I loved my old man, to use a phrase he taught me, this side idolatry. I inherited his sense of humor, so he introduced me to Gore Vidal’s critical essays, H. Allen Smith, John D. MacDonald, MAD Magazine, and Gilbert Shelton (the Wonder Wart Hog comics in the back of his motorcycle magazines). His extensive paperback library led me to love science fiction and fantasy. (Although he was dubious about my eventually teenage discovery of fandom: “I used to hang out with those guys in the Village clubs, before you were born. But they weren’t as friendly as the bikers, or as well-read as the jazz fans. In fact, some of them weren’t as literate as the bikers, and were even ruder than the jazzmen!”)
He told me that my sister might be the pretty one, but I was the smart one, and smart was better than pretty — and he demonstrated that he meant it, too. (After he died, my sister and I compared notes and discovered he’d said exactly the same thing to her.) He taught me that it was always wise to be skeptical, but that being only skeptical was also a trap. And despite his parental failures (which were many), he gave his kids another great gift by letting us know that it wasn’t our fault — neither he nor our mother were very good at parenting, was all.
And he also taught me “Remember, this’ll make a great story someday.”
Nicole Cliffe’s tweet-stream today got a lot of deserved attention…
My dad thought HIS dad was dead until I was a year old. Then he found him in the Toronto phone book.
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) June 19, 2016
"Doesn't your mom lie about everything, all the time?"
"Yeah."
(opens phone book for Canada's most populous city: boom, there he is)
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) June 19, 2016
So, my dad calls his dad and is like "uh, are you the Ralph Cliffe who was married to Horrible Mother?"
(He was.)
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) June 19, 2016
And he said "listen, no human being who had the ability to get away from my mother would have passed it up. I have no hard feelings."
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) June 19, 2016
… and it gets wilder from there, finally ending with one of the great punch lines of our era. By all means, read the whole thing (you don’t need to sign up to read Twitter). If reading bottom-to-top is too challenging, click on the blue ‘View conversation’ link, and you’ll get a pop-up showing the whole series start-to-finish.
redshirt
Sad.
It’s sad what we all go through. What all children go through.
What all parents go through.
Sadness. I just read “The Liars Club” for my bookclub. Sad.
Life truly is suffering.
chopper
well my dad is dead, so those of you with a living one be glad whether you like him or not.
MomSense
Wowza. I wasn’t expecting the twist at the end.
raven
@redshirt: The follow up ain’t no bowl of Cherry (s)!
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Cooking breakfast is one of my wife’s specialties, so Packrat and I had her dad over for a Father’s Day breakfast. We had linguica (Portuguese sausage) sitting on the counter. When her dad arrived, we didn’t want the dogs jumping all over him, so we shut the dogs in the kitchen.
You all see where this is going, right?
schrodinger's cat
If we there were no complicated parent-child relationships, a lot of great literature would not exist. At its heart, both Ramayana and Mahabharata is about fathers failing their sons.
SiubhanDuinne
Nobody said that out loud directly to me, or to my sister, but at some point during my childhood I heard one of the grown-ups say “SiubhanDuinne is so smart,” and I totally interpreted that as “SiubhanDuinne is Ugly.” It turns out (my sister and I discovered years later) that she heard one of the grown-ups say “SisterOfSiubhanDuinne is so pretty,” and totally interpreted that as “SisterOfSiubhanDuinne is stupid.” Of course, neither is true, although I am more of a reader and ideas person than she is, and she is truly a gorgeous woman and always has been. But by no stretch is she stupid, and I am, if never a head-turner, at least not repellent. What is it about some of our brains that turn the most innocuous statements into flaming negatives?
raven
When I was in high school a bunch of us got drunk and went on a rampage in the middle of the night. I threw a bike through the picture window of a house and, in the aftermath, my old man told me that the woman in the house had a miscarriage and that I could have been held responsible but she wasn’t pressing charges, This was 50 years ago and a couple of weeks ago, through the magic of Facebook, I asked the guy whose house it was if he remembered it. He told me, “yea, my folks and your folks met with the cops and thought it was lucky those folks were not home, she had gone to the hospital earlier that day”. So for 50 years I thought I might have killed someone and it turns out he made it up. I suppose it was “tough love” since I was a nasty little fucker but I feel a lot better now.
Origuy
You know how sometime you get spam from someone you know whose address list has been hacked? I got one from a guy who’s been dead for over a year. Spooky.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not to mention a shitload of Shakespeare.
Anne Laurie
@redshirt: My dad also said, “They can always break your arm, but they can’t break your heart unless you let them.”
Not sure where (if) he cribbed it from, but it’s a general theme in Irish/Celtic history…
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Odd. My brother and I always knew that I was the more intellectual and he the more athletic. He ain’t dumb and I am not a complete klutz. We disagree as to who is the better looking.
redshirt
@raven: Wow. What an update!
I bet that weighed on you. It’s long since shaped you, in part of course.
raven
@Origuy: There was a guy at Firedog Lake called the Southern Dragon, who died about 5 years ago. He was alone and no one took his Facebook page down so now and then one of his friends posts something and I get notified. Not the same but interesting.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yikes. What a (false) memory to carry around for half a century.
raven
@redshirt: Yea, I mean I participated in a war that killed 3 million people so guilt has always hung around. Probably part of my 30 years of self-medication and suicidal behavior.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Institutionalized patriarchy (as if you didn’t know that already).
I think that’s why my dad was careful to share this “secret” with me (& later my sister) — he knew the world would try to tell me I wasn’t pretty enough, or that being smart was a bad thing for a girl to be, so he did his best to counter-program us before we went out into the cruel world (elementary school).
redshirt
@raven: Yeah I’m not sure I’ll read it. The book club has been subconsciously picking bad Mommy books and I’m tired of the theme.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I guess what was most strange is that it just made me feel better but didn’t make me think any different about the old man.
raven
@redshirt: Her old man, the ranger, was a piece of work too.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hell, most of the Bible — Old Testament and New!
Omnes Omnibus
Endeavour, Season 3, Ep. 1, seems awfully Gatsby-esque.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not sure if there was some kind of similar, gender-modified parallel with my two brothers. Athletics was never much part of the equation. By the time my sister and brothers had come along, my dad was pretty much gone (I’m really the only one of the four of us who has any early memories of him), so most of the “comparative” conversations were with or from my mom, grandmother, and assorted female relatives on the maternal side.
redshirt
@raven: You’re an awesome man and I’m glad to have “met” you as it were over the Internet. Rock on.
raven
@redshirt: Aw thanks, back atcha.
TaMara (HFG)
@MomSense: Ok, someone tell me the twist ending. I read that link twice and she lost me about halfway through…
(I’m beginning to really detest twitter – it seems to be the lazy thing to do these days for journalists and politicians – and journalist should be ashamed but I’ve thought that for 30 years, so twitter is just an added bonus for my distaste)
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
I figured that out several decades later, although the original messages came completely from the distaff side (of course, I realize now that they were reflecting institutionalized patriarchal society, but at the time I thought it was what they truly believed).
redshirt
@raven: But really, you’ve done so much, seen so much. And you take awesome photos. It’s impressive.
You’ve already written a book? Or you are currently writing?
If not, get on it!
Schlemazel Khan
My dad’s been dead a decade now. He had one really unique gift, he could make all of his kids think we were worthless and nothing we did was ever good enough. He never spanked us but he did hit us up side the head & I am sure some of my brain damage came from that. A few years before he had his first stroke I was able to make peace with him. I realized his upbringing was shit and he was totally unable to do better. I’m grateful I recognized the issues & did not fuck my kids up as badly. I can’t say i completely forgave him but I came to understand and at least stop hating him. That is progress of a sort. In the end I felt sorry for him, he missed some great kids who did OK
raven
@redshirt: When I finished my dissertation I said “never again”!
MomSense
@raven:
That’s way past tough love. Damn, Raven I’m sorry.
Mnemosyne
@TaMara (HFG):
There were a couple of twists: Grandma’s Latvian second husband had probably been a concentration camp guard because he got rrreeeeaaallll nervous when Canada started looking into that issue, and it turned out she had never divorced her first husband in England, so both of her subsequent marriages were probably bigamous.
Zinsky
Parenting is a mysterious thing. I don’t think any of us started down the parenting path, knowing where it would lead. It was just something you did when you reached a certain age. Some of us deal with the uncertainty better than others, but we are all blind fools at the beginning. As the uncertainty becomes sleepless nights, training wheels, broken bones, braces, blind dates, report cards, drivers education, college plans, endless graduation parties, empty nests and walks down the aisle. Our lives become intermeshed in ways that define a family or a dysfunction. It never happens according to a plan – it can’t, it’s life. Then, with a little luck, a whole lot of hard work and hopefully, a lot of love – the mystery unfolds. These little people we brought into the world become our best friends. If they do, it is magic. If they don’t, it is tragic.
Comrade Mary
@SiubhanDuinne: My uncle stood in front of my younger sister and me when we were maybe 14 and 12 and told us to our faces (with our Mum standing behind us and growing slowly more indignant as he kept talking) that while I was fairly attractive (true, but I agonized over my flat chest, Nixon nose and bad skin), my sister was really pretty / the beauty of the family (objectively true – legs for miles, a rack and a half, clear skin, tiny nose). Weirdly enough, I don’t remember being hugely traumatized by it at the time, although my Mum had to talk me down from a couple of weepfests over being ugly over the next couple of years. While it was happening, my sister and I were embarrassed (and I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it since) and my Mum was furious with her brother.
My uncle was a charming guy in some ways, but Christ, what an asshole.
raven
@Zinsky: Which is why I love other people’s kids.
SiubhanDuinne
@redshirt:
Cosign! I’d love to read raven’s memoirs!
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: It was a dark and stormy night. . .
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Phrasing!
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I was going thinking of mention that too.
Haider (Hamlet) trying to find his missing father.
Jhelum Jhelum dhoonde kinara
Jhelum* is trying to find its shores.
Jhelum, the river that flows through the Kashmir valley.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel Khan:
My brother and I were lucky — our dad knew that his parents were horrible parents and he made a conscious effort to be different. He didn’t always succeed, but he really tried.
He also gave up corporal punishment very early on (for me, at least) because he figured out it didn’t work. I got a few raps upside the head as a smartass teenager, but nothing serious.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I had a great-grandfather that was definitely bigamous if not quite likely trigamous.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
An excellent and utterly original first chapter!
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Crap, I’m watching this game and not doin too well on the englich.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Not sure if this is actually true, but family legend has it that my great-grandmother left Italy by herself with her young children and showed up unannounced on her husband’s doorstep in Chicago because she heard he was taking up with other women and she wasn’t about to let herself be abandoned. No idea if it’s true, but it’s a great story.
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Mary:
Jesus, that’s awful. And it’s not like being 12 and 14 isn’t challenging enough. I’m so sorry.
lollipopguild
@raven: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG): Know question was already answered, but another blogger put the Cliffe tweets in Storify format; it really is amusing to read.
MomSense
@TaMara (HFG):
Spoiler alert:
Turned out the nice step-grandpa wasn’t really Latvian- more likely a Nazi.
Gin & Tonic
@TaMara (HFG): Rosebud was the sled.
TaMara (HFG)
@Mnemosyne: Oh, thanks. I guess I didn’t miss it then. :-) I did like her story…
raven
@Mnemosyne: Have you seen The Golden Door?
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Latvians could be Nazis.
raven
@lollipopguild: My name is Navin Johnson. . .
Jeff Spender
I know this is OT but…you know how dispiriting it is to get into a conversation with someone wherein you try to inject fact against Bernie fantasy only in the end for the person to tell you that you’re “part of the problem” and that this person hopes you lose your election?
I mean, sure. Let it roll off. But the mindset just bothers the hell out of me.
Origuy
@MomSense: @MomSense: There were Latvian Nazis, also Ukrainian, Hungarian, Croatian, etc. Especially where the Russians were hated more than the Germans.
Major Major Major Major
Orlando memorial at 18th and Castro.
schrodinger's cat
I was the smart one and my brother was the good looking one. Objectively true too, he did model in his 20s for a while.
Ruckus
@Schlemazel Khan:
It is always progress when we recognize that our parents are human and have faults. It is even more progress when we recognize that we don’t have to hand down the faults.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I never quite know what to do with family legends. In my 35+ years of doing fairly serious genealogical research, I’ve never been able to find out one single thing about my father’s father’s family. I’ve seen my dad’s birth certificate, but the name and birthplace listed for his father simply don’t seem to exist. There’s no record of birth, marriage, or death of the man I believe to be my paternal grandfather, and his supposed place of birth indicated on my father’s vital records — simply doesn’t exist, and never did.
On the other hand, I grew up with the story (and strong internalised belief) that this grandfather was the son of a German Jewish immigrant. My maternal grandmother (who detests my father) used to hold that “fact” over me as a Very Bad Thing (not only was my father a Musician, but he was also a Jew!! The horror!) As a result, I took the “Jewish great-grandfather” legend very much to heart and cherish that little carrot of possible ethnic exoticism in an otherwise boring WASP stew.
Am thinking about doing a “23 and Me” DNA test. Maybe that will provide a few clues.
raven
@Ruckus: Not having kids makes it easy.
Elizabelle
Subsequent Cliffe tweets:
and
Not a fan of Twitter, but Ms. Cliffe may be an exception.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
A lot of the Nazi concentration camp guards were Eastern Europeans, not Germans, in part because it was psychologically more difficult for the German Nazis to sufficiently abuse people who spoke the same language they did.
@raven:
I haven’t, but we’re not Sicilian — our family is from Lombardia, in northern Italy. That made it slightly easier to immigrate because the family spoke Italian, not Sicilian.
raven
@Mnemosyne: I think you would enjoy it anyway.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mnemosyne:
I love immigrant stories. I know for a lot of people they were horrible memories they hoped to forget but I think they give a better picture of humanity than the whitewashed dreck people want to pretend happened. One of my great-grandmas was sent in shame to the US at 15, she had gotten pregnant by the village priest. She became a scullery maid with a family that was good hearted enough to take her and a child. She met a guy who was doing work on the home who fell in love with her despite not being a virgin (given the times this was something I think) and he stole her away to Minnesota. I am sure there were some wonderful stories as well as hardships but nobody would talk about them. Thats a shame
hovercraft
@redshirt:
A reference to an earlier dead thread about underground homes. , a place in the Australian desert where most buildings are underground to combat the heat.
TaMara (HFG)
@Elizabelle: Thanks for that – it was the sister’s parentage that I got lost on, and that cleared it up.
RSR
That twitter story is great. I’m imagining it in a David Sedaris voice.
Has anyone storified it? Easier to share that way.
Ruckus
@raven:
That is does. Although it appears that some don’t learn anyway.
raven
@Schlemazel Khan: I pity the poor immigrant / Who wishes he would’ve stayed home
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve been thinking of doing a DNA test, too, because the maternal side of my family has been here since colonial days, and I’m curious to see if any non-European genes snuck in (the longer your family has been here, the more statistically likely that is).
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
My step dad was an Eastern European Jew who managed to survive by pretending to be various ethnicities including Basque. He had some crazy stories.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mnemosyne:
It also freed up people who could be trusted in the Army. When I grew up we had a neighbor who was captured at Corregidor. He really hated the Koreans because all the guards were Korean. Apparently the Japanese didn’t trust them enough to fight side by side so they got stuck with torturing captives.
raven
@MomSense: Here’s a movie for you. The 25th Hour
Major Major Major Major
My family’s all done their 23andme. No surprises at all. Whites are white, Mexicans are Mexican, Asians are Asian, Yupiks are Yupik.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
My mother could trace seven of her eight ancestral lines back to the 1630s in the (what is now, obviously not then) United States. The eighth line came from Hannover, Germany in the 1840s and is similarly well documented.
All my confusion and questions are on my dad’s side. I have pretty much concluded, although can’t prove it one way or the other, that he was illegitimate. Among other things, it would explain the great absence of memories and stories. A DNA profile wouldn’t provide names, of course, but might offer some regional identification.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Mnemosyne:
Supposedly maternal grandmother came here from Sicily as an infant, great grandfather was supposedly in the mafia and asked to leave by his bosses because he was such an asshole as an enforcer. That would have been in the last part of the 1800s. Paternal great grandmother was supposedly Blackfoot/paternal great grandfather was Scotch/Irish. None of this has ever been looked at closely, it’s all family lore, and it just isn’t that important to me.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG): Have been meaning to ask: any follow up information on the shots fired in your neighborhood?
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: But neither of those were the punch line!
(Don’t spoil it!)
TaMara (HFG)
@SiubhanDuinne: I have always secretly believed my grandmother’s father was not her father. There is a hereditary disease that cropped up in her kids and grandkids that was not present in her family before that…the doctors at the time gave some BS reasoning about how it suddenly appeared. But I think the more likely scenario is when her dad and mom married, mom was pregnant by someone else.
I have no idea how I would go about proving that theory…nor would I share that information with anyone in my family … it would not go over well.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s mostly likely that we’re 100 Percent White Folks, but when your American (North, South or Carribbean) ancestry goes back to the 1600s, you can get some other genes mixing in.
Besides, there might be some Neandertal from the red-headed Irish side, which would be neat.
magurakurin
My Dad died at 60. He was an alcoholic and drank himself to death. He wasn’t the abusive, violent sort of drunk, but it was sad all the same. When he finally died, we were mostly just amazed that he had even made it to 60. At the funeral one man who knew my father a little asked my mom how he died. In my mind I was like “damn, are you kidding…uh bourbon?” But mom just said straight out, “chronic alcoholism.” The man was a bit taken aback at her frankness, but damn, it was so obvious to everyone and it was better that it was just in the open.
My dad wasn’t a bad guy though. He helped a lot of people but he never was able to help himself. He always had cash on him though. Never went anywhere without at least a hundred dollars in his wallet. Again, at the funeral the undertaker came up to my mom and I with a belt. It turns out my mom had put my dad’s money belt in the bag of clothes for him to be dressed in. The undertaker had checked it and found two, old, faded 50-dollar bills in it. He gave us the money. My mom gave them to me and I still have them. I’ll never spend them and I honestly have always been a little sad that they weren’t left with my dad. But I suppose he wouldn’t have wanted that money buried away that way either. But damned if he didn’t go to his grave with 100 bucks in his pocket. That was 20 years ago now…
MomSense
@raven:
Thank you!
satby
@Jeff Spender: ugh. My sympathies, what you’re trying to accomplish is hard enough without assholes like that. But, in public you’ve always going to meet a few assholes, don’t let them ruin your day.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mnemosyne:
When my dads stepmom died (she was his mothers sister so all the same family) an aunt told me that when grandmas said “French-Canadian” she really meant Native American but would never admit it. If anyone knew the story they were not talking. If that is true than I suspect these genes were picked up on the U.P. or Northern Wisconsin. I have thought about dropping a hundred bucks for the DNA test just to see. It wouldn’t be enough to get casino money [ :) ] but it would be fun to not be 100% European.
Omnes Omnibus
@magurakurin: Think of it as one last C-note from your dad, if you ever need it.
raven
@Schlemazel Khan: Almost froze to death hitchikin up there in AUGUST!
magurakurin
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s what I do. If things really get bad, he’ll be there to back me up.
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (HFG):
No, but it has the germs of one helluva good novel! I, personally, am a sucker for the big complicated Galsworthian family sagas, replete with secrets, and I would read this book in a heartbeat!
TaMara (HFG)
@Elizabelle: Nothing yet…I was surprised that I had a tough time sleeping last night – the casings were found just outside our houses – and coming on the heels of another mass shooting, I found myself thinking much too deeply about how terrifying it had to have been for everyone.
Going to try a little valerian tea tonight.
satby
@magurakurin: my condolences even though it was long ago magurakurin. Watching as someone cuts their life short that way can be so damaging to the survivors.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Pace BiP.
SiubhanDuinne
@magurakurin:
Why you want to make me cry on such a nice summer evening?
TaMara (HFG)
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, add to that, the family rumor mill says my grandfather’s uncle was found shot dead on the railroad tracks by a jealous husband, whose wife he was sleeping with….that side of the family is full of rule breakers and illicit lovers.
The cousin I’m named after on the other side of the family has a much more courageous story – fleeing Russia with her family during the revolution, scary train ride where family members were actually shot before escaping. She’s in her late 80’s now, but once Russia opened up, she spent a great deal of later years as a tour guide for Americans travelling to Russia – her Russian is still impeccable.
I must admit, I lean toward the rule breaker side of the family. LOL
satby
@efgoldman: the Ukrainian neighborhood in Chicago was where the American Nazi party set up their HQ. People there had less of a problem living with Nazis than with the dreaded black people who might move in. That’s where ML King did his March in Chicago.
magurakurin
@satby: thanks. I had moved away and missed the worst of it. It was much worse for my mom and sister who were there all the time. But, yeah, addiction is a really bad thing. I quit drinking myself about 6 years before he died. Mostly because of his example, so, if nothing else, he saved me from the same fate.
Schlemazel Khan
@TaMara (HFG):
It is a shame we can’t accept those sorts of stories because they are part of every families true story. We had neighbors a few years back that shared their true story. She was tossed out because she got pregnant and the guy abandoned her. He married her because he loved her despite the fact she didn’t love him for the sake of the kid. They never told the boy but he suspected something was wrong because he didn’t look like anyone else in the family. Eventually he asked & they told him the truth. At the time we lived by themthe son was about 10-15 years older than me and he doted on his ‘dad’, they were as close as two adult men, like father & son. Apparently the bio-dad called one time & the son told him he was not his father, his father was the guy that had married his mom & treated him the same as his other kids. Naturally they were very happy to share that story with us. I’d be proud too
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
Rather too much so. But I loved the first half hour. Oh hell, i loved the whole thing. Who cares about the plot.
magurakurin
@SiubhanDuinne: It wasn’t really sad though. My mom and I laughed actually. I just was like “that’s Daddy, he always had money.” We still talk about it. It actually is a fairly warm memory now.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
It’s LeBron’s world, we’re just living in it (photo)
satby
@magurakurin: then he left you two gifts. And he’d probably be so proud you were able to kick the addiction he couldn’t.
Schlemazel Khan
@raven:
People last longer up here though. Its like when you put meat in the freezer, it takes a long time to go bad!
Anne Laurie
@Schlemazel Khan: The Spousal Unit’s dad was adopted, and when S.U.D. went looking for any birth records fifty years later, he was told the orphanage from which he was adopted had burnt down.
I’ve asked Spousal Unit if he wanted to get his DNA tested, but he hasn’t been interested. One of his brothers has kids who are adults now, and one of them might eventually push for their dad and/or their uncles to pony up a cheek swab…
(None of the six kids in my biological family has reproduced, and it’s pretty obvious from our phenotypes that our genotypes are solidly Celtic + Scandinavian. We already know about the Vikings in the woodpile, and all four sets of great-grandparents came from Ireland, where there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity to mix with anything more exotic.)
magurakurin
@satby: now you’re making me cry.
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (HFG):
So not only Galsworthy novels, but country songs galore. (The railroad tracks is an exquisite detail.)
satby
@magurakurin: hugs. He sounds like he was a really good guy.
Scapegoat
My Dad died when I was eleven (MS complications). I have a few fleeting (and treasured) memories, but never really knew him since my parents separated when I was six; but am told he was an incredibly gregarious man who adored me, taking me with him to meet his friends in bars and at the local airport (he had an amateur pilot’s license).
I now realize, this was also a good way to escape the clutches of his very difficult, narcissistic wife (my mother).
I spent today with my four month baby boy at the swimming pool (his first!) and it was glorious. Gawd, I adore him…. and I’m as terrified of losing him as I am of him losing me (prematurely).
The absence of my own father was a void made hollower with every Father’s Day, every little league game, and every family camping trip growing up. These events simultaneously hardened and dissolved a part of me as I grew up in a single-parent household where psychosis was what I knew of “normal”.
With fifty years spent trying to figure out a lot of things that most take for granted, I’m now vexed by this:
How do you raise a child, a “boy”, in particular — with no role model for a father — and not fuck up royally?
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (HFG):
She sounds incredible. Have you met her? If not, I hope you’ll make sure your passport is up to date and go visiting pronto. What an amazing family connection!
Schlemazel Khan
@Anne Laurie:
I just found out that my dads family came from England in 1800. I have the name of the ship they came on & the city they listed as home so I now know I am Yorkshire not Scot. That is a bit of a disappointment, I have to give up my tartan. The Swed side of my moms family has a vaguely French name and it is known that at some point the king of Sweden brought in French engineers for some mining project so there might be some frog in the mix. One of my favorite bits in Gates show on genetics is when someone is surprised to find out what they have been told ain’t the real story.
magurakurin
@Scapegoat:
sounds like you’re gonna do just fine. If you are thinking about it as seriously as you are, you’re gonna do it well enough, I’d reckon.
magurakurin
@efgoldman: that’s like the plot line of a movie…cool family history.
Mnemosyne
@Scapegoat:
Someone in another thread (probably rikyrah) linked to this story about President Obama, who also had an absent dad but managed to be a good father himself.
If you haven’t taken parenting classes and read parenting books to learn what you’re supposed to do, make sure you do that, because your instincts probably suck since you had no role model.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
That is horrifying and sad. What an awful thing, to live every day fearing every knock at the door. But again, like TaMara and so many others who have shared their ancestral family legends on this thread, there are some amazing stories lurking there, and I hope some of our gifted Juicers will take these character and plot germs and grow them into big yummy novels.
Schlemazel Khan
@efgoldman:
I LOVE stories like that! These things are what make people interesting, to have really risked things and cheat the odds. Life is messy and it is a mistake not to learn to enjoy the mess.
BTW – does everyone know that at Ellis Island immigration had people who spoke just about every language that the arrivees could speak? Those stories about names getting changed? Yeah, many names got changed but it was no accident or bumbling paper pusher. Names got changed either because spelling was fungible or, more likely, people wanted a total fresh start and lied.
Omnes Omnibus
@Scapegoat:
I would assume that you do the best you can. One does one’s best throughout life.
trollhattan
@magurakurin:
Yup, because in many ways they raise you. Be there.
MomSense
@Scapegoat:
That you’re asking says that you already are a great dad. How do any of us raise whole, healthy, happy human beings when we all have some broken parts ourselves? I think it starts with love. Just love him and you’ll figure the rest out.
Ruckus
@Scapegoat:
How would you want to be raised? Do that.
Gin & Tonic
@satby:
I’m sorry, but this is untrue for several reasons. First of all the American Nazi Party had its headquarters in Arlington, VA. After George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated, one of the successor organizations set up shop in Chicago, but in the Marquette Park neighborhood, in the southwest. The Ukrainian neighborhood is in West Town, a good 10 miles away.
dexwood
@Scapegoat:
Some of us had fathers in our lives who were not always good role models. My son, now thirty, is a really good guy who I like one hell of a lot. When it came to raising him, I sometimes stopped to ask myself what would my father have done in this situation. Then I proceeded to do the opposite. You will be fine
TS
@Schlemazel Khan:
This (not being a virgin) was as common then as it is now – it was just hidden by families doing one of two things
1. sending the pregnant mother away – as happened in your family
2. raising of the child by his/her grandparents as their own child.
The era of government/religion sponsored adoption brought on the third option in the 20th century – hones for unmarried mothers & forcing women to give up their babes.
Jeff Spender
I have an update! Now there are Bernie people all over the country spreading word about my “complicity with election fraud” and doing their best to take my campaign down.
I wish I were joking.
debbie
@Scapegoat:
My youngest brother was 8 when our dad died, and he’s turned out to be the best dad of all 3 of my brothers. It’s all in the heart.
Joel
BREAKING: Sen. Sanders refuses to concede NBA Championship to Cleveland. Will fight on.
https://twitter.com/D_v_E/status/744721165122306048
MomSense
@Jeff Spender:
Oh no! WTF.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeff Spender:
I wish you were too.
Is there anything we Juicers can do to help? Send money; what else?
Jeff Spender
@SiubhanDuinne: Nah. I figure it’ll pass. And if not, well, what’s wrong with taking down a progressive candidate in a rural conservative district who tried to bring attention to liberal issues just because he disagrees with their narrative about election fraud?
Politics, man.
Mike in NC
My dad passed in 2003 at age 85. He was the type who enlisted in the army a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, because he just thought it was the right thing to do.
Tom
@Anne Laurie: My father had his sayings as well:
“The way to kill a bear is to kill it.”
“The same heat that melts the grease hardens the egg.”
And, of course, the one I heard most while growing up:
“The reason they don’t let donkeys into college is that nobody likes a smart-ass.”
seaboogie
@magurakurin: My Dad – who is still wonderfully extant – was an alcoholic too, but my story has a much happier ending. We were living in WI when my parents divorced – me the eldest at 14. He moved to Toronto for a job offer, and we spent the summer with him. Not long after returning home from our summer vacay, Mom decided that raising 3 kids as a single parent wasn’t really her thing, so custody arrangements were changed and we moved to Toronto to live with our father. But he was drinking then, and would go out in the evening with a number of various women who “wanted to be our mother”. As with our mother (who was and is a terrible mom – a narcissist), Dad had crappy taste in women and we let him know it. But one night, my sister who was 7 or 8 said “Dad, please don’t get drunk tonight” as he was headed out. I thought, “that’s enough” and we had a “come to Jesus” meeting with him the next day. He was the only adult we had, and we needed him to be responsible. Soon he was away in the evening at regular meetings – AA. He got sober 40 years ago and has stayed that way.
He met a wonderful small-town woman when we had to move again, and they were married for 35 years until she passed away a year and a half ago. Although I left home at 18 just after they were married, she mothered the hell out of my brother and sister and her name morphed from Marilyn to “Nana” (she was the uber-Nana). We miss her deeply – she gave us a center and the nurturing that we craved. She and Dad were a wonderful couple and enjoyed their life together immensely.
Today, my Dad went to my sister’s home with his new “ladyfriend” – a new widow that used to go bowling with my Dad and Stepmom when her husband was alive. I’ve not met her, but my sister has been trying to get them together for a while, so that’s good enough for me. He called me last week to tell me about her (he sounded happy for the first time in such a long while), and I said “Dad, you got us a great mother when we really needed one, and I am so glad that you have a wonderful companion – this one is for you”. Her brother is his long-time fishing buddy.
I could write more awesome Dad stuff because my life has been more than a bit saga-esque, but suffice it to say that I have a wonderful father. When Mother’s Day would roll around, I’d see the card displays with “Mom, you’ve always been there for me”, etc. and just feel nothing but despair. With my father though – it is always a pleasure to find just the right thing for him – though he wants nothing. Of course the little book “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” (he studies physics as an amateur) and the equally awesome moon and stars card still sit next to me on my desk as I write this; I know that he understands, and will appreciate them when they finally arrive. I have a really good Dad.
seaboogie
@Tom: A Dad joke courtesy of my father: Definition of a smartass – someone who can sit on an ice-cream cone and tell you what flavor it is”. Upon consideration, it’s kind of weird and lame, so the very definition of a dad joke. Also, I’ll never forget it.
Gin & Tonic
@seaboogie: Thanks for a really heartwarming post. I lost my Dad 35 years ago this month, so even though I’ve been blessed with wonderful kids who always call and write and keep in touch on Father’s Day and throughout the year, it’s been kind of a bittersweet day for me for a long time.
seaboogie
@Scapegoat: You’ll do fine, because you are present and aware – that’s about 98% of it. Parents teach by example – either how to be so you emulate them, or what not to be – and the second lesson can be as instructive as the first.
BC in Illinois
One more family legend.
My brothers and I grew up knowing that our great-grandfather C_______ , a civil war veteran, died in western Pennsylvania, after being knifed in a political argument. They asked him, “Who did it, Jake?” and he said, “I’ll tell you later.” Then died. It was a great story. All of the brothers had heard the story from our Dad.
There’s not a shred of truth to the story.
Great Grandpa C_______ died after an accident in a rail yard. He lingered for about a week before dying. His family was at his side. It was all in the local papers of 1884.
But by the time my younger brother did the research to find out the truth, our parents had both passed away. So we never got to ask them, “Where did this story come from? From Dad? From Grandpa C_______? From Great Grandma C_______?” And WHY did anybody pass this story on from generation to generation? (When I heard the real story a few years ago, I had to tell all of my [grown] children that the story they had heard from me was entirely bogus.) We will never know where the story came from.
Yutsano
Just put this up on my Facebook:
Hey Mom let Dad know I wish him Happy Father’s Day. We’ve had a very interesting sometimes tumultuous relationship over the years, but he really has been an amazing father to me. Even when he was gone out to sea he was working to make life better for all of us. The contstant moves across the country, supporting me for a year at an out of state school, finally getting me through college, taking care of me (and pushing me into the workforce!) after my spine degraded. I’m grateful for all of it. Everything he invested in me made parts of who I am today. I love you Dad.
(My Dad doesn’t do FB.)
NotMax
How did BJ miss thisfrom early June?
NotMax
@efgoldman
Step-father’s father punctured one of his eardrums on purpose to avoid having the Cossacks drag him off for “voluntary” conscription.
Guessing it was during the Russo-Japanese War from reading between the lines of the full story, but can’t be 100% certain of that..
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I saw it, but maybe it was on FB instead of here.
Ruckus
@Scapegoat:
I’ve been thinking a bit more about this.
Teach him respect. Respect for himself and to respect all the others around him. My dad taught me a skill, gave me a career. I use that still. But better than that he taught me to respect people. Didn’t matter their color or gender, religion or wealth. Now there are people who I don’t respect but that’s because they’ve earned my disrespect.
Teach him to share. To share himself most of all but to share what he can.
Teach him to learn. Everything he can.
Teach him to love. That you do by loving him.
I’m sure there are more but these are the ones that my dad taught me. And it works the same for girls too if you are fortunate to have one of those.
NotMax
@efgoldman
You betcha.
Actually misspoke, it was step-father’s first father-in-law (father of the first, deceased, wife).
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I lost my dad 15 yrs ago. But he had Alzheimer’s for 20 yrs and I wouldn’t wish on anyone. For his last 10 yrs he didn’t know me and I worked with him most every day for 28 yrs. I was able to make my peace with losing him long before he was gone.
ljt
I come back to this time and again, I think we all need to, the ultimate anti-Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzCff8Zbs
TheMightyTrowel
@Mnemosyne: The Irish/Viking red hair gene and the Neanderthal red hair gene aren’t the same genes. Your ancestors are european so you will be 3-5% Neanderthal as all non-African people are. Does not link the the Irish genetics. I point this out not because you particularly meant anything bad by it but because it’s this weird meme that’s emerging online, I think from willful misreadings of popular accounts of ancient genetics that are being fused with pre-20th century anti-Irish/anti-Catholic stereotypes of the sub-human Irish.
Mary G
My dad died in 1967 and I still miss him. I can’t imagine what he would have said about Trump.
My maternal grandfather came from Sweden. His story was that he hated being cold and decided to do something about it. He hitchhiked south as far as Hamburg, Germany and then stowed away on a freighter heading for America. When they landed in New York, he spent what little money he had and bought a stalk of bananas. He never went without bananas in the house the rest of his life. He was still cold, so he asked someone where the hottest place in America was. They told him Texas, so he hitchhiked there and lived and died in Austin.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: January will be 35 years since my dad passed. I had a nice dinner with the kid(step-daughter) and her mom. I wanted something cheap being that she’s short on the cash thing since she just graduated and is preparing for her boards. But just having her spend the time and shoot the breeze was the best present.
seaboogie
@Gin & Tonic: My heart – reaching out to yours….
seaboogie
@BillinGlendaleCA: I love how Dads are aware of financial situations, and require so little, oftentimes, emotionally. That “protector and guide” instinct is so very dadly – and so helpful in dealing with the vagaries of the world and the challenges that lie therein. Maybe it sounds sexist, but I don’t mean it that way. It feels to me that (good) mothers can deal very much from the heart and emotions, and that fathers deal in the practical ways of the world. Not that there is not plenty of crossover, but that these are particular roles.
seaboogie
@BillinGlendaleCA: And also, I feel that my reply was not fully honoring your comment. Not sure that I have the words for it. But more like fathers don’t ask for anything for themselves, but seek to provide comfort and assistance in a way that is unselfish and world-wise, and find solace in that their tribe is safe and sound. Is that better, maybe?
jacy
My father was a shit dad. My two ex-husbands ended up being shit dads. (maybe there is a connection there). The Boyfriend is a great dad, perhaps because (and not in spite of) his dad being a shit dad. TL;DR: I hate Father’s Day.
seaboogie
@jacy: I hear you. Glad to see you back here. Don’t want to type too much nor too little, but for me it is the Momster. Hang in there with your struggles with the ex and kids. Thank you for sharing.
J R in WV
@Jeff Spender:
I got an email from Move On asking for money to work t get Bernie’s agenda adopted as the Democratic platform next month. It pissed me off.
I wrote them a message using their “contact us” tool and told them that it was too late for Bernie to learn how to be a useful political ally instead of a self-centered POS. I’ve contributed $400 to Hilliary by setting up a monthly drain into their fund.
Bernie is nearly doing more damage to Hillary by losing than he would have by winning.
Sorry for your issues with those apolitical idiots. They don’t even know what might have hurt his campaign and what might have helped. Getting registered and voting would have been the best thing they could have done, but many were just too airheaded to just do that. So now they search for imaginary enemies who did their cause in, to shed the blame for not doing it right themselves.
My take, anyway.
Good luck with it. Don’t hesitate to ask the ‘juicers to help by working and donating. It may P.O. Cole, which isn’t a bad thing.
OzarkHillbilly
So, it appears another Hallmark holiday has come and gone without my noticing or anybody pestering me about it. I must have done something right with my sons.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Your name reminds me of one of the guys who as RNs pulled Mrs J through her septic shock crisis in MICU, named Rowdy. I think that was his given name. They were all ex-military and did trauma work in the ‘stans. I was always ready and willing to help them move Mrs J from one side to the other, a 2 or 3 person job, it meant they didn’t have to fetch another nurse from his patients, and they let me stay in her ICU room 24/7 but for runs home to crash. Great crew of guys.
That connection with them allowed me to hold her hand or foot whatever wasn’t tubed up, and talk to her 14 or 16 hours a day – which may have helped save her life. Always grateful for all their help.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: They sound great. Frightening experience for you and Mrs. J R. Glad it ended well.
Aleta
@J R in WV: Do they want to overturn Citizens United or not? Spending money to fight Hilary instead of Trump is barking up the wrong tree, unless that’s no longer their goal.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: you’re right, I misremembered! It was the Lithuanian neighborhood of Marquette Park, and I always heard that was the HQ, but never did any research to find out if that was true. They always had the Nazi flag out when they were in the building, and it was always jarring to see. But I was a kid then and my memory is hazy about them. Other than the neighbors were kind of ok with them being there.
bemused
My dad’s side of the Finnish family tree has been traced back to the 1500’s. There were high ranking government officials, olympic medal winners and one major criminal and murderer whose skeleton is in a museum somewhere in Finland.
Scapegoat
So many encouraging thoughts from you all. My deepest thanks. (Sorry to check out…. Had to grab some rack time!)
@Ruckus: Raise him as I wish I was raised? Utter genius!
My mind reels. A short, but growing, list:
– be there
– make sure that my love is known to be unconditional.
– be a mentor whose guidance is sought.
– provide a long leash and give a tug only when needed (and be ready with a safety net).
– be honest
– admit failures and apologize easily
– learn through play
– treat drugs and religion as intoxicants best experimented with as an adult.
– foster a love for nature.
– encourage humility and the ability to laugh at oneself.
– feed a hungry mind as much as it wants to eat, devoid of boredom.
– to favor giving, helping, and sharing over taking.
– to steer clear of mindless activities and people
Additions / Deletions?
Cermet
Hit too close for comfort. My daughter too hates her mother; yes, we divorced due to her behavior (amazing how one convinces one’s self that warning signs should be ignored … stupidity isn’t just for other people … .) But because of her issues, I got sole custody and raised my daughter alone until her teens. Then her mother finally decided she’d maybe see her daughter after years of refusing. A little late.
My daughter turned out great – she is a top student at a top Ivy league school and is currently working a summer position at the most famous physics institute in the World. I am proud, to say the least.
satby
@Scapegoat: great list! Do that and it’ll work out well.
@Cermet: isn’t there a Chekhov quote about unhappy families all being similar? Sounds like you did a great job, and I’m sure your daughter appreciates you. Enjoy that pride, you earned it.
My kids’ dad was a deadbeat who quit seeing them for years to avoid the arrest warrant for non-support. The youngest has a cordial but not close relationship with him, the oldest barely speaks to him. We reap what we sow the oldest once told me when I asked if he called his dad on Father’s Day.
Edited to add: he always had the money, he just didn’t feel the need to pay.
Scapegoat
@Cermet: I hope to someday tell a similar tale (minus the ex-wife part?). Great job!!!
Scapegoat
@satby: Tough stuff. Found this quote from Tolstoy (“Anna Karenina”) All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
While trying geriatric counseling with my mother (eleven years ago), she said, “We’re not a family”. I replied, “Genetically we are. Socially, I guess my understanding is very different from yours”. Then, to the counselor, I said, “if it were not for families you probably would have a whole lot less business.” He nearly fell off his chair, while trying not to break out laughing.
As a survival strategy, I stopped speaking with my mother shortly after, telling her that we would resume talking once she decided to take the medication prescribed for her. This has been remarkably therapeutic.
11 years later, now that I have a son, she decided to try the medication. What is next, I have no idea. But, I guess I should at least try to honor my side of the bargain, even if it probably means a lot of complexity ahead, allowing her back into my life.
different-church-lady
Once again I am mystified as to why people want to publish short stories using a technology designed for sentence fragments.
laura
@raven: never, ever give up.
I miss Southern Dragon and katiebird.
PAM Dirac
@bemused: Oh boy a semi on topic place for my family history discoveries. My wife’s 6th great grandparents are Moses Teague and Elizabeth Loftin, also the 6th great grandparent of Barack Obama, making her 7th cousins with the president. There is also some references to that Loftin also being part of Jimmy Carter’s ancestry. My wife is also the 9th great grand-daughter of Rebecca Nurse, one of the women hanged in the Salem witch trials.
satby
@PAM Dirac: cool stuff!
satby
@Scapegoat: That’s the quote I was thinking of. And tough stuff for you for sure. But the meds may help her be better to be around, and if not you have a perfect example of how to have healthy boundaries to demonstrate for your kid. Which will help your child so much in life.
PAM Dirac
@satby: Yeah people with ancestors that go back to colonial America have lots of connections to famous people. My ancestry goes back to 19th century Irish and East European peasants, so not so many famous people, at least that I can trace.
Paul in KY
@raven: Evidently you were a dick back then. Glad you shaped up ;-)
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: There was a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment in Eastern Europe (among both Catholics & Eastern Orthodox).
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Any way I could help. Glad she made it.
Paul in KY
@Scapegoat: Find him a role model?
Ruckus
@Scapegoat:
By George I think he’s got it!
Sounds like you will be fine. As a kid once myself and as somewhat of an adult now my real advice is to do like Omnes said, your best. It will be a roller coaster ride, there will be great days beyond your imagination and bad days that will make you go bald. Enjoy them all.
Paul in KY
@Schlemazel Khan: People from Yorkshire would consider their heritage a step up from Scottish.
bemused
@PAM Dirac:
I’m hooked on ancestor tv series like “Finding Your Roots” and now the amazing advances in DNA Y Chromosome testing going back 500 years make the search results even more fascinating. One amusing episode found that Bill Maher and Bill O’Reilly ancestors were of the same family line. Their reactions to that news was fun to watch.
A friend and her 3 sibs recently learned that they have a sister. Her mom had given up a baby girl for adoption in a northeast state who was also raised there by adoptive parents. Now over 60 years later the daughter found her mother through a DNA connection (friend’s sister had done a DNA test just out of curiosity). Mom, her 4 children and their families all live near each other almost 1,000 miles away from the northeast and just one of the weirdest bits of the story is that the first daughter and her family have been living for several years only 40 miles away from her birth mother.
Paul in KY
@seaboogie: Great story. Glad your dad got sober. Best wishes to your family.
Ian
@Mnemosyne:
Despite Italians and Sicilians protests to the contrary they are the same alnguage.
PAM Dirac
@bemused: There have been some really great “Finding Your Roots” episodes. The one with the two Bills was really good but I think my favorite was the one with Ty Burrell and Donna Brazile.