One of the most remarkable things about Educated is the amount of grace Tara gives certain members of her family. As she grows up, her older brother, Shawn, becomes increasingly volatile, cruel, violent, and misogynistic, going on to physically and mentally abuse Tara — as well as her other siblings — for years. Her parents are well aware but refuse to intervene on her behalf. It’s not until decades later, when Tara is an adult herself, that she’s able to find someone in her family to stand up for her.
Everything to do with the Shawn situation enraged me, honestly. I’m angry on behalf of Tara, and the emotional (and physical) scars she will forever carry. I’m angry for her sister. I’m angry for Shawn’s wife, young son, and the dog he viciously butchered in front of them in a rage-fueled tantrum. I’m angry for the high school girlfriends he abused, one of whom he almost killed. And I’m so, so, insanely furious that he was allowed to get away with it for so long. (And likely continues to, to this day.) Tara is unflinching in her descriptions of how her older brother terrorized her and practically everyone else in his orbit, but what stuns me is how she’s able to look at her situation and still he empathy for these people.
She sees how the abuse, the rampant misogyny, the utter disregard for safety, and the religious psychosis that dominate the Westover home are all effects of (or at least exacerbated by) systemic issues within Mormon culture, and even the American government to some extent. She’s able to look, clear-eyed, at how her father’s undiagnosed mental illness is both the root of most of the trauma and suffering he inflicts on his wife and children, as well as how tragic it is that he was unable to get help, and who he might’ve been had he sought treatment. Even though her mother is a major force in enabling her father and brother, Tara acknowledges that she, too, is a victim. (Especially after her father’s zealous, reckless decision-making leads to a car accident that gives her mother severe brain damage.)
She can see how her childhood might’ve been different had the people in their Mormon community not looked the other way all because, to them, a household’s patriarch can do no wrong. She sees how growing up with a mother and father like that can lead to someone like Shawn evolving into a monster. She sees both sides of it all, which . . . good for her. Genuinely. She’s a far better person than I am. I hope she’s found peace. An incredible person. An excellent memoir.