On Sunday, January 9th, we all saw on the news that Bob Saget, the man behind Danny Tanner on ‘Full House’ and ‘Fuller House’, the future version of Ted Mosby on ‘How I Met Your Mother’, as well as a stand-up comedy legend, passed away suddenly at the age of 65. He was making people laugh up until his very last day alive. He even posted on Twitter mere hours before he died stating how happy he was performing his last two hour comedy show.
Hearing of his passing reminded me so much of my childhood. I used to watch ‘Full House’ on repeat as a child, and as an adult I’d endlessly watch clips from the show on Youtube. Now that the show is on Netflix, I’m rewatching the show as I’m writing this. I have to say, watching it as a child and watching it as an adult are two completely different things. It’s meant to be watched by both kids and adults, specifically as a family. It’s the type of show that when I have kids of my own, I’ll be showing it to them and watching it with them.
Now that I’m watching ‘Full House’ as an adult, I realize just how much adult content the show included that I never understood as a child. There were even references the show made that children wouldn’t understand, such as Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and the 1950’s legendary show, ‘I Love Lucy’. Watching the show again didn’t make me feel old. Instead, it made me feel nostalgic. It wasn’t the show itself that made me feel nostalgic, but rather the memories; the memories of what the show brought to me as I was growing up.
I can honestly say I had a great childhood. My parents gave me everything when they practically had nothing. But even though I had a happy childhood, it doesn’t mean I didn’t have my own share of problems. Life at home was great, but life outside of home was brutal. I grew up in Israel in the 90’s. Back then, if you were different in any shape or form, you’d be f*cked up. Obviously, I was different because of my cerebral palsy. I was known as ‘the girl with the weird right arm’ at school, and even outside of school. The kids were brutal. Each time I’d get out of the house for reasons other than to see my family, I’d expect some type of bullying and abuse – mental, emotional, and even physical. I think the only reason there wasn’t any sexual abuse was because my bullies and abusers didn’t know of anything that had to do with sex when we were kids.
In my childhood, I had boys threaten to kill me; I had someone push me down the stairs; I had a boy who would repeatedly throw rocks at at me everyday on my way home from school; and I was even told that I deserved to be in a wheelchair. Some girls would be acting like they wanted to be friends with me and would hang out with me during recess from time to time. But then, they just got tired of me and disappeared for no apparent reason. When I saw the girls hanging out without me after some time, I’d come up to them to at least ask why they suddenly stopped hanging out with me. But they’d just tell me to leave their ‘premises’. This would be a repeated occurrence throughout the years with different girls.
At some point, I just stopped caring about everything, especially when it came to making friends. The treatment that I was experiencing from others that weren’t my family just became normal to me. Over time, if someone hurt me physically, I had no issue hurting them back. And if someone attempted to hurt me with their words, I ignored them. I was alone, but I wasn’t lonely. I wasn’t lonely because I knew I had something to look forward every day after school, which was an episode of Full House. Watching the show as a child gave me a sense of peace, warmth, and laugher. It was almost like an escape from reality. Those 20 minute episodes gave me a little bit of happiness when I truly so desperately needed to feel it. Bob Saget is known to be the American Dad. But to me, the whole cast was my American Family.
Children are often underestimated and belittled, by society specifically. They’re seen as being innocent. How could they possibly go through any hardships, right? Wrong. So, so wrong. Kids are very interesting creatures, and they should never be diminished because of their age and/or maturity. In fact, they might be more mature that anyone would think. I, for one, didn’t feel it was normal for me to open up to anyone about my traumas as a child. I took my experiences with me into adulthood, and those experiences affected me and made me into who I became as an adult – the good, the bad, and the ugly. I did go to therapy as a child, but maybe it wasn’t enough for me. Maybe I needed more.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to analyze your children, especially in the day and age of social media. Children and mental health are interrelated. There’s no way to deny it. I didn’t have a lot of help available back when I was growing up in the 90’s. All I had was the comfort of Danny Tanner and the rest of his unconventional family. Now, however, in 2022, there’s so much more access for kids to get the proper help that they deserve.
Parents & caretakers – please check on your kids. They might be struggling in silence, and they shouldn’t have to. Take every opportunity you have to talk to them to make sure they’re okay. And if they’re not, make sure you take every step you can to make sure they get treated for their mental health properly. Childhood trauma is no laughing matter. Childhood trauma can lead to trauma in adulthood. Children don’t have a voice to advocate for themselves.That’s why we need to do the advocating for them. We must let children know that they don’t have to suffer in silence.
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