Our Parents Are Our Parents. Who Else Are They?

Oh Roberta, sweets. My heart goes out to you.

Roberta, thinking about you as well. Best wishes during this sad time.

I think this thread is an extraordinary thing, something that can truly change lives.

Oh my. (((hugs))) to you Roberta. My condolences on your loss.

My parents I think made a conscious decision to make it clear that they were persons as well as parents - people rather than functions. I think they thought it would not just be better for them that way - self-development and all that, my mum was a feminist - but better for us, too. I'm 32 now, and I still think they were right.

When I was in high school I always got a little qeasy when I went over to friends' places and found that to them, their mamma was really just their mamma - like she was just some mother animal or something, reduced to her parenting instincts. Where their mum would sit at home waiting with a pot of tea until they'd finally got home, and would want to know "how the day went, dear". Brr. That seemed oppressive. And vice versa, even much later I've been amazed at meeting kids - adults, by then - who seemed to consider their parents as some mere address to call on for help & support - I dunno - it just seemed wrong.

I mean, its great to have a place like that. But, like the brothers of my ex - they just treated their mum like ... yeh, they were real nice to her, but in a condescending way, and sometimes they were just ouright rude - like, they expected her to do everything, kinda, as if she was just naturally there for them. And of course that was cause thats how she posited herself. I thought them spoiled and rude.

I dunno. My parents were divorced, so by the time we were in our late teens, our mum would discuss her work, like, what had happened at the office and how she'd deal with this employee situation and stuff, with us, and that was fine. If she came home all enthusiastic and optimistic from some training or meeting we would know ... ;-). We knew what she was talking about in any case, because for as long as I can remember I'd been going round her work's to go have lunch together, for example, or just come round for a chat ... (I even remember going from primary school to her office every Wednesday to have "afternoon food" in the ministry's canteen - I got to have sandwich kroket! <grins>). So I knew her colleagues. Especially the ones from when she started her own organisation - after she died they were ever so nice, my sister sometimes still gets cards from one of them.

I think I would have been bored stiff in a household where mum and dad were just mum and dad and only talked parent-things. But on the other hand my father took it too far at times, I think, and sometimes I just wasnt interested - I just wanted to come home.

Its a thin line, even if I think its way beyond where most folks put it. Like, both of them were extremely discrete about their (attempts at) new relationships, and I was very glad about that. And even with all the shared interests (like when my mum started studying the same year I did), I've also always needed them to remember that they were also, still, parents, and they would have to do the parent thing and be there for talks and tea and a safe welcome and occasional comfort, too. My mum pretty much combined the two things real good. My father occasionally forgot to properly do the parent thing. Not that he'd talk too much about his stuff or non-family stuff - more that he forgot, just, to be a good parent, altogether. Would come home too late and stuff (me waiting in the doorway), or would get into fierce discussions with me over some issue, forgetting that its your kid you're talking with, here. He's better at being a parent now, though, even when sometimes he still needs some heavy-handed hints to spark into (re)action. Mellowed out real nicely, though, overall.

I know all of it must have been a conscious deliberation for them, cause it went down to where we called them by their first names, instead of "mum" and "dad". At my Montessori high school there were more families like that, but later I came to realise that that was pretty rare. I dunno - I think that myself, I would just go for being called "dad", and I'm sure my new nephew will call my sister just "mum" - but I also liked calling my parents by their name, and wouldnt want it to have been otherwise.

<looks up>

Oops.

Sorry about that monster-sized post there. I've already read some of your posts and I can see that so much more can be said in so much fewer words. Ah well :-(

Oh, Roberta, I'm so sorry to hear that!

That is so sad. My condolences.

It's kind of beautiful that you opened this thread, just two weeks ago, to talk about her ... <nods>

Roberta

I'm very sorry for your loss.



'The Answering Machine'


I call and hear your voice
on the answering machine
weeks after your death,
a fledgling ghost still longing
for human messages.

Shall I leave one, telling
how the fabric of our lives
has been ripped before
but that this sudden tear will not
be mended soon or easily?

In your emptying house, others
roll up rugs, pack books,
drink coffee at your antique table,
and listen to messages left
on a machine haunted

by the timbre of your voice,
more palpable than photographs
or fingerprints. On this first day
of this first fall without you,
ashamed and resisting

but compelled, I dial again
the number I know by heart,
thankful in a diminished world
for the accidental mercy of machines,
then listen and hang up.
(Linda Pastan)

Roberta, I love this thread, but it brings back such memories ............

I could never imagine my parents making love, but I do remember them needing each other, at different times in tehir lives........

I remember when my father died, thinking how finally my mom would have some peace ............she remembered the "silent echo" in our house, as she was alone, and waited for one of the kids to visit, in their spare time. She mentioned at times how 3 or 4 weeks would go by before she would see anyone, meaning our siblings presence.

I can't imagine my parents having a life outside of our family, but I know they did. When they met in England, my mother was working with a rich family, taking care of them, and my dad was a bartender. They eventually married in England and seemed to have a good thing going. They worked to make a life together, bought a house, they had a telephone, the whole works in those days. Then the war broke out, they had it all, including two children, and walked away from it to take a ship back to Ireland which was stuck for 3 days in the ocean because of mines. Eventually we arrived in Ireland, Belfast to be exact, and we went to a protestant minister who set us kup with a room, food, and all it takes to get started again.

I don't remember my parents having a life outside of our family, but I'm sure they did. I remember asking my mother what she wanted for herself, before us, .. she said she always wanted to be a nun. She had also been in love with a policeman from her village in Co. Clare.

I think if the Gods had been good to them they would have remained in Surrey, England and take their chances.

Raggedy, Jes, Soz, and Fishin, Thanks for the kind words and thoughts. I'm just back from the funeral. A strange sad, sad day, with lots of laughs and tears.

Nimh, Please don't apologize for writing your recollections here. This is the place for them. Yes, I started this thread because I realized that I didn't know my mother in any context other than family. I still occasionally catch glimpses in her papers, but the woman I knew is all I have to remember.

jjorge, Thank you for the beautiful and touching poem. My mother may have been the last person in the US who didn't have an answering machine. But she left plenty of messages on mine. She called it "the dummy."

Misty, Thanks for sharing your memories with us. If your parents had remained in Surrey, where might you be now?

Roberta, that's a very good question! I may never have found A2K or all the people I admire on here ... you are one of them Roberta:)

Yesterday I went across town to fix xmas dinner for my folks, mum has alzheimers and dad is a bit senile. I realized I knew virtually nothing about my fathers life but knew every detail about my mothers life and family. What I do know about my father was that his parents divorced when he was in his teens (around 1938) and they both split leaving him to live in a boarding house with enough cash to live well. His father, my grandfather could never remember his grandsons names so he just called us all "stupid". He hated my mum 'cause she was a "damn yankee" from colorado. I grew up mostly around my mothers family with my grandfather, a cherokee indian and a socialist, and my grandmother, an Irish protestant republican. I was told all the tales of that side of the family and knew many of them, stories about my grandfather changing his name from "running by the cool river banks" to "edgar banks" in order to live in the white man's world. About his unionizing the railroad workers and the Ludlow Massacre and Sand Creek Massacre. I have no sense of identity with my fathers family. But I also don't care to know for they are strangers to me.

Dys, I understand how you feel.

We never knew my father's side of the family, because my dad and his family had a falling out years before, so they didn't talk. Meantime, we had a great relationship with my mom's side, thank God. The unfortunate side of this is that when kids grow up or become inquisitive, they WANT to know about their heritage, sometimes it's not possible, as in this case.

dys, Your grandfather sounds like an amazing man. I don't think it's a bad thing to not know about things that you're not interested in knowing, just as long as you know about what does interest you.

Misti, I can relate to what you're saying. Some members of my family didn't talk to others. Whole bunches of information were unavailable to me.

I was an adult before asking my mother what it was like to be my fathers' second wife and she informed me that she was not his second but THIRD wife.
My father refused to discuss it with me.

I think it would be really interesting to ask our children who else they think their parents are, besides their parents.

I wonder what they would say?

EOE, I'm with you.

Misti, I agree that it would be fascinating to hear what kids think about who their parents are beyond the role of parent. I hadn't really thought about it at all until I starting going through my mother's papers. I kept finding one surprise after another. I haven't finished with the papers yet. Who knows what else I might encounter. Was my mother a surgically altered Amelia Aerhart? Hey, did you ever see the two of them together? No. I thought not.

As a child, I thaught, I knew a lot about my parents and their families.

Both, my father and my mother talked quite often about that.

Mostly only the funny, humorous things, as I found out, when getting older - since granma, grandaunt, aunt (mother's site and living in our great house as well) told somehow different.

I never knew anything about WWII parents-related besides, as said, more or less funny stories.
This was one of the points, I started asking more.

And got a lot of answers. The most interesting was, why we never passed a small valley nearby, although it would have been a shortcut, and my father was the county's tubeculose doctor for that region as well: with a kind of a somehow strange humour US-soldiers 'played' execution with my father (as non-combattant POW) and a couple others in 1945.

I was in my 20's at that time.

After my father's death, I went through all the documents - my father had never looked at them, and same still had the rubbish/stones/dust in it, which came from the bombing of my grandparents house in 1944 ( half of the family died then).

Now, I can't asked my father anymore (I couldn't, because similar as we were, we weren't that close).
And due to her age/illness, my mother isn't a great help. either.

I'm glad, however, that I know a little bit about how "work" with history, since I leanrt that.

Thought of this all over the morning/lunchtime :wink:

Mother has been always the housewife and -for me- the catalyst, when I had "conferences" with my father (e.g. bad marks at school, later out at night etc), although she often gave me more than just a clout.

Father always had been the teacher - mostly (immotionally) distant, but always present for answers. (Every Sunday morning, he met his older friend, a dentist. We usually walked some miles, and I listened to their -mostly- history talks. Afterwards, we went for an hour or so in the local museum. [Thus, I was able to make guarded tours through the museum and my native town at the age of 14.])

When my father and I became older, we were divided by distance, political, economic, ecologic, religious etc reasons, but became closer and closer emotionally.

Unfortunately, he died before both of us could fully live our new relation.

Walter, It seems to me that no matter how long a parent lives, it's never long enough. There's always some unfinished business. Some problem unresolved. Questions unanswered. But I'm glad that you were able to grow emotionally closer to your father as time went by.

Thank you Lash for resurrecting this thread in Setanta's Comforably numb thread, and you Setanta for starting yours.

I have learned so much about so many just now.

My parents.....I'd like to post about them, but it's such an emotionally loaded subject. I guess I'm just hesitant about going first.

Would anyone else care to start off first....maybe someone who hasn't seen this thread before?
It'd be great to get to know more about you.