Rejecting our fathers, destroying our country
“He was a bully and a coward,” Tom Cruise recently told Parade Magazine, talking about his own father. “He was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick. It was a great lesson in my life – how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang!” “For me it was like, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy,’” said the famous actor, then drawing the “life lesson” most children with father problems draw: “Don’t trust him.” I sympathize with Tom Cruise more than I can say, although my distrust problem was not rooted in an abusive father but in my parents’ divorce. I spent three difficult years in a boarding school for “emotionally troubled youngsters,” although who knows, Pleasantville Cottage School may have actually saved my life, giving me the stability my mother hoped for until she remarried (she left my father when I was 5). Yet, being separated from my parents was unbearable, and I remember running away from school regularly, trying to get back to New York City … Continue Reading