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How Well Do You Know Your Parents?

Do you know how your parents met?

By Peter RosePublished 7 years ago 6 min read
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How well do you know your parents?

I do not mean their names and age but know how they spent their youth? What is their favorite color? What do they really like to eat? How many lovers did they have?

I am 75 years old, my mother died, age 95, in the year 2000 and my dad died in 1975. I am ashamed to say I do not really know much about them as people; as parents they were great but as individuals I feel I know nothing at all.

So how much do any of us really know about our parents? Parents often conceal their pain and worries from children; it is a natural desire to prevent the child from worry and concern. They very rarely will talk about their own time as young adults, the mistakes and indiscretions they made, and if they do it is probably a very censored version. The older you are the less you probably know about the true upbringing of your parents; my own mother was born, so I believe, in 1905 and that is 112 years ago. Memories fade. Even the buildings and landscape are changed over that period of time. I have always understood she lived in a rural hamlet with a one-room school house and I remember my maternal grandparents in a terraced cottage that did not have electricity, water, or indoor toilet. Water was carried, from the village pump, in buckets. Cooking was over a coal-fired “range,” which also was the only heating in the winter.

I do not remember my parents ever talking about their lives and I regret this, so all of you still with parents alive, start talking and more importantly, listening, with your parents.

I doubt many will volunteer information; you have to choose your moment and ask. What were their first school days like? Did they have to take exams? How far away from home was the school? How strict were the teachers? My own first school, from 1947 to 1953, seemed to me to be very strict; no one was allowed to speak, during lesson times, unless replying to a teacher's question. If you walked in the corridors during lesson time you would hear nothing. Press your ear to a classroom door and even in the infants' class all you would hear would be the teachers voice or a class reciting in unison, the alphabet or numbers times table. Even during playtime, no running, no noise within the building, only outside in the playground. Ask if your parents' school was like this.

From the age eleven I went to a school sixteen miles away, a school which seemed to me to be huge in a town that was also much larger than my home one. Because this was still in the post-World War II years, classes were held in various places scattered around the town, not just in the main school building. If we were caught walking between places without full uniform or even worse, being a nuisance to others, we were in deep trouble. By modern standards, health and safety was almost nonexistent, our metalwork classroom had overhead belt driven machines condemned and discarded from a local factory. The head masters office and the school administration rooms used to be a public house. School assembly was in a church since that was the only space big enough to hold all the pupils seated at the same time. What was your parents' secondary education like?

As a teenager, the term had not been invented at the time, life out of school as free; a bicycle was the only means of transport for anyone and everyone I knew. The Scouts , a couple of “youth clubs” which were run by church groups, not the local authority, gave us social life outside of the family home. The radio was the only source of news and “brought in” entertainment. My parents never owned a car and even a TV set was a later arrival than for many others but they managed to scrape together enough money to buy me a record player. Every Sunday morning about ten or twelve of us, boys and girls, would gather in my parents tiny front room and we would play records and talk. I struggle to remember if this was while I was still at school or while I was an apprentice engineer. Do your parents ever talk about their young adult life?

I left school at sixteen and became an apprentice at a factory about twelve miles from home. I had to clock in at 7:30 on four mornings a week; the other weekday I attended college to study engineering. This was in addition to two nights a week evening classes. I was paid for learning, my first wage was £2. 10s and 6p a week ( In UK decimal money that is about £2.52 a week.) What was starting work like for your father and mother?

Having money and a record player, I bought records. This was a very time-consuming and social effort. A visit to “Davies” record shop, where the proprietor allowed as to listen to many records before buying one and allowed us to listen in groups while only one was buying, do not forget no television, no mobile phones in those times. Thinking now I am sure the man never made a profit but we enjoyed it. We were indulged in many ways and although we did not appreciate it at the time, it was probably because we were just coming to the age where the previous generation had been at war and so very many had died in that war, so we were indulged in a way no previous generation of young adults had been. The record shop and the youth clubs were where we met members of the opposite sex. We did not have the money for pubs and anyway the opening hours of these was very limited. How different from all of this was life for your parents?

By the time I finished my five-year apprenticeship and college I had a motorcycle, saved up for by cycling to and from work to save bus fares. Life then was dangerous but uninhibited: no out-of-town speed limits, no safety laws about what you had to wear, money (not much but spending cash) in my pocket, and friends to travel with. Jazz clubs and pubs started to be the entertainment, While the group of friends was a mix of male and female, it tended to be all friends together rather than pairs or couples. Motorcycle and motor car racing circuits were opening up, every factory had a social club and every social club had a car section. These organized events called 12 car rallies, these did not need authority approval as long as twelve or fewer entrants officially involved. I used to enter these on a motorcycle with my pipe-smoking mate as navigator on the pillion. I am sure my parents must have been fearful about my safety, riding powerful motorcycles quite recklessly, coming home late etc. but I did not realize this at the time. Have you caused your parents to worry but they never let you know this?

Cars and dates with a girl (not involving a group) came along, I started navigating in more serious car rallies, for people who could afford competitive cars. Heath and safety had started; we had to wear crash helmets on the off-road special stages. Changing jobs, accepting responsibility for decisions in the work place, discovering that I was also responsible for happiness or otherwise in others; adulthood slowly crept up on me.

How did your parents discover the burden of adulthood?

ASK THEM

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About the Creator

Peter Rose

Collections of "my" vocal essays with additions, are available as printed books ASIN 197680615 and 1980878536 also some fictional works and some e books available at Amazon;-

amazon.com/author/healthandfunpeterrose

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