Mean and self-righteous

My father was a mean and self-righteous man. He always thought he knew better than me and knew what was good for me. If I tried to put him right he got very annoyed.

When I'd been seeing Jenny for a while, I gathered he didn't approve of the relationship and thought I was "exploiting" Jenny.

He never explained what he meant by that. If he meant financially, that was nonsense because Jenny had a hefty credit card debt and I had some savings. If he meant I was leaning on her in some way, that was also nonsense because we were leaning on each other.

In any case he never met her and knew nothing about her so he just had a load of preconceptions about her and about our relationship. Jenny never had a chance to straighten him out.

If I was really exploiting Jenny, as a strong feminist she would have got shot of me at top speed. But we've been together now for 42 years so I must be doing something right.

Jenny would love to have had the chance to confront my father and tell him exactly what she thought of his disparaging attitude, but it wasn't to be. He died seven years after Jenny and I met, still refusing to talk to me because of the numerous grudges he held against me.

To accuse his own son of exploiting someone and not giving me the opportunity to defend myself is pretty low. But it wasn't the first time he had just jumped to conclusions and run with them.

Pic: Not my father, I have no online photos of him.

Parental dreams

I wonder why so many parents find it so tough to accept their children for what they are? They so often have hopes and assump-tions quite unrelated to what their children actually want out of life. Or what they're really suited for.

They imagine a grand career in some profession their child has zero talent for. They expect a dull, routine lifestyle for a child who is clearly rebellious and quirky. They hear the patter of tiny feet when their child has no desire whatever for an infant.

I've known so many people who say their parents don't understand them, don't appreciate what motivates them, and constantly undermine their true aims and ambitions. In short, their parents are more of a hindrance than a help.

Is it so hard to see your children as they are and encourage them in their true inclinations rather than a load of parental daydreams?

When I was young my mother and father had endless preconceptions about what sort of person I was and what I should do with my life, and they always found the reality hard to adjust to.

In the few years that I worked for a local paper, they saw me as some high-flying journalist jetting around the globe reporting world-shattering events. But it wasn't what I was cut out for or interested in.

They assumed I would share their very orthodox political views, and were baffled and upset when my views got increasingly left-wing and iconoclastic.

They expected me to have children and grandchildren, and couldn't understand why I opted out.

In general they saw me as Mr Normal, following a predictable, conventional, conservative lifestyle, probably on some new-build suburban estate where everyone mowed the lawn on Sundays and changed their car every three years.

I think they were permanently shell-shocked by my turning into the exact opposite of their stifling stereotypes. They looked on in disbelief as I adopted one radical cause after another - homosexuality, feminism, socialism, vegetarianism, premarital sex and abstract art, to name but a few. They probably wondered if some hospital blunder had left them with someone else's baby. They certainly saw me as as some alien being from another planet.

It must be very heaven to have parents who truly appreciate you for what you are.