Expansion

In my last blog post, I talked about how the 828 house was “Mom’s domain.” Another way of saying this is “Mom ruled the roost.” When I think of Mom, the word ‘rule’ often comes to mind. 

She seemed perfectly fit for the task of making and guarding a roost, a nest, a brood house where we 12 chicks could learn to be roosters and hens before heading out into the big world. By working energetically themselves and by assigning jobs to us kids, our parents created a clean, safe refuge where we could come of age.

Writing this I thought, “No, that’s not right!” Although not realizing it at the time, when I left home at age 18, I was utterly unprepared to live in the world. Eventually I came to believe that “Mom and Dad didn’t get me ready for shit!”

 I was socially awkward, crippled by shyness and inhibitions; unable to play the “dating game”, I joined a seminary. Although not realizing it when I first left home at age 18, I certainly didn’t have what it took to navigate the world. Nor did I at 23, when I was drafted into the army. Not at age 28, when I was first married. Nor at 30, when I became a parent. It pains me to admit how totally unprepared I was to relate to others—to my son especially, and to my wife, to my coworkers, to everyone except my siblings.

Looking back, I see how becoming a parent gave me my first dose of genuine responsibility. Someone was depending on me, not only for food and shelter (I had those areas easily covered), but also for his self-esteem and as a model for manhood (which I didn’t have covered).

Talking with my brothers and sisters (not all at the same time nor to the same depth), I began to figure out who I was and who I wasn’t. It was they who first helped me keep the possibilities of living as an adult life alive. (Later, when I remarried, my wife Mary Ann played a part in this, as did true friends whom I confided in.) It was all these people who encouraged me to seek professional (and unprofessional although not inferior) counseling and make changes in my life.

And it was much, much later that I came to realize that it was my parents who ultimately planted the seeds that would help me emerge from under my basket. (How I got under that basket is for a later blog post.) By assuming that we boys would go to college (the girls went too, although that wasn’t necessarily assumed), they planted in us the ability to grow after high school, not under their supervision, but under our own.

I came to see how we kids came to inherit Dad’s curiosity about the universe. And how we absorbed Mom’s interest in people and places and language. This inheritance allowed us to expand beyond 828.

In retrospect, I see how our parents taught us to be self-sufficient and independent, even (especially) in our thinking. Although some of us strayed from their teachings (on religion, lifestyle, politics, etc.), we never strayed from their idea that we were a family, and that we would always be a family. (Of course from time to time many/most/all of us kept our distance from 828 and the family in order to gain perspective and to just back away from the intensity.) And they taught us that life could be enjoyable – this allowed us to relax a little and to not be afraid of life. All of this was no small gift.

So I’ll just end this with, Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Bob