How much did you turn into your mother or father??

[catsy girl]

I was raised by my mother and her two sisters- all in same household. I'm a combination of all of them- insight from oldest aunt, social agility from mother-substitute aunt, and some darkness/ fears from my mother, who was ill most of her life. My father and an uncle were a part of the household but was father had a difficult time surviving among the large personalities. I appreciate all of them- all gone now, and am grateful for the love , support, and time that they all gave me.


Catsy

[kelly237]

I had two amazing parents that are gone now.

The more I am like them the better. They were great people.

[funisart]

LOl - I wish. My mother was excruciatingly beautiful her whole life. She was confident and outgoing. My Father was idealistic and honest-later in life more easygoing. They were very strict- with old fashioned ideals. (My curfew was 11:00 until I was married at 22) I have always been easygoing and an introvert, though I make friends easily. My parenting style was different, I was an older mom with just one quiet, easy son, instead of three boisterous sons and a daughter. Oh and I took after my dad’s side of the family in looks. I do share the values they taught.

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by galaxyhi

....
So: what do you find yourself saying or doing that was/is like your mother or your father?

My mother, never; my father, very rarely.

They lived in very tight and unforgiving worlds, and I found very little to draw on, and less and less and less the older I got.

[LivingDeadGirl]

I was raised by my Slovak grandparents my first 4, formative years. Thus, I am much like them. My grandmother kept a beautiful home and was proud of it. My grandfather was a kind, talented individual and each sunday, after church and dinner, he'd return to the church, where there was a private club in the rec hall. He'd get a good buzz, walk home, then put on his music and sing and dance. I always sang and danced with him and he taught me to be happy and dancing when I drank. Believe me, the legend lives on, even today!

My Mom taught me to be viking strong, not a wimp, capable, and independent. I DID resist swearing like a truck driver, as she swore amazingly well and constantly. However, after being married to my 2nd husband ( a real jerk), and spending 10 years as a stripper, later in life, I must say, even my Mom says I swear too much!

Every family has members with bad traits and those children, who look and learn, avoid that behavior when they become adults.

[Serious Conversation]

I really don't think I'm that much like them.

They're very much "home and hearth" oriented people. They got married at 21, stayed in their hometown, and struggled to have kids for a few years before having me. Traditional, "salt of the earth" type of people.

I've never had the wife, two kids, dog, and house with white picket fence aspirations. My first long-term girlfriend was with a woman seventeen years older than me. I was engaged once, but other than with her, I've had no real interest in getting married. I've cheated a lot. I've never had any desire to have children. I'm open to the option of being married, but I'm pretty much closed to the idea of kids of my own. I wouldn't be totally opposed to dating someone who had older kids (10+), but there's no way I'd date a woman with a baby or toddler.

I also don't have any real interest in living in one place the rest of my life. To me, the world is about variety and experiencing it. My things are travel, the outdoors, fine food, experiential sorts of things. Most of my family are very "home/house" oriented.

Of my immediate family (grandparents, parents, aunts/uncles, first cousins), I'm also pretty unique.

1) I'm the only one who has lived outside of northeast TN or southwest Virginia for more than a year that was not related to military service. I'm the only one who moved for employment-related reasons.

2) Other than an uncle who owns his own business, I'm the only one with a white collar job.

3) I'm the only person in my family over 25 who has never been married or had kids.

4) Other than the uncle, I'm the only Republican.

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by kevxu

My mother, never; my father, very rarely.

They lived in very tight and unforgiving worlds, and I found very little to draw on, and less and less and less the older I got.

Since posting the above, a number of things I have seen in my home and thoughts that have come up made me decide to come back to this thread.

There were two people in my childhood and later years that I am like, and who certainly shaped my interests in life in ways often very contrary to how my parents lived and thought.

The first was my mother's widowed sister, four years older than my mother, who lived with us until she remarried when I about eight and lived in the same town as my family for the rest of her life. She had books in her room and they fascinated me as a kid, used to sneak in and leaf through them. When I was in my teens and twenties I read some and she gave me others as presents. She behaved and listened...and most of all actually discussed and explained things to me as I grew up. My parents did not do this at all. My aunt made the world a place of discovery, whether it was our walks in the woods or telling me about her trips back to Canada. Despite lacking in self-confidence, I did look outward - in my school subjects and in my life. And it is she, not my parents that I can see in myself as I look around my home, a home that is 3,500 miles from where I began and in another country.

The second was my mother's step-mother, who became the closest de facto grandparent I had. Both grandfathers were dead, and my paternal grandmother was someone I saw every two months and she did not assert herself much in the company of a roomful of her children and grandchildren. In truth, I hardly new her personally only as almost a background player at family visits.

But my mother's widowed step-mother, Marietta, whom she was ambivalent toward, was a different ball of wax. We visited her often, but just three of us at the most - and she loved to talk. So, I got to know her from her own lips, and from her stories and as a teen from her rather surprising laid back attitude toward huffing and puffing of her extended family. She was the daughter of a Cornish-descended Bible Christian circuit preacher, who was the son of Cornish immigrants, and whose circuits were mainly composed of like people. Her early life ranged across various circuits in Canada and the northern U.S. Midwest and she had three sisters and two brothers...and she had been my grandfather's sweetheart before he dumped her to marry my blood grandmother, and after her death he knew his error and went back and asked the still unmarried Marietta to be his wife. And down to the U.S. she came....and years and years of "letters from Canada" poured down after her.

I'll say it for the umpteenth time, Marietta was a homespun Proust...and I heard her "books" for the better part of twenty years by the time I started to pay attention. What a storyteller...so many characters, so many plots, so much time, so much complexity, so much turning back and around. Unbeknownst to my mother I came to adore these visits and would sneak over to the country hamlet where she lived sometimes on my own. Not even the best books I read told their stories like Marietta told hers year after year after year. She fascinated me, not least of all because underneath an expected veneer of ethnic and religious stereotype, this good-natured woman saw the good, the bad, the bitter and worse with far, far more bemusement than judgement.

So, my favorite books are three or four classics that are endlessly complicated, turn back on themselves often for second and third looks and are as fascinating to me as Marietta's, which ended with her very poignant death, and then a comic blow-up over her memorial service which would have had her shaking her head and laughing quietly. The books are The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell; The Tale of Gengi, Lady Murasaki; In Search of Lost Time, Proust and The Forsyte Chronicles, John Galsworthy....only the latter can compete with Marietta for duration. The mark she left was that from my twenties on I was always attracted to much older people who had a penchant for telling their ongoing autobiographies. And, wow, these other people have been some of the most fascinating ...and instructive friends in my life. And my own prolixity and love for real-life stories I would lay at Marietta's door, but perhaps in an attempt to enhance a lesser talent.