Like parental expectations. Parents who expect you to do (or not do) certain things with your life. Parents who want you to be just like them. Parents who expect huge achievements rather than modest unremarkable lives.
They expect you to have lots of children and grandchildren. Or take over the family business. Or be a high earner. When you want none of those things.
My parents were happy when I started work as a journalist, but a lot less happy when I abandoned journalism and became a bookseller. They thought I was wasting my abilities as well as not earning enough.
My mother was always disappointed that I never had children or grandchildren, but at least she didn't harp on about it. She was pleased when my sister had a daughter but I'm sure what she really wanted was a massive brood.
My father clearly thought I wasn't masculine enough - that I was far too sentimental and cared far too much about society's losers. He expected me to be tougher and harder and stop excusing other people's weaknesses.
Yes, there are parents who genuinely have no route-map for their children, and are happy with whatever lives they choose. But there are plenty who're less relaxed and want to push them this way or that.
I see what they're after. They want their kids to have fulfilling lives, they have their own idea of what will enable that, and they try to influence their kids accordingly. But their kids may have very different plans.
No, dad, I'm not a chip off the old block and I never wanted to be.
That is sad that you had a difficult relationship with both parents, especially your father. I suspect it’s why you ruminate on the topics that you do, at least on this blog. Even though they are both gone, it doesn’t seem as though you’ve found a way to let go.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: I would say I've let go in the sense that I don't obsess about our differences, I just have them in some corner of my memory. Yes, I had a difficult relationship with both parents, but plenty of other people could say the same. Just one of those things we have to deal with.
ReplyDeleteBut you said you liked a skirmish?!!
ReplyDeleteAck.
Parents. Yep. It's complicated!
Sx
Ms Scarlet: The skirmish thing is complicated too! I suppose when I say I like a skirmish, I'm really thinking of those minor everyday tussles - like with my blogmates or Jenny or my book club members. The bigger, ongoing, more traumatic skirmishes I would rather not dwell on.
DeleteP.S I didn't mean write about previous skirmishes. I meant write about why you sometimes enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteSx
I do enjoy those friendly arguments about politics or movies or books or litter louts or anti-social behaviour. Nothing too traumatic there!
DeleteMs Scarlet: I guess I'm making a distinction between a skirmish, meaning a minor disagreement, and a conflict, meaning serious feuding or falling-out.
DeleteI had a father who thought that I was a no-goodnik and a mother who thought exactly the opposite and emotionally blackmailed me to achieve some kind of respectability which I did. My father suddenly then decided that I was not a no-goodnik after all and that was my moment of joy!
ReplyDeleteNeither my wife nor I pushed our son to be anything but natural and he has developed into a fine human being.
Ramana: That must have been a wonderful moment when your father changed his attitude to you. Good to know your son has grown up to be a fine adult.
DeleteParents. I'm somewhat envious that yours were engaged to some degree with your life.
ReplyDeleteAs I've mentioned before, a sore subject. M parents divorced before I was 4, I think. Dad was never really a part of my life. From 4 until 10, my maternal grandparents had a larger influence than my mom did. At 10, Mom left my sister and I with her parents. A couple of years after that, Dad moved his second wife and my half-siblings to California and I didn't see any of them for another 10 years. At 15, I went to Texas to live with Mom and the newest step-dad. By that time, their ability to push me around was pretty much nil, but I didn't move out until I was almost 20 and joined the Navy.
Other than all of that, I didn't have a particularly bad childhood. It wasn't complicated by drugs, alcohol or abuse. I didn't really know poverty until I moved to Texas, but even that wasn't extreme. We never went on the dole.
Mom is gone several years now. Dad is 88 and lives in Oregon. I haven's seen him in 8 years and haven't talked to him much, but that goes both ways. I had thought to visit this year, but then Covid happened. Maybe in 2021.
Sometimes I think my life has turned out how it has despite my parents. My sister's life was a mess until about 15 years ago.
Mike: Sounds like your childhood was pretty difficult, with all that chopping and changing. But as you say, you were spared addictions or abuse. And yes, it's very possible to have a good life despite parental failings.
DeleteAll I ever wanted for my children was their happiness with their lives and above all, to be kind to others and live with a sense of obligation to those less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteI see it in Daughter and Grandgirl and Missing Daughter would always go to the poorest in the city of Toronto and bring them muffins and blankets and I only found that out through someone else.
Success has been ill-defined.
XO
WWW
www: Indeed, a sense of obligation to the less fortunate is something all children should acquire as they grow up. How touching that you only found out about the muffins and blankets through someone else.
DeleteMy parents were both alcoholic, drug users so they never really cared about what me and my siblings did. But my mom always wanted me to get married and I never did. Ken and I lived together for 30 years, I never needed a piece of paper for our relationship.
ReplyDeleteMary: That was a god-awful childhood. But you seem to be pretty together now despite that.
DeleteWell thank you. I appreciate that.
DeleteMother was not very interested in what I might do or become...father realised that I knew what I wanted to do from a fairly young age so encouraged me. I was lucky.
ReplyDeleteFly: Good that your father encouraged you to follow your own path.
DeleteWe gave Kaitlin a good foundation and support. It was fun to watch her grow and see what she did.
ReplyDeleteJean: She seems to have grown up to be a pretty capable woman.
DeleteIt’s a juggling act
ReplyDeleteMy parents were laissez-faire
That’s worse
John: I can imagine. Like all those "hippie" parents who let their kids run riot and never restrained them.
DeleteMy father's expectations were far below our abilities. My mother only cared about what the neighbors would think. So, I was pretty much left alone with my needs. Like Charles Shultz's Charlie Brown, I am still amazed when people I haven't seen for awhile remember me.
ReplyDeleteNot having good examples to follow, I was not a good parent. I am glad our daughter found her way into a good life and love.
Linda: Presumably your father had rather limited ideas about what girls could achieve in life?
DeleteIt's interesting that so many people manage to have fulfilling lives despite apparently very inadequate parenting. I'm sure you weren't as bad a parent as you imagine!
He didn't think my brothers would achieve much either. We all pretty much set about proving him right by refusing to live up to our potential because, what was the point since he would never approve anyway. Oops! Made the wrong sense out of his message.
DeleteLinda: I decided very early on that my father would never approve of anything I did so I just went my own way and ignored him.
DeleteParents can be such a puzzle. My parents only wanted "your best", but my father had an undertow of failing him. Sad.
ReplyDeleteJoanne: My father had the same undertow. I don't think anything I did was ever good enough for him.
DeleteParents are confusing. And my father was the same. Is it the generation--mine was WW2?
ReplyDeleteSusan: My parents were also growing up during WW2. I think my father was very keen on discipline because that was a big thing during the war.
DeleteI'm glad I wasn't pressured to be anything other than what I was. There were small matters of little consequence in the grand scheme of life I knew weren't what my mother would have me do, but they didn't have much of a bearing on my life. My father wasn't in my life so no pressures there. My decade older brother was very supportive. We did have structure and order in our life with most every thing seeming quite appropriate given the times of WWII and afterward, unrelated changes in our fortunes, parental health status.
ReplyDeleteJoared: You were lucky not to be under any pressure to be something you weren't. The support from your older brother must have helped.
DeleteYes, my brother was a very important needed positive male figure (not father-like) in my life, though once he graduated high school, went to war, he was away making his own life. But he made a point of staying in contact and had a significant impact with just little things whenever we were together. I was able on more than one occasion in the years before his recent death to tell him how much he mattered to me.
DeleteJoared: That sounds like a great relationship with your brother. I never had that sort of relationship with my sister, she keeps her distance from me.
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