My dad grew up dirt poor near Concord, North Carolina, with his mother, sister, brother, and grandmother. His mother kicked his father out when my dad was about four years old.
According to him, his father was an illiterate drunk.
His mother worked two jobs to keep food on the table. If my dad wanted to do anything extracurricular he needed to work as well. In the summers of high school, he got almost every odd job you could think of.
There was a butter mill. He worked in a creamery and painted fences. Worked at a local pizza joint. I think he worked a few other random mill jobs. He would put away most of the money to go to marching band events.
Today, most high school excursions are paid for by the parents.
On the other hand
My mom had a relatively normal upbringing.
She grew up with both parents and two sisters in a four-bedroom house in Bethesda, Maryland.
Her dad served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her mom was a local special education teacher who also taught sign language and gave piano lessons at their home.
My dad had a clear path.
Growing up, my dad knew he only had one option to get into college; the military.
In high school, along with marching band, he joined ROTC. After high school, he applied for the ROTC scholarship and signed up with the air force.
He’s told me countless times when he applied that he needed a give the officers his entire plan for college. Every course he would take to graduate.
He saw a future in computers, and he took the path toward computer science.
He was clearly driven to succeed and get out of his situation.
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. — G. Michael Hopf
My mother’s future was less clear.
Perhaps it’s the hand women are dealt which makes the future a little blurry.
Full of variables, it’s no telling what might happen one to five years from now.
One pregnancy can throw an entire five-year plan out the window. Unless it was always in the cards, some of you might know what I’m talking about.
Speaking for myself, I swore up and down that I wouldn’t be caught dead as a stay-at-home mom.
Yet, here I am… you caught me.
I’m sure when my mom graduated with her bachelor’s in child psychology — undoubtedly with the assumption she would eventually go back for her masters — she didn’t expect to find herself married to a military man and expecting their first child.
Not to mention their needing the move and her having to put her future schooling on hold with she worked the night shift as a waitress.
Then, baby number two came along, and we all moved to Hawaii.
She quit working until I was old enough for Kindergarten. Six years later, she was looking for a job.
Ever been out of the job market, in a new state, for six years?
My dad never let up that she hadn’t gone back to earn her master’s in psychology to ensure a better-paying job. But, he could say that because he never put his work on hold to raise two children. He didn’t understand.
He did understand persevering and succeeding in the face of poverty — this middle-aged white man. How could he understand the struggles of a woman — a mother.
My mom did struggle
It’s no doubt my parents had very different upbringings.
My mom struggled her entire time in Hawaii to hold onto a job. She tried her best to find a full-time job that, simultaneously, allowed her to spend time with my sister and me.
She worked at an after-school program and enrolled us both in it. On top of that job, she was a leader of my sister’s girl scout troop — I was placed in their troop’s “sister troop.” We would do a lot of activities together.
Eventually, my mom was able to get a job at the Girl Scout council. That worked for a while until she claimed the new manager was out to get her fired. She soon quit due to stress following the passing of her father.
Then, her alcohol and opioid addiction began. From there, she had a string of bad luck follow her to every job she tried to hold. She wanted to argue it would be better if she stayed home, and my dad said that did not make sense. My sister was in high school — about to graduate, and I was in middle school. We no longer needed “tending to.”
Then, they got divorced.
My mother’s addiction became too much, and my dad kicked my mother out. She tried to live close by in an apartment but couldn’t afford it. She gave in and moved back home the Bethesda to live with her mother.
Fast-forward to today
Some would say that moving back in with your elderly parents is considered a “failure.” For my mother, it was a blessing in disguise.
She was able to get a part-time teaching job where her mother used to work. Eventually, she was let go due to budget cuts. She worked at Toys’R’Us until they closed their doors in 2017. My grandma had a stroke around the same time, and my mom found a part-time, flexible job at JC Penny while she took care of her mom.
My grandmother passed away in March of 2019. She was able to meet her great-granddaughter — my daughter — just a week before passing away.
I assumed the death of my grandmother would have thrown my mother through a loop. She was never able to live on her own or make “big” decisions. She did ask me about moving to Hawaii to help with my daughter. She felt guilty after all the missed time away and wanted to lend any help she could the best way she could.
I explained to her the cost of living in Hawaii is even beyond our grasp. We’re scraping by and plan to move in with my husband’s mother and grandmother soon. She hadn’t realized the prices and apologized.
She took a breath and leaped.
With her mother’s estate money, she found a condo in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. She bought it and found a couple of easy jobs to pay for her monthly needs — plus, she puts a little away for savings.
The tables have turned.
At the moment, my little family is renting the upstairs at my father’s house. He is currently unemployed.
In 2017 his company was bought out, and the new owners started to clean-house. The first thing they did was budget cuts. My dad had secured a work-from-home position (being an IT guy) through the previous employers and was the highest-paid employee there.
The new wigs in the house didn’t understand the deal and gave him a severance.
He never got another job since.
He blew through his retirement and is now in a tight spot. We pay him rent, and he asks for a little extra now and again to help with the mortgage. We do what we can, but we’re also trying to save money.
I’ve told him numerous times — especially during the pandemic — there are a lot of remote jobs available.
“None of them pay enough,” he says.
But they pay more than he’s making now….
You get used to a particular lifestyle.
Since moving back with my dad, I’ve made several revelations and changes in my thinking. Not to mention, my parenting and overall views of life.
My dad was the tough parent and my mom was to soft parent.
I used to judge my mom as a failure. Moving back in with her mom while working a part-time job in a department store. Seemingly not working to the best of her ability. She has a bachelor’s degree, for crying out loud. I never wanted to be like her.
I saw my dad as a hard worker, smart with money, sound of mind, and logical.
My views have flipped completely.
I’m now a stay-at-home mom, content with being a homemaker (after much kicking and screaming). I support my husband by budgeting our expenses and raising our daughter. I consider going back to work to help pick up the slack, but a mother’s work is never done.
My mom is living her best life on the beach (her favorite place) and works two low-stress jobs. She worked odd jobs most of her life. She put everyone else before her and almost drowned in misery. When she surfaced, she saw where she was needed and took care of her mother until the end.
She wishes she could be here with me, but it just isn’t in the cards right now. I can feel her love a world away, and I know she’s happy.
My dad can do no wrong
I’m worried about my dad. He’s like a sinking ship. He doesn’t want to hear there’s a gaping hole in the side of his vessel. Especially not from his daughter.
My dad is allowing us to stay in his home, and it feels like we are staying more for his benefit. He isn’t disabled and is one hundred percent capable of working. At this time, I have no sympathy for him.
We moved in to help him out and — at the same time — save some money, hoping he would get back on his feet and find a job. At times, I feel as though he needs us more than we need him. He hasn’t sent out a resume in over two years.
The more I talk to my dad, the more I understand him. He’s always right. A condescending narcissist.
A recent conversation painted the final stroke of art that is my father.
We were discussing childcare and I mentioned how my decision to become a full-time mom was mostly due to how long another person would be watching our newborn. Then, there was the concern for how anyone outside our family would treat our daughter since she had colic.
My dad mentioned nanny cams and I said that was a good point.
“I would only ever trust my mother-in-law to watch our daughter,” I said.
“Even with her grandmother, you never know if they’re really watching your daughter,” he responded matter-of-factly, “she might have to run an errand and leave the child unattended.”
“I bet you wished you had nanny cams back in your day.”
“No. When your mother and I needed a night out we left you with a children’s playgroup on the military base. We worked with these people and were friends with them.”
I couldn’t wrap my mind around his thought process. My mother-in-law, who quite possibly loves my daughter more than I do, is less trustworthy than a group of military people you work with and are friends with.
Granted, my dad has disowned his own sister, never speaks to his brother, and hardly makes an effort to check in on his oldest daughter.
He can do no wrong. He knows best and he knows all.
Revisiting my beliefs.
For a large portion of my life, I felt a general indifference towards my mother while admiring my father’s work ethic and intelligence.
Since moving back in with him these past few years, I have completely changed my point of view.
I mentioned my writing to both of my parents and this was the result:
My dad claimed he could do that. Not once did he ask to read my work.
My mother, on the opposite side of the spectrum, asks almost every week to read what I’ve written or if I’d posted anything new. She wants to know what I’m working on and gives me ideas for short stories. She says she wishes she could write like I do — though, I believe she could if she tried.
I used to fear being exactly like my mother through adulthood and motherhood. Though she wasn’t the perfect mother, I forgive her for the past and only wish her the best.
As I journey through motherhood, I can only hope I show as much love and give as much time as my own mother tried to do for her children.
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Previously Published on medium
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