45 + 63 points
The Way I Remember It... by rongo rongo
December 21st, 2009 10:33 AM
One of my first memories is when I was about 2 years old, during a party my parents were having, one of their friends asked me, "Do you love your mother or your father more?". It was a distressing moment because I realized that no matter what I said, someone would probably get mad and everyone else would laugh. And even as a toddler, I knew that this person was deliberately putting me in an awkward situation for their own amusement, but I did not know how to get out of the situation.
I have recreated this memory with a twist, by asking some of my friends this same question, but not as a joke the way that it was posed to me, and without putting anyone on the spot. Families and love are both very complicated, much more so than I realized back then. Here are some of the responses:
My mother. I didn't know my father well. He didn't really interact with my brother and I much when we were kids, and then he died when we were teenagers. He worked a lot, strange hours, so he was often at work or asleep. And when he was awake, he watched TV a lot. My mother was the housewife, the primary care giver. My father was my father, but my mother was my parent.
I love my mother more. It is easy to answer, but makes me feel sad and guilty. Mom and Dad were divorced when I was ten, and I was raised by Mom (and stepdad) with Dad every other weekend. He wasn't a bad father, but I am my mother's daughter in most ways. We have the same laugh, the same hands, the same mischievous humor....In past years, over Christmas, I'd go to the family gathering (Mom, stepdad, sister, brother, me, spouses) at my sister's house, and we'd drive the couple hours Dad for a few hours. Now he's too far for a day trip, and our conversations are awkward, and visiting more than a few hours is hard. So I have not gone.
He's fading. I keep thinking that I may have seen him for the last time, and that that means I should go visit before it's too late. But the last time I visited, it was before it was too late, and the time before. Someday it will be too late, but that will always be true no matter when I visit. And so I do not go visit, and I know this means I'm a sucky daughter.
Loving Mom is easy. We aren't the same, don't always agree, but we speak the same language. Loving Dad - I am not as good at that.
That one's easy, seeing as I don't get along with my mother, to the point that we're currently not on speaking terms. Dad's always been more on my wavelength, or at least made sense, instead of being from some completely incomprehensible other version of reality.
I think about how I will feel when they're gone.
My mother is an active presence in my life; I talk to her often and frequently think "I should tell mom about that".
I will suffer sharp pangs of grief when she is gone, as I will frequently think "I should tell Mom.."
On the other hand, the loss of my father will be a dull ache, a comfort gone. My father is a reassurance; I know that I can call on him whenever I need him and that there is nothing he wouldn't do for me.
I love my mother more but rely on my father more? I am certainly better friends with my mother.
I love my father in a friendly but frustrated way. He's not very responsible -- really a big kid. He can be thoughtless. He can also be annoyingly mushy and overly religious. He has been a father-at-distance since I was 10 years old (he moved across the country for work), so he never really parented me. He regularly says "I love you" but it can come across as needy and wistful.
I love my mom differently ... I lived with her my whole life, but early on I ended up "parenting" her much of the time. Lately (since I have children of my own) she's been a huge help and much more responsible. Much of my adult relationship with her has involved pushing responsibilities that should be hers back to her. I like her more now than I did when I was growing up.
One big difference between them is that I know I can count on my mom to help me if I need it. Besides her being close by, she also has just me for family. My dad is remarried and has a bunch more kids ... in the last few years I realized that I am his adult child from a failed relationship, much less present than his new family of little kids (well, they are teens now). No wonder it's easy for him to forget about me.... I guess if I had to choose between them, I would say I love my mom more. I'm also more likely to be irritated or angry at her, but I think that's a matter of proximity rather than lack of affection.
I love (and like and get along with) both of my parents. When I was a child, Dad was my "preferred parent" to some extent; around teenage, that balance swapped (probably due to same-gender bonding), and since then I have been more intimate with my mother than with my father. But it's a pretty fine distinction, really. I'm very like each of my parents in a lot of ways, both ways that they're similar to each other and ways that they're different from each other -- so there are definitely time when I feel like I'm siding with one against the other just by being myself. (Not in a real conflict sort of way. I mean that I run early like my dad: I share certain conversational habits that are like his side of the family that my mom doesn't go in for; like my dad, I sometimes want to stick in the mud when my mom wants to rush off and do something new. It's my mother who shares my love of seeing plays and the tendency to organize things and people. And so on.)
My answer is simple, actually.
I do not love either my mother or my father.
Love means that you want the best for the other. I can honestly say that I don't care what befalls them. My strongest feeling on the matter is that I really hope that whatever happens with or to them for the rest of their lives doesn't inconvenience me in any way.
I ended up saying that I loved them both the same, because it was the best solution I could come up with, and everyone laughed. Looking back on this, a better answer should have been, "I love each of my parents proportionally to the amount that they love me," thus both answering the question and deflecting the spotlight. I hate it when you think of the right thing to say 35 years after the situation comes up.
If any of you would like to share either your current response to this question, or what you think your response might have been when you were a kid, please do. If you want to do so anonymously, send me a message and I'll add your answer to this write-up.
I have recreated this memory with a twist, by asking some of my friends this same question, but not as a joke the way that it was posed to me, and without putting anyone on the spot. Families and love are both very complicated, much more so than I realized back then. Here are some of the responses:
My mother. I didn't know my father well. He didn't really interact with my brother and I much when we were kids, and then he died when we were teenagers. He worked a lot, strange hours, so he was often at work or asleep. And when he was awake, he watched TV a lot. My mother was the housewife, the primary care giver. My father was my father, but my mother was my parent.
I love my mother more. It is easy to answer, but makes me feel sad and guilty. Mom and Dad were divorced when I was ten, and I was raised by Mom (and stepdad) with Dad every other weekend. He wasn't a bad father, but I am my mother's daughter in most ways. We have the same laugh, the same hands, the same mischievous humor....In past years, over Christmas, I'd go to the family gathering (Mom, stepdad, sister, brother, me, spouses) at my sister's house, and we'd drive the couple hours Dad for a few hours. Now he's too far for a day trip, and our conversations are awkward, and visiting more than a few hours is hard. So I have not gone.
He's fading. I keep thinking that I may have seen him for the last time, and that that means I should go visit before it's too late. But the last time I visited, it was before it was too late, and the time before. Someday it will be too late, but that will always be true no matter when I visit. And so I do not go visit, and I know this means I'm a sucky daughter.
Loving Mom is easy. We aren't the same, don't always agree, but we speak the same language. Loving Dad - I am not as good at that.
That one's easy, seeing as I don't get along with my mother, to the point that we're currently not on speaking terms. Dad's always been more on my wavelength, or at least made sense, instead of being from some completely incomprehensible other version of reality.
I think about how I will feel when they're gone.
My mother is an active presence in my life; I talk to her often and frequently think "I should tell mom about that".
I will suffer sharp pangs of grief when she is gone, as I will frequently think "I should tell Mom.."
On the other hand, the loss of my father will be a dull ache, a comfort gone. My father is a reassurance; I know that I can call on him whenever I need him and that there is nothing he wouldn't do for me.
I love my mother more but rely on my father more? I am certainly better friends with my mother.
I love my father in a friendly but frustrated way. He's not very responsible -- really a big kid. He can be thoughtless. He can also be annoyingly mushy and overly religious. He has been a father-at-distance since I was 10 years old (he moved across the country for work), so he never really parented me. He regularly says "I love you" but it can come across as needy and wistful.
I love my mom differently ... I lived with her my whole life, but early on I ended up "parenting" her much of the time. Lately (since I have children of my own) she's been a huge help and much more responsible. Much of my adult relationship with her has involved pushing responsibilities that should be hers back to her. I like her more now than I did when I was growing up.
One big difference between them is that I know I can count on my mom to help me if I need it. Besides her being close by, she also has just me for family. My dad is remarried and has a bunch more kids ... in the last few years I realized that I am his adult child from a failed relationship, much less present than his new family of little kids (well, they are teens now). No wonder it's easy for him to forget about me.... I guess if I had to choose between them, I would say I love my mom more. I'm also more likely to be irritated or angry at her, but I think that's a matter of proximity rather than lack of affection.
I love (and like and get along with) both of my parents. When I was a child, Dad was my "preferred parent" to some extent; around teenage, that balance swapped (probably due to same-gender bonding), and since then I have been more intimate with my mother than with my father. But it's a pretty fine distinction, really. I'm very like each of my parents in a lot of ways, both ways that they're similar to each other and ways that they're different from each other -- so there are definitely time when I feel like I'm siding with one against the other just by being myself. (Not in a real conflict sort of way. I mean that I run early like my dad: I share certain conversational habits that are like his side of the family that my mom doesn't go in for; like my dad, I sometimes want to stick in the mud when my mom wants to rush off and do something new. It's my mother who shares my love of seeing plays and the tendency to organize things and people. And so on.)
My answer is simple, actually.
I do not love either my mother or my father.
Love means that you want the best for the other. I can honestly say that I don't care what befalls them. My strongest feeling on the matter is that I really hope that whatever happens with or to them for the rest of their lives doesn't inconvenience me in any way.
I ended up saying that I loved them both the same, because it was the best solution I could come up with, and everyone laughed. Looking back on this, a better answer should have been, "I love each of my parents proportionally to the amount that they love me," thus both answering the question and deflecting the spotlight. I hate it when you think of the right thing to say 35 years after the situation comes up.
If any of you would like to share either your current response to this question, or what you think your response might have been when you were a kid, please do. If you want to do so anonymously, send me a message and I'll add your answer to this write-up.
13 vote(s)
4
Juliette
5teucer
5Lincøln
5artmouse
5Sombrero Guy
5Mr Everyday
4Ben Yamiin
5Jellybean of Thark
5Beetle bomb
5Ombwah
5saille is planting praxis
5Spidere
5Secret Agent
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(none yet)8 comment(s)
posted by rongo rongo on December 22nd, 2009 6:04 AM
Thanks for contributing, reading that makes me happy. It's wonderful that you learned about having not blood family early in life.
posted by Mr Everyday on December 22nd, 2009 7:54 AM
Very nicely put, especially about not blood family. Not blood family is the stuff... Last year, at the age of 31 I found out that a family I had always assumed was blood related to us wasn't. Turns out they'd just been neighbours for 4 generations and never married in.
posted by Ombwah on December 23rd, 2009 12:04 AM
Friends are the family that you choose.
Since then that guy has chosen for me not to be his family, but the sentiment seems to fit, and I've always thought it was an astute observation.
posted by artmouse on December 21st, 2009 11:48 PM
beautiful, rongo! as per usual!
glad to see you expanding upon one of the stuffier tasks i've created!
(and thanks for being the first one to submit something for it! it's always been a bit of a bummer no one's done the -only - task of mine that has been approved. i've created such better ones since then! what's wrong with them??)
posted by rongo rongo on December 22nd, 2009 6:07 AM
I think this is really one of the more puzzling tasks I've seen, so congrats for coming up with a brain bender!
posted by Spidere on December 25th, 2009 9:34 PM
Wow! Challenging -- this certainly made me think about how I would honestly answer that question...
posted by Sundroplets on April 17th, 2010 12:40 PM
Dad died a little over 2 years ago and mom closer to 4 years ago. So young.... so unexpected. I was a daddy's girl for sure. I have realized that in many ways he was the anchor in my life. I miss his bear hugs and the way he could make me laugh through the hardest of times. Did I mention those awesome bear hugs? Dad.... I miss you.
This is an interesting question.
When I was young I would have answered my father. Because he was more fun, more present, less crazy and more attentive, and when my parents divorced, we lived with him.
But mom has always been more demonstrative with her love. Back then and even today. Back then I didn't like it, it felt all mushy and weird. Today I can't get enough, I like to go and spend time sitting with my mom. Even if we're not doing anything, I'm more comfortable with her.
But dad is still a hoot and fun and wonderful, so today I cannot tell which I love more. I love my father's family a whole bunch more, as I barely know my mom's side. And I love my family. All of my family, even my not blood family, and dad was responsible for me having not blood family. We took in strays. My best friend lived in my top bunk for years. Everybody was welcome and free around my dad. And that was a wonderful lesson to learn.
Choosing one over the other doesn't really work here. I love them both. A lot. But in different ways.