December 19, 2018:
Of course, kids weren't allowed where the grownups did their talking.
It would have been all family secrets. Why there was no marriage, why there'd been no contact for a quarter of a century. Why she'd been abandoned to abuse and violence and rape.
Children aren't for such talk. Not because children are stupid, but because they just don't matter.
That's the way of these people. Children are seen, not heard.
That's the exact phrase. Roundabout way of saying: Shut your fucking mouth, rugrat.
And shut your fucking ears. Shut: that's really the shorthand. This is our world and you won't understand.
They got that last bit right.