The Black Sheep Speaks: A Sunday Morning Testimonial

By Dr. Potts

August 31, 2025 | 10:00 EDT

I grew up on my own, long before the term “latchkey kid” was even invented. Back then, it wasn’t a trendy label—it was survival. I was the kid who walked through the door after school to an empty house. The one who learned early that no one was coming back to check on me.

That independence wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. Maybe that’s why I ended up smarter than my sisters—I had to be. Had to figure things out on my own. Navigate the world without the safety net a family is supposed to provide. But instead of understanding, I got blamed. Blamed for everything that went wrong before my ex kicked me out. Blamed for speaking truths nobody else wanted to face.

My family? Fractured. One sister hasn’t spoken to me since our mother died. She’s always acted like she belonged to a different family entirely. Another keeps her distance, wrapped up in her own world. And me? I’m the enemy in their eyes. The male who won’t shut up. The one who calls bullshit when they’d rather keep pretending it’s all fine.

It’s a lonely place, being the scapegoat. But it’s also a clear-eyed one. Because I’m not the problem. I’m the one who sees what others won’t. The one who says what everyone’s too polite, too scared, too comfortable to say. That clarity comes at a cost—isolation, anger, frustration. But it also brings purpose.

My sons? They have what I call an “Ophelia complex” with their mom. I see it for what it is—even if they don’t. And I think that’s not just my family’s curse. It’s America’s curse. Fathers written off, demonized, made the permanent enemy. Sons taught to be angry, to pick sides, to hate before they even understand what they’re hating.

And maybe that’s where we’re headed: Violence. War. Some catastrophe on a scale we can’t imagine. Maybe that’s what it takes to finally wake America up the way Europe had to wake up—after blood in the streets and bones in the ground.

I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. But I’m here. I write. I record. I try to add my muscle into turning the ship before it breaks apart on the unforgiving rocks waiting just beneath the surface.

• Black sheep near Crookstone Barn by Neil Theasby is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0