SubscribeAs yet another Hallmark inspired day proaches, I ponder the wonderful man that is my father. Like all of us he has his flaws, his vises and his adorable qualities… Though all of these are simply from my own perspective. insomnier has given me time tonight to mull over my times with the man that is my father, sorting out the issues that to this day mean that while I love him dearly and wish to be able to spend more time with him, I find myself having little in common with him. I have thought about how I believe his life has moulded mine and about how his influences have made me into the man I am today.
The thing I discovered is that I’m not all that different than the cliche that TV seems to show us. Life it seems tends to drive our fathers away from us, turning them into serious men who need to work for a living and have less and less time for the little things in life. Is this the culture of Australia these last 30 years? Or is this just the results of the situations that life seems to put us in. Am I destined to repeat my parents mistakes? Personally I don’t think so… personally I believe that as children we our lives are moulded from the success and failure of our parents. Some of us strive not to do the things that our parents did that hurt us, some of us seem destined to repeat them.
My childhood wasn’t the happiest of childhoods, I grew up for the first 6 years of my life in what I saw as a loving family. My father would spend time with us, and would include us in his life. In those days he was an entertainer, an avid folk musician and someone who loved to entertain people. He was an actor in the pantomime scene when I was starting school, and this made for some great times as we would get to be involved in him making costumes and props for the shows. Sure, getting involved meant watching from a distance and maybe playing after, but he made us feel special by including us.
This was a great way to grow up as a kid, but unfortunately it wasn’t able to support a family of five. I guess Dad needed to make more money to be able to support us, which meant a serious job. Unfortunately a serious job meant moving us from Brisbane to Melbourne, and it also meant that Dad was working serious hours, you know… the whole 9 to 5 thing. It was serious and that turned him into a serious person. One who needed to make money so that his family could live in a house, eat food and well, maybe have a little money left over to do things on the weekends. Does this sound familiar?
Watching life happen around me these days I can see that the failed marriage, the trying to spend time with us but also trying to juggle work, a new girlfriend, and the expense of still having to support a family is really just par for the course. But it’s taken over 30 years for this realisation to come to me. Anyway, back to the story…
The thing is.. the seriousness of life seemed to seep into my father and my new step-mother. Whilst they tried and well, did a damn good job of spending time with us, and ensuring that we knew we were loved, we could always tell that the seriousness of their jobs was something that effected them more than they were willing to admit. Now, before I go on, I have to admit that we got to a point where we were only seeing them on School holidays, as they were living in Sydney and well.. we were in Melbourne and then back to Brisbane. Looking back now, I can see that they must have tried really hard to for those one or two week long periods when we stayed with them.
From my perspective the seriousness of life and the way that my father and step mother seemed to believe was a good way to bring up kids seemed to clash. Sure there were great times, and they were no where near as serious as I have seen some other parents. However I believe it affected me, and I believe the seriousness that was thrust at me during my childhood was the reason that these days I find it hard to take life too seriously. Life is here to be enjoyed, and kids are here to remind us of that. I believe that my father is just begining to realise that these days, and I also believe that I have little right to judge him for his seriousness when I have not taken the time to settle down and raise a family myself. Really though, I don’t judge him or my step-mother at all, how can I when I have not walked in their shoes, lived life through their eyes, or felt the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. I cannot. What I can do is attempt to understand their perspective, their decisions in life, and learn from that.
Do I blame them for how I turned out? Hell yes! As I blame everyone who has had influence in my life through the years. But blame is such a harsh word and I feel that I have turned out OK so far, so whilst I blame these people, I also thank them, I thank all of you who have had some influence over who I have become, but most of all I thank my Dad. His seriousness might make it hard for us to find topics of conversation, but it has turned me into the person I am today, and I love him for that, and for him just being him.
