Our family has a unique approach to grievances: ‘If you make peace, you heap coals of fire on your enemy’s head’

Meg and her father, Thomas Keneally, stand in an ocean pool. Their family has a ‘home truth’ when it comes to dealing with barbs and those who throw them. Photograph: Supplied

Meg Keneally

I’ve always been a dramatic soul. As a young teenager, I would stumble home from early high school, fresh from another day of taunts about my weight, the strange protrusions developing on my chest, or the perm I gave myself from a home kit at the weekend (it was the 1980s!). And, of course, I would relay every insult, every slight, every barb to my parents.