Parents
Parents are in a tricky position. Authority and love, discipline and forgiveness, all wrapped up in impossible expectations. Any wonder I chose otherwise. Just people, with graces and failings, fathering or giving birth confers no magical powers, creates no change that individual cannot reject, or embrace.
My own parents had no adult friends, no social life outside of family. No wonder they had no idea how to relate to me as an adult. My dear Massachusetts cousins have circles of friends, when their children grow up, they settle into "friend" role - obviously, to them. Another set of parents close to me, have as friends only church friends, assumptive in their beliefs, confusingly unprecedented when the sons find different realities.
Resigned to never having a relationship with my parents, I find forgiveness easier with each moment of understanding.
Post Secret has fatherly secrets today, the best are the tall tales told children. Playful, friendly foundation for non-hierarchical, adult conversation.
My own parents had no adult friends, no social life outside of family. No wonder they had no idea how to relate to me as an adult. My dear Massachusetts cousins have circles of friends, when their children grow up, they settle into "friend" role - obviously, to them. Another set of parents close to me, have as friends only church friends, assumptive in their beliefs, confusingly unprecedented when the sons find different realities.
Resigned to never having a relationship with my parents, I find forgiveness easier with each moment of understanding.
Post Secret has fatherly secrets today, the best are the tall tales told children. Playful, friendly foundation for non-hierarchical, adult conversation.
Labels: parents
Posted by Zhoen on Sunday, June 17, 2007
2 comments:
One of the reasons I'm content withut children is knowing there's no one I can place those expectations on and be disappointed in when they fail, no unbearable sense of loss and inability to adjust when children grow up, I'll stand or fall by my own self-reliance.( Though of course the anticipation of losing Tom and Molly sits heavy sometimes...) Some people seem to do it just fine, like your cousins.
I enjoyed the postsecret stories and pictures very much.
A friend of mine read a poem about her father at our most recent spoken word night. He was aloof most of her life. In the end he was senile and created a game where he hid his wallet every night and had to find it every morning. All the ups and downs of life began to be lived through the wallet finding success or not. She was caring for him and sometimes helped him find the wallet (she always knew where it was) and he was so appreciative of her that in some way she got was fed by the attention. It was real for him and didn't seem to matter to her that it was late coming. It came and she used it to fill herself up.
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