What was I thinking when I started a "family"? Families are screwed up. There is the euphoria of being with your loved ones that slowly fades to "wait, how is it we grew up in the same house/ you raised me? Because we are SO different!" I love them but every time I return home I'm so struck by how some of our core values don't overlap at all. At all! My sister and I have completely different parenting styles - the type where her 16 year old has never mowed the lawn/done his own laundry/gets to drink beer with the family but fails school (eg isn't responsible on the one hand but is treated as if he is). I roped him into learning how to cut the lawn yesterday and he threw down his (computer game) headset and said "Thanks a lot - today was supposed to be fun." Unfortunately I laughed in his face because - if he was left to drink Coke for breakfast and play video games all day, that's not a fun day, just a normal day for him. I love love love my sister but she missed the strict gene which I inherited in spades. She does claim that her style is in direct response to how we grew up, which she thinks was too strict and not lovable enough. I mostly disagree but last night I was reconsidering. Because over a fantastic Canada Day dinner, I was rather snippy with my Mom. And I don't feel too bad about it.
My Mom. Friendly, social, sports-loving, gourmet cook, best legs on the planet (also not inherited), wonderful at her job etc. But she loves to hold forth as if she has experienced it all. Like on the topic of Vancouver, where she lived for 3 years versus me who lived there for 12 years and still regularly visit - might I have a touch more insight? And the other night her partner (more on this later) tried to start a post-dinner discussion on the subject of favourite films. Normally a topic I could talk about forever but in this context, I just shut up. Because if her partner will see any movie with Denzel Washington or Russell Crowe in it, which I have never knowingly done, or extols the Transformers movie, and then they turn around and ask me my favourite - does anyone want to hear about Fassbinder or New German Cinema in general? No. I just look like a dick. When it comes to discussing anything I care about - and care a lot about - I would come off as a pretentious, hippie type dick. So mostly I just sorta bury all that matters to me and we connect over games and food and music and beer and that's fine. But last night my Mom was holding forth on what mistakes her Mom made with her - moving her West when she was a teenager and not offering to pay for university or really encouraging her. And how she wonders how these decisions impacted her to this day. And I just kinda stared at her. Because what did we do when we were teens? Move four times and implode our family. And encouraged to go to university? Please sister, you're preaching this to your daughter who has paid every dollar of her education and only graduated at 33 because she had to stop and start and work crappy jobs. And then when she did graduate, this rather long held dream, despite the fact that you were camping in the same state, you came a few days later and missed the graduation. Like it was no big deal. Not even one of those crappy "To the Graduate" cards. So rather than play nice and smooth things over and agree with her, I stated that I would have liked those same things she wished she had had. And moved on. I don't hold a grudge but for the first time I maybe gave an inkling that I have some issues with the support our family ekes out. Maybe because I left home at 16 - thanks to all the christly moving - I never got to do the "I know as much or more than you do" showdown. I don't flaunt my booklearning in her face or my pseudo-arts bent. But screw it, I may as well. And I've decided not to keep passing on the gauntlet of hands-off parenting to my kid. I'm breaking the cycle of detachment right now. So hopefully one day we can share a beer together AND talk about our real hopes and feelings and dreams. And maybe if I'm lucky, books and Fassbinder and paintings and buildings and the whole world of ideas.