Raised by Pride is a memoir told from my perspective. While the events are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.
My early life looked ordinary by society’s standards, but it wasn’t.
A quiet street. A house filled with barking dogs and the smell of fresh coffee. A mom and dad. A sister. And me.
But even then, the cracks had already started to form.
From the outside, my family looked like a picture of societal normalcy. We lived in a house with a yard and a successful dog training, boarding, and breeding business run from our home. My mom handled the training and care, while my dad helped with the business as well as managed a high-end restaurant in Annapolis. At the house, there were always people and clients coming and going, dogs barking, and phones ringing. It seemed like a typical, stable home. But things weren’t what they seemed.
There was good.
When I was about five, kindergarten was only a half-day, so my dad would pick me up and take me home. Most days, we stopped at McDonald’s for my favorite lunch: a cheeseburger with no onions, fries, and an orange soda. He’d grumble about ordering the cheeseburger without onions, but I didn’t care. It was our ritual.
By the time I was six and in first grade, the school was just down the road, too close for the bus, so I walked. For a little kid, it felt like a long walk. On rare days when my mom or dad came to get me, it felt like a small gift, a little piece of love at the end of the day.
Some of my best memories in that house were playing with the dogs, especially when there was a new litter of puppies. I remember holding them, feeling their tiny bodies wiggle in my hands, their eyes barely open.
One Christmas, I got my first train set, something I cherished so much that I still have most of it today. Two Christmases ago, I set it up again for my grandsons, hoping they’d love it the way I once did.
I also built model rockets, planes, and cars with my dad. Sometimes we’d play catch in the yard.
I loved climbing the big tree in our front yard, where I’d spend hours either just sitting in the branches or pretending it was a secret hideout. Up there, away from everything, it felt like my own little world.
There was a time when construction crews were working on the small road beside our house. I was running and playing nearby, not paying attention, and I sliced the side of my leg on a cement mixing tub. It was deep enough to need stitches—again. It felt like I was always getting stitches back then.
My mom had a good friend named Jan who had two boys, one my age and the other a couple of years older. I loved going to their house to play and hang out. It was one of the few places that felt easy and light. Even when things were tense at home, being there made me feel like a regular kid.
Those moments were bright spots, places I could escape to when the house felt heavy. They reminded me what it was like to feel normal, even if only for a little while.
There was good, until there wasn’t.
But things started to shift. My older sister whispered about the fights. At first, I didn’t understand. But then I started hearing it too. The sharp tone in my father’s voice, the sudden silences, the slammed doors. The house didn’t feel the same. It felt like it was holding its breath.
The yelling grew louder. The tension, thicker. And then everything snapped.
My worst and scariest memory is of one night, sitting on the couch in the living room with my sister, watching TV. We could hear the yelling and screaming upstairs. Suddenly, our father yelled for us to come up.
Apprehensively, we climbed the stairs. Their bedroom was just to the right of the landing. My father was furious. He was yelling, demanding to know if my mom wanted to call the cops. She didn’t answer, just reached for the phone. He ripped it out of her hands, tore the cord from the wall, and threw it across the room. Then he turned to her and violently tore her shirt off. She tried to cover herself. He kept yelling.
We were told to go back downstairs. I had never been that terrified before, and maybe haven’t been since. There were other fights and arguments, but that was the scariest.
I didn’t know it then, but everything was about to change. Suddenly, permanently, and without warning.
It was sometime after the new year, during second grade. It was a normal school day. In the middle of class, the PA system chimed, telling my teacher to send me to the office. I remember being confused. They said my mom was picking me up for a dentist appointment. But I didn’t have one. I even told the teacher that. She just smiled softly and said I should go.
When I got to the office, I saw my mom. She walked me to the car and quietly explained that we were going home to wait for my father to leave. Then we were going to pack up some things and move. I was seven. I didn’t know what to say.
We parked on a side street next to the house and waited. After my father left, several police cars began arriving. I didn’t understand at the time, but they were there to make sure he didn’t return and stop us. Looking back, I realize how serious the situation must have been.
My mom asked me to stay in the car while she went inside. I sat there crying, terrified and confused. I have no idea how long we were there. Eventually, she came back, and we left. We drove to a hotel in Annapolis.
I remember the conflict inside me. I loved hotels as a kid. They were fun and exciting, but this didn’t feel like that. It felt scary. It felt final.
My mom asked if I wanted to call my dad. I said no. I didn’t know what I would say. I’m glad I didn’t take her up on that offer.
The next day, we drove to a to the house of a woman named Sue in Jessup, Maryland. I didn’t know it then, but that house would become home for the next six years.
It was the start of a new chapter. One shaped by safety, healing, and love, but not free from pain. Life with my mom and Sue brought comfort and security, yet visits with my father stayed turbulent. And behind closed doors, a quieter, hidden harm continued.
I didn’t have the words for what was happening. I only knew I was learning to survive two different worlds.
That’s the part I’ll tell next.
Before I move forward, there’s one more truth I need to name.
Briefly, but honestly: I was sexually assaulted by my older sister. It began shortly before we left my father and lasted for a couple of years afterward.
I won’t dwell on it, and I don’t expect to return to it often, if at all.
But I share it because it shaped my earliest understanding of confusion, of being hurt by someone the world saw as “normal” and “safe.” It left me carrying a quiet contradiction that would follow me into the years ahead.