True North: A Memoir by Catherine Deveny

Author:Catherine Deveny [Deveny, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Family & Relationships, Divorce & Separation, Women
ISBN: 9781743821831
Google: zo0TEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Black Inc.
Published: 2022-03-31T20:46:57+00:00

10

Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.

OSCAR WILDE

I WAS BORN IN 1968, went to primary school in the 1970s and went to high school in the ’80s. My siblings and I were an unusual, pivoting generation.

Before us, for as far back as the eye could see on either side, it had been working-class Catholics sending their unremarkable children to Catholic schools, disciplining them with violence and manipulating them with guilt and shame. I come from a long line of parents scaring their kids into working hard, getting married and being good adult children to their ageing parents, while going to church and raising their own children to be good Catholics in the same mould.

For women, the biggest shames were having sex before marriage, sleeping around and being labelled a ‘slut’, having an abortion, using contraception, having a child out of wedlock, divorcing, being a spinster, being barren or being a lesbian. For boys, it was being gay. That was pretty much it. Obviously apart from the cardinal sin of being ‘up yourself’: that was the worst crime for either gender.

When I was around ten years old, when the bath was getting cold and I needed to force myself out of it, I’d do so by saying, ‘If you get out of the bath by the count of ten, you won’t be a lesbian, get pregnant before you get married or not be a virgin on your wedding day’ – and out I’d spring into a towel. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth. That’s how I felt back then.

On a rare family holiday (I count four during my entire childhood: three camping trips to Wilson’s Prom and a beach holiday at Apollo Bay), we found ourselves camping at New Year’s. I was around fourteen. Mum and my older sister were working in Melbourne at the races, and I was forced to holiday with my three younger siblings and Dad, to ‘help’, aka do Mum’s job.

On New Year’s Eve, all the kids too young to drink and too old to be in bed gathered in the playground area as midnight approached. I decided to wander up and check out what was going on. I ended up kissing a sixteen-year-old boy. While we were kissing, I felt his erection against me. I knew how babies were made, but we were programmed to be in constant panic mode about becoming pregnant. I have no idea how I came to the conclusion I was pregnant from this experience, but I did. For weeks, I sat at the dinner table overwhelmed with anxiety and dread, berating myself for being so stupid and asking myself how I could do this to my family. I had no idea what I was going to do; running away seemed the most likely solution. Then I got my period. What a relief.

I say I have no idea how I concluded I was pregnant, but actually I know perfectly well how it happened.

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