GOODBYE TO PARENTAL TRADITIONS

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

Some people will have let go of more parental traditions and requirements held of children than others. In thinking about this question in a broader context, it seems that background, country of living, race and religion, and whether adulthood and letting go of parental positions and requirements has been in recent times or, as in my case, back in the mid to late 1960s. This is a fascinating question to ponder and responses, I’m sure, will be very wide-ranging.

In my situation, I was born in 1946 to parents who were very “prim and proper“, as I see things today. That was particularly the case with Mum, who was entirely Victorian in her outlook – and a replica of what I have heard of her parents.

My Father was more liberated and less bound to traditional ways of living, but after marrying, Mum seemed, from what I have heard, to have changed and taken on her ways of looking at life.

My parents were upright Christians. They brought me up the same way. My parents did not drink alcohol, and neither did they smoke – although my father dead until a couple of years after marrying Mum.

Mum particularly adhered to the principles of healthy eating, and we became a meat-minimal family.

As a child, I was not allowed to drink tea or coffee because I will not good for my health. I was not allowed to go into my parent’s bedroom, nor into a little storage room on the side of the house where everything was kept, mainly Mum’s, going back to her childhood.

I was never told my parent’s ages, and ask as I might. They remained a secret until I discovered by surreptitious inquiry into various papers and documents when I was 18 or 19.

I always felt (be it natural or imagined) that my sister, some years younger than me, was my favourite child.

I believe my parents thought they could have a say in what occupation I followed and what my ultimate marital relationships might be. It also seemed that they did not want me to go too far away geographically in my years of grown-up independence.

I could go on but rather would not because the circumstances that linked me to my parents in their final years were based on significant geographic distance and on some representations made or felt about me on what had been my home front, Making me feel somewhat apprehensive about visiting or having contact other than by letter or phone.

Please forgive these reflections, but they lead to the things that have passed from parental-encouraged traditions.

I was a father to my children at a young age, with us deciding not to have children after we turned 30. I was the older of two siblings, they were four years between us, and my father was 42 when I was born. The change in my circumstances regarding fatherhood meant that I was much closer to my children and age and much more aligned with them as a consequence.

There are only 2 1/2 years between our three children, and they click and support each other in their closeness. That was something I never had.

I did drink alcohol and, for three years of my life, smoke cigarettes. The latter I gave up at the age of 29, and I haven’t drunk alcohol for nearly 13 years. (I can promise you that that dramatically improves my financial situation.)

While focused on values in life and trying to live by those values, I do not formally adhere to any faith and do not attend any church.

Our children were always welcome to anything in our house because it was ‘our’ house. Nothing was off limits and neither is it for our grandchildren.

I knew nothing about my parent’s finances or wills. Our wills are open to our children and have been developed in consultation with them.

There is no secret kept about our ages. Any information our family wants is freely available.

Religions or spiritual affiliations are not something forced on our children. We have shared our thoughts but never tried to undue influence.

My parents did what they thought was right for me and I have done the same with my wife for our children.