Home is where the heart is battered and fried in oil.
My kids aren’t growing up the way I did, but isn’t that kind of the point? Each generation wants something better for the next. Except many of us value certain things about how we grew up, even if those things are not necessarily what we want for our kids. Going hungry sometimes. Not having many toys. Being spanked with wooden spoons. Hauling coal in to heat the house with. Sharing bath water. A winter spent living in a an uninsulated garage with no running water. Etc.
Stories that distance make less painful; testaments to our strength and endurance and ingenuity as well as that of our parents. Kids these days, we say often, are spoiled. They have it too easy.
Except as a mother, I can only now begin to imagine how soul-wrenchingly awful all those ‘character-building moments’ must have been for my parents. They weren’t choosing to teach us lessons. They had no choice. They didn’t choose to have no work sometimes, no money sometimes…and for a while, no house. They would have spoiled us absolutely rotten if they could have.
And all those kids I resented, those middle class kids, townies or city kids…they didn’t grow up that way. Not that I would have wished that on them. And eventually I learned that they had their own problems. Not ones I would have wanted, either. Pretty houses do not ward off abuse, or parents who pay them no attention. But I repeat myself.
My kids are growing up lower middle class, hopefully middle class soon. But in my mind, no matter how much money I make or how much education I get, I will always be working class. There is a little inferiority mixed in with pride and some contempt for the middle class in this feeling. It not necessarily a healthy feeling, but I choose to approach it in a healthy manner. Mostly.
The people I get along with and relate to the most grew up working class too. It’s become kind of hilarious how I instantly ‘hit it off’ with Prairie folk here in Montreal, even before I know they’re from the Prairies. Except I do know. It’s body language, it’s certain terms. It’s that rural toughness that sometimes scandalises my urban friends. I can relax around the Prairie ex-pats (thank goodness the Prairies tends to keep the assholes, my apologies to those who remain and have to still deal with them). I can relax around them because for whatever reason, most of them grew up working class too. Hm. Or maybe just the ones I get along with.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not just Prairie folks who are like this. But it is weird how many good friends I have here who grew up close to where I grew up.
Anyway. I don’t feel a big gap between me and my parents, culture and class wise. They grew up tough too. Tougher than me and my siblings did, yes, but a lot of it was similar. My kids though?
Night and day.
I made fried chicken hearts last night. Brings back memories, and we’re on a tight budget so there ya go. I’ve made them a few times before for the kids but they don’t really remember. My youngest was suspicious right away, which she usually isn’t. She asked what kind of meat it was. “Chicken.” Which part? “From the chest.” Is it the heart? “Yes.”
She was revolted. Across from her, my other daughter was serving herself seconds. My partner enjoyed them too.
What do you do in that situation? That’s all the meat we have tonight, hon. That’s it. And I need you to eat some protein.
But the fact is, my kids aren’t growing up like I did. If they occasionally refuse to eat something, it isn’t going to threaten their health, because the ‘bad times’ are episodes, not years. I don’t need to force her to eat something that disgusts her. It isn’t character building. She apologised for not wanting to eat it. She understands that it means there’s nothing to eat after. She understands that other people go hungry. She understands that sometimes I went hungry. She understands what it means.
I worry a lot about my kids being spoiled. And what am I worrying about really? I’m worried they won’t have life skills. I am worried they will be helpless and unable to take care of themselves. I am worried they won’t be tough enough. I worry they will trust too easily. I am worried they will give up when things are hard. I am worried that they will be unhappy with their lives, because they won’t know that it’s up to them to make things happen for themselves.
Except they don’t have to go hungry, or be spanked, or go without toys, or be humiliated at school because their clothes are so shabby, or shiver through the night under the weight of a half-dozen worn quilts, or learn to shut out the noise of mice in the walls and bats in the ceiling, or never invite friends over out of shame for the poverty that can’t be hidden. They don’t have to experience these things to learn how to be tough, how to be strong, how to feel compassion, how to be good people. They don’t.
Sometimes I need these reminders, so that I do not feel I am failing my children. The reason for that feeling is stupid and I don’t recognise that it’s stupid unless I unpack it. I need to stop resenting the middle class for the hardships they haven’t endured, and judge people by their actions instead. And maybe those actions are informed by those lack of hardships, but maybe they aren’t.
And maybe I just need to give myself permission to not be poor all my life? To not feel like I’m betraying anyone because I went to University, that I moved away, that I am no longer in an abusive relationship, that my kids are happy, that my kids don’t know what it’s like to grow up the way I did?
I’m still going to celebrate where I came from, because I survived it, and if I can pat myself on the back a little, I think I turned out okay. But I don’t wish that shit on anyone. Not my kids, not anyone else’s.
^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.
This hits so close to home. Thanks for sharing this stuff.
- February 13 2012 | 18 Notes - Read More →
