Pondering parental love can be painful for some people. I count myself blessed because I had two loving parents who gave me an idyllic childhood and an incredible toolbox of life skills that has held me in good stead through 56 years of living.
One of the things that pop into my mind when I think about my childhood is that my mother was always at home when I came home for lunch or at the end of the day. The one time when she was not there I was in complete panic. I was 12 years old, and my youngest brother had fallen down the basement stairs and Mom had to rush him to the doctor’s office for stitches. Of course, I didn’t know that when I came home for lunch to find the house locked up and no one answering the door. I made my way over to Mrs. Alexander next door who fed me a sandwich and told me what had happened but despite the knowledge I still felt a sense of insecurity and shock. This sort of thing just didn’t happen to my family! Reflecting on it 20 years later when I heard about “latchkey kids” I wondered how these youngsters felt when coming home to an empty house, every single day! I couldn’t imagine that the same sense of abandonment would not be in their little souls. I still feel terribly sorry for children who don’t have a “stay at home” mom.
I can tease my mother today with stories about how she locked us out on some summer days, sending us out for the day with a bagged “picnic” lunch to get us out of her hair all day long. Once in a while that trick didn’t work, usually if our friends were gone away in the dog days of August. When that happened we would sometimes hang about the house and try to get in by asking for a drink of water. Well, my mother wasn’t fooled by that and she would say “drink from the hose”. When I tell that to my friends they are shocked that anyone would drink from a hose! It’s great when I want to lay a guilt trip on my Mom! I might be 56 years old but I can still play her like a violin!
My father enjoyed talking (a lot) which turned out to be a great training ground for his kids. Without realizing that we were being taught morals, principles and other life skills we would hang on every word from his lips. He had a wonderful sense of humour and as we matured we truly enjoyed his Steinbeckian stories. I clearly recall a particular evening when I sat with my father for an entire evening and he spoke about debt, bribery in the workplace, stock markets and the meaning of blue chip stock. I was 14 years old and to this day I depend on that talk for my financial planning. It was a lesson in ethics, trust and money management all rolled into one.
My parents were not physically demonstrative nor did they go around saying “I love you” to us 6 kids. But we felt the love in the home by the way my mother fed us, dressed us and wrestled us into bed at the unseemly hour of 7 p.m. We felt it at our Saturday and Sunday family lunches and suppers (every weekend) when conversation flowed and laughs were allowed. It was there on Saturday night when we all sat in front of the television to watch “Lost in Space” and “The Wild Wild West” while Mom doled out Licorice Allsorts and Smarties to us because everything had to be fair and square. It was there on the first day of school every September when we were dressed in our new clothes and shoes and stood for the standard `first day of school`picture. I really had a fabulous childhood!
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