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July 29, 2011

What would you like to ask your grandparents or tell them?

This is a very difficult question because there are so many things I would like to know.  I never knew my paternal grandparents.  Dad's mother died when he was eight and his dad died three years before I was born.  My maternal grandparent's were longer lived with my grandmother dying when I was a teenager and my grandfather dying after I was already married and a mother.
We were never close to Mom's parents.  We realized early on that we were not the favored ones.  At Christmas, we received inappropriate gifts or one year, nothing.  We were always well behaved when we were at their home, we were good in school, and not unattractive so we just couldn't understand why they preferred their other grandchildren over us.  When we were adults, we learned the big secret that mom and dad had kept from us.  Mom had chosen to become Catholic.  Although our grandparents weren't devout church goers, becoming a Catholic was the greatest sin that could be committed without going to jail.  We laughed when we heard this because three of her siblings also converted to Catholicism.  Mom was the first though and the blame was laid on her and her offspring.  Fortunately, our uncles and aunts didn't feel that way and treated us the same as the other nieces and nephews.  Grandpa didn't care.  He was tired all the time and would fall asleep while all of his children, in-laws and grandchildren were in the room with him.  Digressing again.
I would like to ask Mom's parents why they used her as a servant girl expecting her to scrub the floors, do laundry, dishes, and anything else that needed to be done.  She was expected to do everything except bake.  She had to quit school before graduating because she didn't have any suitable clothes while her brothers all went to high school.  I do think children should have chores.  All the children should have chores not just the girls.  Boys can cook and clean too and girls can mow lawns.  They all need to learn how to do all of these things so they won't be dependent on anyone because they can't do these things for themselves.  Preaching to the choir again.
I would like to ask my paternal Grandfather why he was so mean to my Dad telling him that his mother didn't love him when he found my Dad crying because his mother had died.  Why Dad didn't finish school and was forced to quit in the eighth grade?  Why he didn't provide a good environment for his children after his wife died?  He was a good looking man and could have found another wife or a housekeeper to manage the house and tend to the children who were still very young when their mother died.  Dad was eight when his Mother died and had three younger siblings twin sisters and a brother who was deaf.  These children needed more than a melancholy man who mourned his wife the rest of his life.
Yes, I am upset by the way my parents were raised.  Yes, those were different and more difficult times but children in any era need to be loved and treated fairly.  End of rant.

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