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9 January 2003 (Thursday): the culture tyro
Occasionally I wish I'd had, say, a history professor and a concert cellist for parents. Money would have been tight all through childhood, surely, and life chaotic at times -- but oh, the books on the library shelves, the dinner guests, the trips to the symphony! And someone to hold my hand and tell me what it was all about, why it was so wonderful: that's what I sometimes wish I'd had.
My parents in real life, faithful to immigrant strategy, worked diligently in school and studied sensible things, took respectable jobs, built a foundation for a home and family with hard-earned paychecks. There was no room to be fanciful, no option for daydreaming. Their knowledge lay in electronics, in accounting, in looking at a shopping cart and estimating to the nearest dime how much it would all cost, taking the Sunday-paper coupons into account. They drew up a budget for their children; it included art class, and piano lessons. Their own childhoods had primed them for usefulness, and they stood now largely illiterate in their adopted culture, while the memory of their native one faded. They hoped that their own kids would get something better than that.
Bring it home, they say to me now; show us what you've learned, tell us what you've seen. And I tell them what I can about Hemingway, Platonic forms, Shostakovich, Shakespeare, Warhol. But all I have is a neophyte's understanding, don't even know myself how to see keenly into these things and feel their greatness. And my parents mostly nod their heads uncertainly. Strange stuff, they usually say with a little laugh. I don't get it.
posted by enjelani @ 11:39 PM PST
Replies: 2 comments
it is sad that we give up our dreams just to be able to put food on the table. but now that we (as their children) have a better life...then its up to us to live our dreams so our children can live theirs too..
posted by dreamcatcher @ 10 01 2003 08:07 AM PST
It's all about marketing. Package up those Platonic Cave Shadows the right way and anyone will buy a copy or two.
Shoots, where did I misplace my soul? It's around here somewhere...
Hmmm,... I think the only tragedy is if people go through their life without purpose and accomplishment. Raising a fine family with fine, accomplished kids is nothing to be sad about. Some parents out there have made extraordinary journeys of purpose and determination on the way to providing a simple loving home for their kids... They picked and succeeded in that path; any one of us should be so fortunate ...
posted by Bill @ 11 01 2003 11:24 PM PST