When fear, anger, and ridicule are used to control and manipulate, the results can be devastating to a sensitive child.

The following tales show the progressive emotional deterioration of Stanley, the central character of the stories, as a result of such
treatment.

First Days

Stanley began school too soon. He was not yet six years old when his mother enrolled him in the first grade at Saint L Catholic School. In those days parochial schools did not adhere strictly to age requirements as they would in later years. Although Stanley was small for his age, he was a bright, outgoing child, and it was thought he would not have any difficulty. Had his parents been wiser, they would have waited at least another year, as Stanley was in no way prepared emotionally for what was going to happen. Had they been more knowledgeable and less intimidated by the church, this Catholic educational scene would have been the last place they would have left their little boy.

Early one morning and without any discussion, Stanley was taken to school. His mother and he walked the three blocks hand in hand, and he thought it was just another outing. Classes had already been in session for a week, and when Stanley and his mother entered the classroom, it was deathly silent. There were over thirty children seated in rows of chairs with desk tops attached, all sitting as though they were at attention in the military. This scene should have been a red flag to Stanley's mother. Unfortunately, it was not. She was from England and used to seeing large groups of silent, obedient children, and after depositing Stanley into a chair at the front of the classroom, left with a smile and a wave.

It was his first time away from home alone, and no one thought to prepare him for being left with strangers, especially the strict, domineering, and mysterious women dressed in strange costumes covering their entire body, who ruled over their domains like tyrants. Stanley was not aware of it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end of his happy and carefree youth. His early learning experiences with his grandmother and with his mother had been a joy. He had learned rapidly, and he had learned well. This was about to change.

As soon as he was seated, Stanley turned to the children on the right and left and smiled. None of the students responded, and they continued to stare straight ahead. He didn't know what to make of this, and was just about to begin speaking to the boy on his right when the nun descended upon him. With the departure of his mother, the smiling nun's face had changed into a stern mask, and she proceeded to tell Stanley in no uncertain terms what students did and did not do in her class. She was large (any adult is large to a five or six year old) and hovered threateningly over him as she spoke.

"You will not speak unless you are told to. You will not talk to any of the students around you unless you are given permission. You will not turn around. You will raise your hand if you want to speak to me, and you will speak only after I have given you permission. You will wear a white shirt and a blue tie to class. You will not wear overalls (today they are called jeans). Gym shoes are not permitted. You will not leave your seat for any reason, and you will leave this class only when I dismiss you."

The rules seemed endless, and Stanley did not know how he was going to remember them all. This should have been the least of his concerns as the nuns would make sure that he forgot none of them. On this first day in school he was terrified by the time the nun had finished laying out her rules . He was literally afraid to move. Although the nun had not made any direct threat, Stanley knew that he must obey her or he would have to face her wrath.

After Stanley had been in school about two weeks he had learned the routine and had become one of the flock of submissive youngsters. One morning, shortly after the bell had rung for the start of class, the door to the room burst open and a large, angry nun with a florid complexion, stormed into the room. She was dragging a child by the arm. The child, Michael, who was a friend of Stanley's, looked frightened and confused. The students were all transfixed, and no one moved. They knew that something terrible was about to happen. As the apprehensive students watched, the nun jerked the child off the floor by his arm and pulled him to a position in front of the class and ordered him not to move. The fear on Michael's face was transmitted to the children in the class like a beacon: the child was in a state of panic!

The nun told Michael to make two fists and stretch his arms out in front. She was shaking with anger as she glared at Michael, and her flushed, enraged face was almost bursting out of her starched and immaculate black and white habit. Swish--Crack! Swish--Crack! Swish--Crack! She beat his knuckles with a blackboard pointer until his little fists were bleeding. The tears flowed down his face and he cried out in pain, trying to pull his arms back after each blow ,and each time the nun would order him to put them out again. Swish--Crack! Swish--Crack! Swish--Crack! The beating seemed to go on forever. Finally, the nun appearing somewhat appeased, led the sobbing boy out through the door. On the way she gave a slight nod to Stanley's teacher, who had stood off to one side impassively watching the scene unfold. Not one word had passed between the two nuns. The entire incident took less than two minutes, but even after more than sixty years had passed, Stanley still remembered it.


Stanley did not discover what a six-year-old child could have done to merit that beating as the incident was never discussed in class. When Stanley told his parents what had happened, they looked at each other in silence and made no comment.

Michael's family moved shortly after that, and Stanley never saw him again. For Stanley, it was the beginning of a reign of terror that was to last for eight long years.


*****************************************
A Poem

One of Stanley's first school assignments was to learn the poem, "To a
Waterfowl." He stayed up late many nights memorizing nonsense, which is
exactly what it was to a young child. "Whither, midst falling dew, while
glow the heavens with the last steps of day...." After countless hours
of study, he finally learned all of the stanzas, and there were many. He
could proudly recite them flawlessly to his mother without prompting,
even though he didn't understand what he was saying.

When the day came for him to recite in class, he was ready. However, most
of the other students, as well as their parents, had obviously seen the
absurdity of such an assignment, and they had made only a token effort to
learn the poem. The majority of students in the class could not recall
more than the first few stanzas. Stanley knew them all!

Never had he looked forward to a day in class as he did then. Normally,
it was with a vague sense of foreboding that he went to school. But on
that day when his turn came, he stood, and proudly and confidently began
to speak the lines. He had just finished the first stanza and was
beginning the second, when the nun moved on to the next student without a
word. Dumbfounded, he sat down and immediately raised his hand. The nun
refused to look at him. Finally, frustrated and dejected, with his hand
still raised, he did something that he would never have done under normal
circumstances: he spoke without being given permission.

"But Sister, I know the rest...," and his voice faded off when he
realized the transgression he had just made. She had her back to him and
didn't even bother to turn around. She gave no indication that she was
aware that he had said anything. She was only two students away so there
was no doubt that she had heard him. As she continued to move around the
class, she would let each student speak until the child said, "That's all
I know, Sister." She would nod solemnly and move to the next student. At
times, she would help those who were confused; often, she would simply
ridicule the child. There seemed to be no consistency in her actions.
There were some that came close to finishing half of the poem, and one
girl actually did finish, but with lines missing and stanzas out of
order.

A few minutes later, Stanley worked up the courage to try once more to
get the nun's attention. This time she was coming up the next row and
facing him. His hand was raised, saying, "Sister...Sister..." and was
still ignored. She refused to look at him. It was as though he didn't
exist. He knew the poem better than anyone in the class. It was his
chance to shine, but it was not to be.

Stanley also knew that had he not known the poem, the nun would have
stood over him as she had done to students on other occasions: livid,
eyes blazing, demanding, "Why didn't you do your homework? Why aren't you
ready? What is wrong with you?" Between each question she would have
paused long enough for the dead silence in the room to create an
unbearable tension and embarrassment in him. He dreaded times like this
when he was singled out for ridicule. Had he not known his lines that
day, she would have crushed him like a worm before moving on. However,
doing what she did had the same effect. Stanley was devastated.

No matter which avenue he took, he was defeated. He had lost the war
before the battle had begun. It was in those early grades that Stanley
began to sense that something wasn't right, that something didn't fit. He
would study assignments night after night but never seemed to learn what
was important to study and what was not. He received little help from the
nuns, only ridicule. He attempted to study everything and therefore
didn't really learn anything. His father's method of teaching--sitting
for hours until Stanley was bored out of his mind--didn't help matters.
As a result, he was constantly being reprimanded and embarrassed by the
nuns for not knowing or not completing his work.

In the early years of school, a number of Stanley's little friends
started with him in the Catholic school, but their parents had removed
them shortly after classes began. These children had been treated the
same as Stanley, and their parents wouldn't stand for it. Most of his
friends were enrolled in the local public elementary school, and they
kept urging Stanley to get out of St. L.

For the first few years, Stanley tried to explain to his parents what was
happening to him in class and begged to be transferred to public school.
His father was impossible to talk to and seemed to understand nothing,
and his mother was adamant about his remaining in a Catholic school. His
mother had converted to Catholicism and was the worst kind of true
believer, unquestioning and totally compliant with the views of the
church. To the day of her death over ninety years later, she still
adamantly believed without question all that was uttered by the priests,
nuns, and anything that came out Rome.

The nuns performed admirably in their treatment of Stanley and many other
children in those early years. Tomas de Torquemada would have been proud.

******************************************************


Altar Boy

Religion, or more exactly, Catholicism, was emphasized daily at school. Indoctrination was constant and consistent, and it permeated all aspects of the children's education. Catholic doctrine was emphasized not only during their daily class in religion, but it was worked into every conceivable subject. However, they were not learning about religion; it was propagandizing about Catholicism with subtle inferences that all other religions and beliefs were superficial and unimportant. In fact, believers in religions other than Catholicism were lumped together and called non-Catholics. Oh... the subtle power underlying that hyphenated word.

It was inevitable that Stanley would learn to serve mass. The training was intensive and Stanley took it very seriously. They were required to learn the responses to the priest's prayers in Latin, when and where to move on the altar, what action to perform to assist the priest, when to kneel or stand, etc. It was difficult for him because of the ever present fear of criticism, but with great effort he learned. Stanley never really understood what the ceremony was all about, either before he began this training or after. In fact, now that Stanley was on, and behind, the altar where all the "mumbo-jumbo" went on, he was beginning to wonder about many things.

As in many religious ceremonies, the participants--priests and altar boys alike--performed like robots, having done the required things so often they could do them in their sleep. On the surface this would seem innocuous and harmless, and yet all this had a lasting and detrimental effect. It was like performing a repetitive job on a machine. The constant repetition of the meaningless words and phrases resulted in them being spoken without understanding or thought. Yet, you could no more erase the memory of this language than you could erase the religious beliefs originally learned as a child, and seemingly long since forgotten. Many years later, this conglomeration of philosophical and metaphysical nonsense that Stanley had learned from the nuns would surface like a cancer.

On the day his group were to be given a certificate representing the completion of their training, Stanley missed the ceremony. He had previously been told of the ceremony, but since it was held during the school day during regular class time, he forgot. He had no one to blame but himself for what followed.

The next day Stanley was summoned from his classroom to the church where he was met by the nun in charge of the altar boys, Sister B. Stanley stood alone with her in the empty, cavernous nave. She was not a tall person but she towered over him and she was bursting with anger. What an eerie scene it was, the two of them in that large, vacant, darkened, mausoleum, her piercing eyes and quivering lips a precursor of what was to come. For a few moments, she stared at him saying not a word. Stanley was shaking!

Then she began. What a tongue lashing Stanley received! What belittlements and insults she hurled at him. It was worse than a beating, and it went on and on and on.... Stanley could accept being punished for making a mistake, but he couldn't cope with (nor understand) the overt hatred with which the punishment was given. That day, a miserable nun sacrificed him to her vengeful, cold-hearted God, and all because he had missed her little ritual.

Stanley was too young and inexperienced to realize that these reactions were not entirely caused by him. He was not aware that many of the women in these religious organizations were emotionally sick, frustrated, and trapped in an unnatural and restrictive life style. They were isolated from any real world contacts except for the children, who were defenseless against their irrational, explosive reactions. If an outside adult was present, they were the epitome of sweetness and light, but not so when they were alone with the children, when their anger could then run rampant. Stanley had no way of knowing that it wasn't he that was the cause of their anger; he was simply the recipient.

By this time, enough repetitive conditioning had taken place so that Stanley was quite fearful of and intimidated by authority figures... priests included. But interestingly enough, in general, Stanley was less fearful of them than of the nuns. Priests seldom talked to him or the other boys at school or before or after the mass.

When Stanley was serving mass, especially if he was on the altar alone, he was in constant fear of making a mistake. His anxiety was so great that his thoughts were jumbled and fuzzy, his mouth dry, and his body was in a cold sweat. After the service, Stanley could not remember much of what he had done. It was a terrible time! They had done their work well.

During the mass Stanley was required to pour wine and water into the priest's chalice. He noticed that when he poured the wine, the cruet would be nearly emptied before the priest would raise his thumbs as a signal to stop. Pouring the water, however, was a different matter, and very few priests allowed more than a few drops to be mixed with the wine. The priests Stanley served certainly loved that wine. He later noticed that some priests were partially drunk even before they began the mass. They too were trapped and had no way out.

Since Stanley had to fill the cruets from the wine cupboard, he noticed that the level in the bottles would drop far out of proportion necessary for the amount used during the daily masses. Although the priests would imbibe a bit apart from the ceremony, the altar boys themselves were to blame for a great deal of the drinking of the wine. When they were alone in the sacristy, many of the other boys hastily and furtively swilled the wine directly from the bottles, while the others watched for priests and nuns. Stanley saw this occur time and time again and, although a few didn't participate, most did. This confused and bothered him. Stanley wouldn't participate, but he wouldn't divulge their secret either.

How could they do such a thing? Stanley thought. Here we are in a sacred place and they're acting like they're on the street corner!
How naive Stanley was!

As time passed, Stanley began to dislike serving mass more and more. Reciting meaningless responses in Latin in answer to the priest's monotonous uttering, the constant fear of making mistakes, feeling both invisible and yet naked and vulnerable, caused him to constantly devise ways to avoid serving. It was extremely difficult to do so as Sister B made up and posted the schedule. Some of his excuses were flimsy, yet Stanley managed to avoid many unpleasant experiences on the altar. Stanley finally had the courage to tell Sister B. that he did not want to serve mass.

When she was offended or angry, her angelic countenance changed: her face darkened, her lips tightened, and her eyes took on a fierceness... a warning of the storm to follow... and follow it did!

"What is the matter with you?" She hissed, barely holding back her anger. She was a pressure cooker ready to explode. "You have a calling from God. You have a chance to serve on His' altar. Do your parents know? Why are you doing this?"

She delivered the statements and questions rapidly and furiously and never gave him time to answer. That's the way it usually was when Stanley was in class, and sister B was no different than the other nuns. They generally asked questions that Stanley couldn't answer, or else they never permitted him to reply.
Finally, the ordeal ended. It was not a pleasant experience, but Stanley never had to go back on that altar again.

Thank God!