All Requests: Parents Are People

V asks for a post about the process of figuring out that one's parents have lives of their own:

Do you remember at what point you realized that they were far more than just your parents, that they had feelings, good and bad, adventures, a history - many parts that had no connection to you, their child? When did you realize they had lives of their own?

I don't remember a moment when this crystallized.  My experience of my dad is different from my experience of my mom.  My dad is part of a big family -- he's one of five siblings, and they're all local, and so Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter were always big gatherings in the family homestead.  At the dinner table I felt like a fringe part of the family, and the five siblings were at the center of this.  There were always lots of funny stories from their childhoods -- drives to Montana, tales of people I didn't know.  The siblings' names were on all the trophies at the yacht club, so I felt a pretty strong sense of a life extending back before me.  I always felt glad to be a Fowler, but also that I was born too late, after most of the fun had been had. 

My mom used to talk to me from time to time when I was a teenager about her other serious love interest, a boyfriend she had before dad.  I found it confusing.  How could my mom think about him, or wonder what it might have been like if she had married him instead?  I didn't really want to have those conversations.  Now that's interesting to me; I like to hear about her journey and her struggles.  But I can't name a moment when my view of my mom expanded into more of a friendship than a relationship that was primarily about me.   When I turned 20 we all went out to dinner and I remember asking my parents what they were doing when they were 20.  My mom said, "I was married," and I remember being blown away.  She was married to someone before my dad.  It seemed an impossible mystery. 

It's interesting, because my mom's been going through a similar inquiry.  Her father died before she was born, killed in a submarine he commanded in WWII.  She's recently dug into his history, trying to learn who he was, and what she had lost.  In the process she's learned a ton about submarines and military history, she's connected with all these veterans who knew her father, and she's come to know and mourn someone who was only a ghost in her life.  And she's also come to understand her mother better.  Her mother lost the great love of her life, young, and that loss shaped the way she raised my mother and her siblings.  Suddenly the story of my mother's childhood makes sense in a different way.

I don't read history very often.  One reason is that the great revelation -- people in the past were just like us! -- escapes me a lot.   As I get older I'm starting to be able to grasp that, and my ability to empathize and imagine the richness of other peoples' emotional lives is improving.  Slowly.   

Comments

[TP]

Huh. I read lots of history, and one of my graduate profs, a historian, often says that "The past is a foreign place. They do things differently there." I'm not sure why anyone would have tried to convince you that a great historical revelation is that people in the past were just like us. I think that's absolutely wrong.

[Eleanor]

Actually, I think seeing how people in history were just like us is part of the appeal of history. Another, equally big, part is seeing how they were different. And maybe the most interesting part, for me at least, is seeing what they can teach us, whether or not they're like us.

[PG]

I think past people are just like us in rather the way foreigners are just like u.s. -- they loved and hated and were brave and brilliant and mean and stupid. They had sexual problems in their marriages, and abortions (this was really a huge revelation to me when I read an early 20th century woman's autobiography) and didn't always like their children.

But like foreigners, they have a different language and customs and often strike us as having done the wrong thing, mistreated people, made dumb mistakes, etc.

If my mom were trying to relate to my romantic life, I think in a way I'd prefer that she talk about someone other than my dad. That could get too weird.

[Scott]

I remember when you were 20 describing the story of your mom being married at your age. My impression at the time was your sense of divergence from your mother.

My major realization of my parents since that time is twofold.
1. My parents weren't always parents. They were winging it, but my perception until I was 25 or so was that they had always been parents.
2. More recent revelation - since having a child of my own - being a parent involves a lot of work, and your children may love you but they don't appreciate your work on their behalf. As you say elswhere, this is not exactly a new revelation, however tonight I heard a poem that captured the feeling. I can't find it, so I offer another poem - mildly nautical in celebration of your new job - as a consolation prize -

http://www.newbedford.com/whale.html