Mission Improbable Part 7: Who Am I Really? Part 2

I alluded to my mother in the last post. I’d like to elaborate a bit on our relationship in this one.

You might ask: “Why are you spending so much time in the ‘Mission Statement’ portion of your blog talking about your relationship with your parents?” The answer, for me, is in the title of this post: To create a mission statement that is wholly in line with who I am, I must know who I am. Although I am evolving and changing (sometimes haltingly, sometimes by quantum leap), I will never completely escape the upbringing that shaped my earliest experiences of life. I may decide that the values instilled do not serve me any longer (and in fact I have, in some cases), but the process of moving in another direction will always start from a clear awareness of where I began.

My mom was born in 1926, putting her at the tender age of 3 when the Great Depression hit. That Depression did not subside until her “formative” years were near an end. I believe strongly that this event colored her reality for the remainder of her days, yielding a “scarcity mentality” that suffused her existence. My dad, born in 1917, was a little bit older when the Depression hit, and his early life and formative years were relatively spared.

As I mentioned, she pushed strenuously to keep my dad at a job that was sapping his will to live so that she would have the security of his pension in her old age. But this was the point: Her scarcity mentality affected and infected her family, in ways that haunt us even today – years after her death. There is nothing overtly wrong about her penurious approach to life; of course, wastefulness is no virtue. But the constant reminder of lack served to reinforce a world view that was pessimistic, beleaguered, and subtly victimizing.

“Mommie Doris” (as I have called her in later years – think: Joan Crawford) was a strong, determined woman. She was sweet as could be, with a coquettish giggle that never failed to charm (except for me – I’ll likely share about that later). She worked for my school during my elementary education, serving as a “chaperone” on the campus, assisting the staff in maintaining order and discipline. She was a tireless volunteer for our Parent-Teachers Association. She was very involved. This was very good, of course, but it came at a price.

Of course the kids teased me. Of course they resented me when she disciplined them. This was not terrible or life-shattering though, honestly. It was simply a nuisance, as I recall.

As I said in that last post, in private my mom had an edge to her. Saving much of her sweetness to confer generously on neighbors and colleagues at the school, she reserved her deep, blue ocean of criticism and judgment for her family. This complicated my relationship with her, even as a young child before I started attending school. To my tender, sensitive mind, I came to feel that there was nothing I could do that would really please her.

That conclusion was not entirely fair. She frequently praised me for academic achievements, and for the (admittedly few) times I contributed around the house. But something about the praise seemed wrong to me, and it would be long, sad decades before I pieced it all together. I came to understand that because I was constantly focused on winning her conditional approval, I never learned how to be satisfied with myself.

My dad told my mom before they were married: “You better accept me as I am. You will never change me.” This was largely true. So she let my dad be who he was (although she had her ways of punishing him for it), and set her sights on shaping me. Let me say here as an aside: she would have vehemently disagreed with much of what follows (and, probably, much of what precedes).

Deriding his feckless machismo, and subtly shaming me when I exhibited it myself, my mom pampered me to be the soft, loving man she really wished my dad would be. She taught me to be thoughtful of others, loving and kind; and not to react violently, but to back down from every confrontation peacefully.

Compared to my dad, who was completely unapproachable, overtly derogatory, and utterly unavailable emotionally, my mom’s carefully meted love and approval taught me very quickly whose opinion in the household really mattered. My dad was a lost cause; I learned to look for love where I could get it, even if it came at a price.

Obviously, this severely complicated my relationship with my mother. I recall watching an episode of “The Simpsons” that captured it all for me: Bart discovered his school principal sitting in the waiting room of a psychologist’s office where Bart had been sent for acting up. Bart asked, “What are YOU doing here, Mr. Skinner?” to which he replied, “Well, I have some issues to work through with respect to my Smother – I mean, Mother.” Yesiree, Mr. Skinner, complicated.

The combined action of her conditional love and subtle manipulation made it much more difficult to work through her legacy than that of my father, whose complete unavailability made him less “relevant.” My mom’s love felt smothering, emotionally incestuous, expectation-driven, absolutely necessary, and always like a carrot dangling at the end of a stick, slightly out of my reach.

It was not until well into my adulthood that I was able to even BEGIN understanding how I felt about her, and I still have lingering “issues.” To this day, the sound of a woman giggling coquettishly cuts through me like a knife (perhaps this is one of the many reasons why the idea of a Sarah Palin vice presidency is so abhorrent to me). All of the ghosts are not cleared out of this closet.

And I have NOT received a “postcard” from my mom since her death. However, the clear good in her legacy remains with me: My dad had only anger as a tool; through my mom’s teaching, however, I learned the tools of love, kindness, and thoughtfulness of others. And I strongly believe that her persistent push for excellence has fueled my growth process over the last six years in particular. She may even be smiling on me now in a way that she didn’t have access to when she was living. Being in a much larger territory since her death, perhaps now she has healed from the scarcity consciousness that crippled her in this life.

I am grateful for the lessons I learned from BOTH of my parents. From my dad I learned (in a roundabout way) a zest for adventurous life and a profound and essential sense of humor; from my mom I learned that I did not have to wield a hammer every time I make a point. While I frequently have abused the good tools both of them put at my feet (and picked up a few of their tools that didn’t suit me), at least I learned that tools exist. And now that I have intentionally collected a whole arsenal of tools with which to negotiate life, their good tools fit my new toolkit nicely. As long as I don’t feel compelled to use a hammer when a screwdriver is called for (I recall here my dad’s story about initially using nails for his sawhorses instead of screws), I find I can handle most of the challenges that face me today with reasonable equanimity.

I am who I am largely because of the upbringing I received from my mom and my dad. This is a fact of life. However, I am not limited by their legacy, as long as I keep an open heart and mind.

Next: I am who I am becoming.

Mission Improbable Part 6: Who Am I, Really?

As I trolled the Internet looking for opportunities, I was like a “catch and release” fisherman: I ordered “opportunity” packages, and after a quick look frequently tossed them back like fish that were too small. Sadly, I was less selective than the average fisherman – I kept a few of the “stingrays.” That’s why I don’t advocate doing what I did, except that it opened my mind to opportunities, and I began picturing myself being successful at them.

I started life in a lower middle class home, with what I thought was a pretty typical family. My mom was very loving (although let’s just say that she had an edge to her in private), and my dad fancied himself a rugged individualist, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. I know now that he felt hindered by his family, and wished he could strike out on his own adventurously. But the day-to-day reality of bills to pay and mouths to feed wore heavily upon him.

My mom was very security-oriented, and when my dad talked about leaving his stable job to find better work elsewhere, she rebelled – her lips pursed and her brow knitted furiously. She wanted that pension, which my dad could only earn if he stayed in one job forever. So, unfortunately for my dad, he stayed in the same job his entire career, working year after year in a job that disgusted him, gazing longingly at the want ads, and wishing he could do something else. I didn’t have much sympathy for him at the time, but I certainly do now.

My mom eventually got that pension she wanted so badly, so she was “happy” – but the cost was dear: She had to live with an angry, bitter, resentful husk of man for nearly fifty years to get it.

Of course, the world has changed dramatically since then. Now, life-long jobs with pensions are almost unheard of, and “job shopping” (as he called it) is the norm. The variety he longed for is a basic fact of life now, and the security my mom longed for is long gone.

So that’s the primal “soup” I emerged from. I used to think I was more like my mom than my dad, and grateful for that. I didn’t want to be like the angry, bitter man who raised me. But now I understand things a little bit better, and have come to see that somehow life has arranged to bring the best qualities of each of these frustrated, broken people to life within me: I have the softness of heart and ability to love that my mom possessed, as well as the strength and humor that my dad embodied.

I recently saw an essay that my dad (who died back in 1989) wrote back in the late 1980s. In his retirement, it turns out he had been “blogging” (or at least the late 1980s equivalent of blogging) about his life, perhaps with a goal of publishing. His essays were about being a handyman by necessity, driven by the requirement of upkeep on a home for his family. As I read that essay, I was struck by how similar our “voices” are. He has the same sense of humor that I have!

Following is a quote from that “blog” entry. He was talking about the first time he constructed sawhorses, using two-by-fours and metal braces he bought at a hardware store:

“I tried nails first, but the horses were shaky, ergo the screws. I still have the brackets. I recently replaced the bargain two-by-fours. After twenty-odd years, they were growing splinters like hair. Mean hair, that is.”

I laughed when I read this, and it hit me: The sense of humor that is native to me, that has brought me safely through all sorts of crises over the years, was an inheritance from my dad! A man I barely knew, whom I resented fiercely, and who possessed no qualities I thought I wanted, was the source of one of my finest character traits! This was a major eye-opener.

As I thought about it, I realized something even more powerful: I am now living the life of HIS dreams! I am single and unattached (for better or worse), have no children, and am striking out on an adventure of self-realization and personal fulfillment that is Quixotic and courageous! I am blogging about it, and “published” (if only on the web), and I bring to it the same zest for life and love of the unknown that propelled my dad. The difference: I am getting to live this life, while he only got to dream about it.

Interestingly, a week before I read the essay my dad wrote, I received a postcard in the mail. It was addressed to someone else (at my address), a name I’ve never seen before. It was a picture of Hawaii and had the single word “Aloha!” on the face. The first word that jumped into my mind, unbidden, was “Paradise” – I even said it aloud. I turned the card over, and it said simply, “COURAGE!” and was signed “Dad.”

I don’t know who the addressee was, but I know who the message was intended for. The seething anger and resentment I had nursed for someone who demeaned me as long as I knew him melted into a warm affection for the source of some of my finest qualities.

My heart aches for the pain my dad endured, working a job he loathed for thirty-five years because he felt trapped by a family that treated him only with disdain (and vice versa). Perhaps in living his legacy I am giving shape to his dreams in a way that is extremely satisfying to him now.

Here’s to you, dad, wherever you are!