The Long Road to Becoming Your Parent
It’s the one thing most of us are reluctant to admit. We kick and scream and protest (too loudly) that NO, we are not just like our parents. We don’t look like them, we don’t like their music or their politics, we don’t eat their food or watch their movies, we don’t act like them. We vow to parent differently, to shed their bad habits in favor of something more… normal, we swear we won’t make their mistakes. We are - after all - smarter, faster, brighter.
Unfortunately, the sad fact is that everyone will eventually become their parent. Yes, even you, Millennial in Denial. (My daughter thinks she doesn’t look like me. Yeah… right.) Whether it’s genetics, nurture, or environment, from the moment we are born, we careen at top speed toward certain doom.
Nothing made this more glaringly apparent than spending ten days “dad-sitting” earlier this month. Last August, he fell on his head; this August, he found out he had Guillain-Barre, made worse by a flu shot before his diagnosis and much worse with another flu shot after his diagnosis. He couldn’t walk and couldn’t feel enough in his hands to cut his own meat. At first, they were talking finding him an assisted living situation, but by the time I’d arrived, he was doing much better.
I’m one of the Out of Town siblings. I own a business and have a multitude of responsibilities, but when given time to rearrange my life, I am able to take off for certain weeks and a half. My other siblings had spent September, October, and November assisting him; it was my turn in December. I had a great time running him around to doctors’ appointments. I made home- cooked meals (he typically eats frozen), bought his scratch-off lottery tickets, and retrieved his mail. I walked his dog, Heinrich, at least four miles a day; that Dachshund almost had a waistline by the time I left.
The more time I spend with my dad, the more rapidly he seems to be aging, and in tandem, the more rapidly I seem to be aging. I’m seeing more of him in myself, especially when it comes to attitudes (we’re both curmudgeons). I also see him in my son lately, especially in the way they speak and carry themselves when they walk.
These revelations are nothing new.
Growing up, when my mother was angry with me or my dad, she’d yell and scream about how we resembled each other and acted like each other, as if doing so would make me act differently. (I couldn’t do a thing about my looks — I inherited his large eyes, the frown lines on my forehead, and angular facial structure.)
One summer, when I was in my early 20's, I recall painting my mother’s house (they were separated by then), and every ten minutes or so she would stick her head out of a window and give me a piece of her mind about how similar my dad and I were.
That night, I cleaned up and wrote a poem, The Campbell’s Tomato Soup Tragedy.
I knew back in 1977 what I was up against. I realized before I wrote these words that I had inherited from both my parents — good, bad, ugly.
Slowly yet surely, I would become them.
Your own impending parenthood brings the mirror of your genes so much closer, so much more in focus. Despite your promises to parent your children “differently” you end up doing the same silly things. You say the same things; your temper is just as short.
And there’s more! Oh, yes, it’s much worse. You overindulge your children because when growing up, you were poor and didn’t have anything to speak of, much less luxuries. (My husband is also guilty as charged.) It seems innocuous at first, but later on when they are adults, you wonder if you hadn’t made the wrong move.
You wonder if you should have ruled with an iron fist like your parents did.
After all, the discipline you received from your military father and tiger mother didn’t hurt you (much). You didn’t turn out half bad.
Dad is 83 now. He been saying “All my friends are dead” for decades now. (My grandmother, his mother, used to say it a lot, too, especially after hitting 60.) At first, I admonished him to find new friends. But as time wore on, I realized that almost all his friends are dead. He’s only got a handful left from the Good Old Days.
A couple of Fathers Days ago, I bought him the book All My Friends Are Dead.
I thought the book was hilarious, but I have a rather warped sense of humor. I realized it was a risky move sending it to him. He’d either become super-pissed or be just as amused as I was.
Lucky for me, we share the same wicked sense of humor. Our new favorite saying is “The only good thing about the future is that I won’t be alive for it.”
Told you we were twisted.
My dad and I talk about getting old. I think he’s amazed his oldest is nearing Social Security age. Come to think of it, I AM amazed I’m nearing Social Security age.
I’m nearing six decades, just about the time that boomers my age drop dead from heart attacks and cancer.
I wonder when I’ll start telling my kids “all my friends are dead.”
I wonder if I’ll become extra curmudgeonly (like my dad and his mother before him) and watch old movies and drink beer in my old age, and cuss out the younger generation.
I’m fairly certain the odds are I will.
Joanne Huspek lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband Brad, Boston terrier, Millie, and the very bad orange tabby, Purrby. In addition to writing, she enjoys cooking and creating twisted wire jewelry, which means her housekeeping skills are practically non-existent.
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