Simply put, my dad expected a lot from us as kids. Nothing seemed to ever be enough; he was quick to chastise. He was proud of us too, but it seems like the things my brothers and I remember are the numerous episodes of him yelling at us. I particularly and vividly recall a time 34 years ago when he came to where i was living with my boyfriend: I was 20 and attending college, and we decided to move in together. Dad (a cop) found out where i live and just showed up. He didn't want to come in the apartment, and asked me downstairs to talk. As he spoke, i could sense the anger building, and i told him it was my life to screw up if i wanted to. He looked at me and said how totally disappointed in me he was, and he slapped me.
Two years later ( i had broken off my relationship w Richard) I was living w my friend J and her sister. I have a picture of dad and my adviser on graduation day, when he said how proud of me he was. I can really only recall a handful of times in life he said anything about being proud.
I did all these achiever things that in retrospective was me trying to get him to be nice to me..I played sports( I was awful- crap I knocked myself out with a bat at softball practice once, and twisted my ankle in high school trying to run cross country) I joined junior achievement, and gave a speech about what Junior Achievement means to me at some banquet in San Francisco.
There was all the comments when i was in junior high and high school, about me being a hippie, or a whore( I honestly don't know where that came from, i think he was just convince I was destine to be a slut by the way I dressed
) He was adamant I could not get my ears pierced, could not wear makeup, crap, i couldn't even wear nylons until i was a junior in high school. No wonder I started drinking at 16. I think there was some good though- fear of him is likely as big a motivator as any for me not having sex in high school...gee, with my luck i would have got pregnant and then what!Beside I made up for it later
...But what this did to my self esteem, I don't think I fully ever accounted for. I frequently am told at work what a good job I am doing, what a good staff person i am, what a good manager i am, and it all seems alien...Me?? I am doing good? I frequently ask my mother if dad was still alive, would he have been proud of us kids, and she always says the same thing, he was proud of us, just not able to show it. Thats my mom...always positive. Even when he left her after 25 years together, she tried to stay positive.
Her influence was the counter balance to his disciplinary way of running the family...although she could exercise her own authority
...Once I was at a party and my friends said don't you have to go home, and I said something like i didn't, and here comes my mom in her 58 T Bird...she rolled down the window, and somehow spotted me, " Young lady, you better be home by the time I get there." (How she figured I could start dads work car, an Studebaker Lark ( pictured in this blog), and get home before her I don't know. All I know is i ran two stop signs on the way home, and parked the car in the driveway as she was pulling in...I don't remember her even being mad. We just went in and went to bed. Dad on the other hand would have lectured me about being irresponsible.)
How did this affect me as a parent? The few times I found myself flying off the handle at our daughter, I would reflect for a minute, and then deal with it as emotionless as possible. And like my mom, I tend to be overly generous of myself. It bothers her now, because I insist on giving her stuff; when they come to visit I take them where ever they want, cook whatever they want(well mostly- Thanksgiving I totally did not have a pecan pie) ..
I am so messed up, sometimes i think I must be normal...
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