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Old 09-07-2017, 01:31 PM
 
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Curious from the seniors here what era your parents grew up in, how were they raised, and what were they like as parents themselves? Do you see any similarities with how you parented?

I was reading an autobiography of someone that grew up in the early 20th century with normal parents that weren't these messed up, fighting, crazy, abusive, drunks, that I've always read about with children who grew up in those times. Her parents actually loved her, were very protective, and had it somewhat "together" so to speak, even though they were working class.

Last edited by allenk893; 09-07-2017 at 01:45 PM..
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Old 09-07-2017, 02:02 PM
 
2,499 posts, read 2,616,883 times
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Born 1932 or still kicking

Best parents ever
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Old 09-07-2017, 02:10 PM
 
Location: Berkeley Neighborhood, Denver, CO USA
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Born in 1922 and still alive.
The Depression shaped their financial thinking.
They only borrowed money 3 times in their lives (2 houses sequentially and a living/dining room set).
They almost never ate in restaurants.
Very middle of the road white bread 'Murica.
Education for their 2 kids was paramount.
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Old 09-07-2017, 03:00 PM
 
Location: Central NY
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Father born in 1901, came over from England when he was 16.
Mother born in 1910, New York state.
Never owned their own home. Rented a first floor flat.
Dad worked as an industrial scale repairman.
Mom was housewife and mother.
Alcohol caused problems, not always a happy, safe home, but I felt loved by both parents.
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Old 09-07-2017, 03:08 PM
 
Location: Arizona
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Both dead. Children of immigrants. They were great parents but so were their brothers and sisters so I think that is a reflection on the grandparents and how they raised their children.

They were old enough to remember before the depression so they knew nothing was forever. That made them too cautious in some things.

Education came first. I was in college before I met anyone that had to get a student loan. I just assumed that everyone's parents paid. Remember this was years ago and college wasn't all that expensive compared to today.
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Old 09-07-2017, 03:33 PM
 
Location: Southwest Washington State
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My dad was born in 1916. My mom was born in 1918. My dad's family was poor, although I never heard any stories about starving. They were poor farmers in Arkansas and then Oklahoma. He had 9 brothers and sisters. He joined the army before WWII started and he was tested and found to be intelligent. After that he taught radar to officers, and later helped in the planning of D-Day. Joining the army made him what he was.

My mom was born in Oklahoma. She went to college on a shoestring and came out with a teaching degree. If ever anyone was born to teach, it was her.

They met at church. She eloped and met him when he was stationed in a different state. They married.

They had three girls, of which I am the oldest.

They were old fashioned parents. We were spanked and disciplined. We were expected to behave. I believe we were all loved, but I also believe they loved our youngest the best. However there was no overt favoritism. My mom thought of herself as modern. She scoffed at what she considered old fashioned ideas. My dad was fairly quiet but he read. He earned his Bachelor's the same year that I graduated high school.

They were good grandparents. They loved my kids a lot. My kids loved them.

Both parents worked: my mom taught school from the time I was in 3rd grade until she retired. My dad worked a an engineer in the aircraft industry.

Both of them remembered the Depression.
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Old 09-07-2017, 03:57 PM
 
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Father born in 1911, Irish-Am. Cath. family of 7 kids, in debt, pinched for money. Father was a lousy student and a wise-ass and was invited to leave school when he came of legal age to do so. He did and went out to Midwest to work with an older brother stringing telephone cables.

Mother born in 1910, family were of Irish Orange Order Presbyterian stock who moved to U.S. from Canada Her father was very religious, mother was observant for social reasons and was given to violent temper outbursts and was remote, unloving and very concerned with her four daughters never deviating from strict social norms. My mother was the very spoiled youngest child (spoiled by her father), and she never got older than thirteen in her values and temperament as a result. The family had moved to a farm outside a tiny hamlet where her mother died when my mother was twelve. All four sisters married domineering, and in two cases seriously psychologically damaged men.

My parents knew each other six weeks and then sneaked off to get married because her father would have raised holy hell for marrying a Catholic. In a matter of weeks my mother told her father's best friend, who, of course promptly told her father as she had to know he would. And this derailed my father's plans for them going back to the Midwest together...which my mother had second thoughts about. Her manner of dealing with the situation is characteristic of how she dealt with all family and friend problems for the rest of her life - deviously and using or blaming other people. She lied whenever the truth did not suit her purposes.

They married right as the country plunged into the Depression and lived skimpily. Their first child died at 14 months and I was born five years later. By the time I was reaching jr. high school it was obvious that my parents had a very unsatisfactory marriage. My father was silent, unloving and bullying as a parent; my mother remained thirteen years old - vain, selfish and without compassion for her friends or sisters when they experienced major problems; very possessive of me and acted in sexually inappropriate ways when I was 9/10 until she was almost caught by my father.

I fathered a child when I was twenty who was raised by an adoptive father whom I knew. I would have made a horrendous parent I believe, though that was not the reason for the adoption it had to have been one of the best things to have happened to that child.
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Old 09-07-2017, 04:33 PM
 
Location: God's Country
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Both born 1921, Baltimore, VERY poor financially, Roman Catholic. They called themselves "children of the depression" and accordingly were very frugal. Dad WWII, two Purple Hearts, and a Bronze Star. I was a war baby.


Very loving parents, put their children's interests ahead of their own. Made a lot of sacrifices for us. Married 54 years until death separated them. I was blessed to have had them as parents.
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Old 09-07-2017, 04:56 PM
 
Location: Albuquerque NM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by allenk893 View Post
Curious from the seniors here what era your parents grew up in, how were they raised, and what were they like as parents themselves? Do you see any similarities with how you parented?

I was reading an autobiography of someone that grew up in the early 20th century with normal parents that weren't these messed up, fighting, crazy, abusive, drunks, that I've always read about with children who grew up in those times. Her parents actually loved her, were very protective, and had it somewhat "together" so to speak, even though they were working class.
So you have always read that people who grew up from 1900 to 1940 had crazy messed up parents? That is interesting. I thought it would have been the opposite as most seem to romanticize the old days.

My parents were born in 1919 and 1921. Neither liked to talk much about their upbringing and most of their memories concerned growing up in the Depression and all the hardships. My dad was a Midwesterner and talked lovingly about his mother and how she would make her own bread and how hard she worked to keep them fed and that she was a good homemaker. He had less to say about his father. My dad worked several jobs in high school to help support the family and left before he graduated to work as a cowboy in Wyoming, which he hated because of the cold, to send money back home. Years later talking to my aunt, my dad actually got in a big argument with his dad - maybe even physical - and ran away from home to Wyoming and never sent money home. My father was a dutiful parent but strict and not very loving and could be downright mean, he spanked us hard with a belt and could be verbally abusive too, was frugal, and he had a bad alcohol problem at one point. I suspect he and his dad were very much alike although perhaps not the alcohol part.

My mom was a crazy Southerner with a sad life. Her parents died as a result of violence when she was a baby and her grandmother raised her. She hated her grandmother who was very strict and they were extremely poor as in often went hungry. As soon as my mother was old enough, she dropped out of high school and took off and lived with cousins, had boyfriends, and later partied with all the young men on leave during WWII. After the war, she met my dad who had just been released from the Army and they married a few months later. She loved to party and spend money which did not go well with my dad. They eventually divorced. My older sister was closer to my mom's family than me and heard more stories. She told me that the grandmother was not that mean and strict but that my mother was a discipline problem and very wild and unstable and my great grandmother tried her best. I tend to believe my sister on this given my mother's issues with parenting. There were also several suicides in her family and I suspect some mental illness.
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Old 09-07-2017, 05:34 PM
 
Location: Western Colorado
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Both dead for years born in 1918. Mom was a housewife, dad worked. Told me he started working in a mine at 8 years old to help support the family. He was drafted and fought in the pacific in WW2, and during the war mom worked riveting tail sections in B29's. They both smoked a carton of cigarettes a week and every Sunday was mandatory tbone steaks on the grill with LOTS of lighter fluid and Sunday night was the new color tv watching Bonanza, The Wonderful World of Disney and the ABC Movie of the Week. I was allowed to watch The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson monologue, then to bed. Being raised as a child I was told to be in at dark and the neighbors had permission to beat me if I got out of line. Never got beaten but did get shot once with a shotgun filled with rocksalt.


I was raised you treat people with dignity, be honest, treat women with respect, and that no one owes you a thing.
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