30+ Day Challenge

Day 4: Your parents

What can I say about my parents?  Well, I am about as different from them as you can get.


My parents are of the depression generation.  My father will be 90 on Sunday, and my mother will be 80 two weeks later.  My dad was 43 when I was born an my mom was 33.


Both of them came from large families and both of them took care of their families.  My paternal grandfather died when my dad was around 12, so he and his brothers become the bread-winners for the family.  My mom took care of her brothers and sisters and also went out to work to bring money into the family.  As such, neither my father or my mother finished eighth grade.  They were out making money, that was more important than school.


My parents are also very concrete people.  I, on the other hand, so far out into intuitive-land that I frightened them.  I was building tesseracts out of toothpicks and making hot-dog cookers that you could plug into an outlet.  This sort of thing made them fear that I was going to end up unemployable; they were familiar with the life of the factory, there was no place for a dreamer in that world.


We also walk in different worlds through our education.  As I said, neither of my parents finished eighth grade.  When I started college, I immediately started to move in different worlds then they could ever conceive of.  When I ended up in grad school, it got even stranger.  One of the first times I introduced my parents to my secretary, it was truly surreal; their children did not have secretaries.


When I went to seminary, I think it was my mom's dream come true.  Of course it would have been better if it would have been a Roman Catholic priest, but a Lutheran pastor would do.  I also think that is why it took me a while to end up in seminary, I wanted to make use it was my idea, and not just something that I am doing to make my mom happy.


When I came out, it was almost a non-event.  I quite literally told my mom during a commercial break. Her response, "Oh, will you end up moving?"  My answer, "Probably."  Her response, "That is too bad, I like your house."  And that was it.  Dad was pretty much the same thing.


My parents and I get along well.  They also get along well with Nick.  We still do move in different circles and have very little in common.  Also, living over 400 miles from them does not help us to become parts of each others' lives.  But I still love them, and even with our difficulties, they are still there and support me.