone but that he never was around. There’s also a lot of rejection going on: the mother has rejected JJ’s father who, in turn, has rejected her and JJ. The narrator’s parents, in breaking up, have rejected each other. Not only is the narrator wanting to throw out JJ, but her father seems equally uninterested in the baby.
But here is the twist: the narrator fears that her mom will be “super mad” and will reject her and send her away because the girl resents JJ. This is a misperception. The narrator’s mother might be mad, but she won’t get rid of her daughter because the girl resents her brother. Still, the narrator believes that if she rejects someone, she’ll be rejected in turn. This is the typical thinking of a young child: if I hit you, you’ll hit me back. If the girl can imagine something as possible—i.e. getting rid of JJ—that same possibility will be extended to her—she’ll be gotten rid of. It’s not logical thinking, but it makes sense to a young child given her very limited understanding of the world and others.
Imagine if the mom had said something like, “Sweetheart, I know that JJ takes a lot of my time and attention, and you’re not getting as much as you want. I know that makes you sad. And probably angry at me. And certainly angry at JJ. That’s okay, I get it. Even if you want him to disappear, I understand. I love you, and I love him, and I’ll make sure you both get what you need.” Because the girl was never given permission to have her normal, so-called “bad” feelings, she believes her feelings are a problem, and she imagines her mom will think this, too. This sets the stage for her misperception.
Imagining that her mom might send her away because her feelings are so horrible, what should the girl do? Will she tell herself to hide her feelings from everyone, including herself, because they are so bad? Will she also feel a rupture in her relationship with her mom because her mom is choosing her brother over her? Will she feel on the verge of rejection unless she behaves perfectly? Will she feel that she is simply a bad person at her core? All these conclusions (and plenty others) are possible, and these conclusions can easily become a way of life for the girl. This is how an early narrative forms that is based on fantasies and misperceptions.
The narrator’s ignorance about the actual human heart sets up another misperception. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with JJ’s heart; she only knows “hearts are where love comes from.” If they produce love, and she has no love for JJ, clearly her heart is not working the way it should. Her conclusion: something is wrong with her heart. This is actually pretty good reasoning! But it’s based on some pretty messed up ideas about how feelings and hearts work. She concludes that perhaps she caught the heart sickness from her brother, or that he “gave” the sickness to her as a consequence. Either way, she is now developing some dangerous narratives about herself, her relationship to her brother, her self-worth, and her heart’s capacity to love.
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