About Your Parents Thread

Last time my mom was in town was March. It took her approximately five minutes to note how much more gray hair I had. I noted that I didn't have any that morning.

Her favorite, though, is to tell me no matter what time of day, "You look tired." Which means she is tired and everyone in the house should take a nap so they don't wake her up.

 

I used to wonder why my dad always laid on the floor. Now, as I lie on the floor every chance I get, it's obvious. Kids take up a shitload of space and being a dad is fucking exhausting.

 

When my mom criticizes my weight I just hide her oxygen tanks.

I kid, I kid.

I have/had the most wonderful parents anyone could ever hope to have. Zero complaints here.

 

My mom aspires to be the old senile perverted lady in the nursing home pinching all the orderlies' asses.

 

I thought that was the Universal Mother's Curse... "I hope that one day you have a kid who is JUST LIKE YOU!". /grin

He's worse. Thanks, mom.

 

You may have already experienced this, but some day your kids will provoke out of you a reaction in which you're all but a clone of your father. It's happened to me more times than I'd care to admit. It's a weird feeling, realizing just how much like him I am (or at least can be).

 

I bow in your general direction ...

 

My dad was 6-2 1/2 and peaked out at about 210, and hovered around 180 the last 20 years of his life, while I am 5-8 and over 200 pounds (I got that from my mother; although she wasn't really heavy herself, both her parents had one heavy parent). But facially I am looking more and more like him.

And my hands are getting thin and bony just like his.

I'm acting more like him, but late in life he was acting more like me. I'm pretty sure he was the only septuagenarian copy editor wearing a Rolling Stones sticky tongue T-shirt to the office in the mid-90s (when Mick and Co. were barely in their fifties).

 

Lost my dad when I was 12. He was abusive, but hugged and kissed us goodnight. Very strict, and crammed ungodly amounts of vitamins down our throats. He was albino, legally blind and disabled. I remember playing catch with him once, because he was so sickly.

My mother died (I think) in 2005. Almost as abusive, but lazier, so the beatings were fewer and further between, but way more vicious. Moved us to the ghettos of SoCal when I was 14. The only thing she ever taught me was how to cuss. Called me every name in the book at one point or another. Called me a coward because I wouldn't stand up to the kid who beat up my brother because my brother picked the wrong bike to steal.

Whenever someone posts those memes on Facebook about "remembering your mother" or "love your mother," I die a little more inside. I know they mean well, but not everyone had loving parents.

 

I've gotten along better with mine the last 4-5 years than at any point in my life. But I suspect I'll need to move home to care for them in the next few years, which will put our rapprochement to a severe test.

 

My 82-year-old parents are still sports fans (dad more so than mom, but she keeps up with Chicago teams), still faithfully subscribe to the print edition of their local newspaper, and can't stand the current POTUS.

Another thing about my father is that he's a master of mispronunciation and always has been. For example, when I visited a few months ago, we were watching basketball on TV and he commented on the arena's "parfait" floor. If you didn't know him, you'd think it was senility. But he's been saying that sort of thing for as long as I can remember (he never much cared for Tony "Lasorda" as White Sox manager in the early '80s).

 

My dad quit smoking in 1971. My mom never did. She died in 1984 at age 55. Dad celebrates his 90th birthday next month.