Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less. – William Shakespeare, King Lear (I,i)
Perceptive long-time readers have probably noticed that while I mention my mother and sisters from time to time and my grandmother and favorite cousin quite frequently, I’ve barely mentioned my father at all. Some of you may have concluded that he was largely absent from my life for one reason or another, but that would not be the case; it’s just that I honestly don’t have a lot to say about him. But since today is Father’s Day in the United States and many other countries, I thought I would take the opportunity to provide you with a brief sketch. Though I’ll speak of him in the past tense because it’s been 15 years since I’ve seen him, he and my mother are both still alive and still reside in the same house where I grew up.
If I were less objective, I would say my father was hard and standoffish, but that would not really be true; while he was traditionally paternal and often trapped in very rigid thought patterns, that was no more true of him than it was of other men of his generation and background. He was in fact much warmer than his younger brother and several of his contemporary cousins, and though I never met his father (who died in 1960), Maman told me that he was very cold toward his sons; he was an intellectual who married late, and other people I’ve talked to about him (such as my aunt) have said that they believe the only reason he got married in the first place was because that was what an established man was expected to do in the 1930s. Given this upbringing, I’d say my father was actually a bit on the demonstrative side, though he sometimes had trouble showing it.
My father was always very devoted to my mother; I honestly feel that he’s always been very much in love with her, and since he was not a very verbal person he expressed it the same way he expressed affection to us or Maman: by doing things. He would cheerfully embark on major landscaping or construction projects, and never made me feel I was imposing if I asked him to help me with something; the only drawback was that he is the one from whom I inherited my hardheadedness, and if he was to be involved in a project it would be done his way or not at all. I think these characteristics were what caused him to be less affectionate to me than to my first and third sisters; his rigidity prevented him from understanding my strangeness, his tendency to be non-verbal made it difficult for us to relate, and his devotion to my mother caused him to absorb a lot of her attitude toward me.
So though I never felt rejected by my father exactly, I never really felt accepted by him either; like my mother, he never quite seemed to know what to do with me. The two preferred sisters were both tomboys who were much like my mother in personality, so that gave him a point of contact with them; my brother and other sister had an amiable if not especially close relationship with him. When I was young we often watched shows together: we both enjoyed The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and other nature documentaries, and he was a big Star Trek fan (I never heard him laugh so hard as he did at a rerun of “A Piece of the Action” in the late ‘70s). Indeed, Star Trek was the subject of the first of only two intellectual discussions I can ever recall having with him, a 1988 conversation in which he stated that he felt the characters in The Next Generation lacked the appeal and chemistry of those in the original series. He and I were in agreement on that, but six years later argued about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War after I referred to the facilities in which they were held as “concentration camps”.
But for the most part our interaction was limited to discipline, his telling me I wasn’t doing my chores quickly enough for his liking, my asking him for permission to do this or that (because he was more permissive than my mother), or his chastising me for upsetting my mother (which happened quite frequently in high school). Other than that, he seemed more distant with every passing year, and I remember how very strange it felt to walk down the aisle with him at my wedding; we had been growing apart for so long that I didn’t really feel that I was his to give away any more (even in the modern social sense, much less the traditional patriarchal sense). So it’s not remotely surprising he upheld my mother’s decision not to speak with me any more, though I sometimes wonder if he actually knows the reason or just went along with it without question.
I fully realize that in publishing this I am opening the door for prohibitionists to proclaim that I became a whore due to “daddy issues”, thus proving that all whores are mentally unbalanced, blah blah blah. I’m not worried about it; people like that will twist whatever they have to fit their model, and if they don’t have anything to twist they’ll just make stuff up. Did my teenage promiscuity result from a lack of attention from my father? Possibly, but what difference does it make? We all have childhood troubles, traumas and tragedies, and we are all shaped by them; if we as a society are going to deny agency and free choice to individuals on that basis, absolutely nobody will have free choice. Ultimately, the hidden currents and tendencies which pushed me toward harlotry are no more germane than those which push others into politics, medicine, science, music, teaching or being a professional busybody, and any given individual’s choices are nobody’s business but his or her own.
One Year Ago Today
“Speaking in Prostitute” examines the misunderstandings which arise when whores and amateurs attempt to have a dialog.
I don’t think your Dad is really any different than my Dad was – or the kind of Dad I’ve been to my kids. I don’t see any “Daddy Issues” in anything you described. The relationship between parents (especially Dads) and their kids is complicated for everyone – I really don’t think the relationship you’ve described is any more complicated than most. You do have the special circumstance of being “shunned” by your Mom, and by extension your Dad – but that happened well after you were an adult.
I think it’s actually impressive and says a lot of him when you say he appears to still love your Mom.
Dads are just hard – especially “Southern” Dads. I remember thinking, when I was in High School – “Gee, if my Dad had an accident and died today – I don’t even think I would cry about it”. That really upset me, he was a “lovey dovey” guy and didn’t express a lot of emotion to me. He never said “I love you” – though he says it all the time now. My Dad was a tough guy and it was weakness to express that kind of emotion – and I learned it from him, although I always have made a particular effort to tell all my kids I loved them.
My Dad was beaten with a razor strap, and one time a bull whip by his father when he got out of line. It was always an organized punishment though – very professionally administered – yet still excruciating. He used to beat me – three strokes with a belt. I have never, not a single time, beaten any of my kids and I’m much happier with the result. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t a hard ass though. I can do magic with a “stink eye” … my Dad was a short French man – I’m 6’2″ and pushing 230 pounds (if the goddamn cooks on this trip will feed me right – which is another issue) … so it really only ever took a “look” from me to get my kid’s attention.
My kids love me – but I don’t have the relationship with them that my wife does. This is just life though – this is one of the few benefits women enjoy for all the pain we men cause them – they get the unflinching love of their offspring.
If I did anything for my kids, I was THERE. I supported them, put them on the right track as best I could and showed them how real men should behave toward their families. Doesn’t mean I’m perfect and doesn’t mean I haven’t had my slip ups – I have had them and still do. But those slip ups have never impacted my family life.
In the end – I think is about the most a father can do given the field he’s playing on. It’s what my Dad did, and I know he wasn’t perfect but I’m good with that – cuz, neither am I.
I DO hope that you one day reach some kind of common ground with your parents though. You seem to have a wonderful life – yeah, you complicate the hell out of it with all the stuff you do! LOL … but I think you deserve a happy ending with your folks. I think you will get it too.
Honestly, I think we’re probably at the happiest ground we can be. From what my sister tells me my parents are enjoying their retirement, and they have four “good” kids, three sons-in-law (my brother never married) and eight (I think) grandchildren to preside over; since the oldest grandson is 25 and married there will be great-grandchildren soon. In that mixture, I would be superfluous; I’m sure the kids just think of me as the “crazy aunt” nobody talks about.
“Superfluous” – is an odd concept for me to grasp when it comes to family. I think everyone has a role in a family and everyone is needed.
Now – i KNOW that I’m thought of as the “crazy uncle”. I remember one of my brother’s kids asking me some questions about my life on submarines and my Mom interrupted him saying … “Don’t ask your Uncle Krulac any question unless you’re prepared for the brutal truth!!”
I’m pretty sure my Mom knows about my younger “whoring” days and knows about the hooker I fell for because I believe “Cat” – one of my old girlfriends, told her. I’ve defended sex workers, expressed my admiration for pole dancing, argued for decriminalizing drugs and allowing home distillation of spirits so I’m sure my family believes I’ve either engaged in or passively participated in all of the above.
But when the shit hits the fan, Maggie – and someone violates a “prohibition” or “taboo” and no one can think straight – they call me for advice.
I just KNOW that someone with your kind of mind – who’s as knowledgeable of the real world as you are – would be an asset in any family. The “strange one” is a role I cherish anyway. They all look at me and just know that no matter how much they know about the things I’ve seen and done – they only know a tiny piece of it all and there is so much mystery they don’t know about. What’s funnier – I’d probably tell them most of it if they asked but they’re too scared to!! I “groove” on that because I could write a book about my brother’s lives and get just about every detail correct – no mystery in them at all.
I can’t say I know too much about fathers. Mine left about the time I was born. He was a sailor, and lived in Australia. His parents had emigrated there from Scotland in the early 1950’s. After he left, he totally ignored me, and what I know of him is from connections my relatives had with his.
My grandfather was really more like a father to me than anyone. He was the one who raised me, really. He was a quiet, intelligent, kind man. Very British middle class, very reserved. My mother had been rebellious, running off to play rock and roll, rather than “proper music”. (Early sixties, UK, every kid wanted to start a band, go to the States, and become famous. My mom tried that.)
My step dad was an odd guy. He was American, and served in the US Army during the Korean war, and was stationed in Germany. He says he never really had much to do, and spent time then, and after his service bumming through Europe. He came back to the states convinced that the “Establishment” had it all wrong. He made up his mind to stay free. He was willing to work quite hard, but refused to work regular jobs, or “for the man”. I’d say he was always more “beatnik” than hippie.
When I ended up living with him, and my mom, it didn’t go well. I wasn’t wanted. And to be fair, there I was, a 13 year old in a strange place with people I didn’t know, not fitting in, and you know what 13 year old girls can be like in those circumstances. Basically, I was on my own. I never had curfews, was never told I couldn’t do this or that. The basic rule was don’t be around, and don’t piss off step dad. So I became very used to just making it up a I went, no rules, and to doing for myself, and being suspicious of the system. Oddly enough, when my family learned of my porn acting, it was step dad who reacted the worst, telling me never to come around or contact him again.
But I learned/gained something from all these men- My bio-dad’s wanderlust, my Grandfather’s intellectual curiosity. and my step dad’s drive for freedom and independence.
As for the prohibitionists, well, they are like so many wanting to make things complicated. My work decisions weren’t father issues, but really came down to one thing- I could make lots more money, and live better, stripping than waiting tables.
This is one of the many reasons that as dictatrix I would require a class in logic and critical thinking at about 13 years old. The world would be a far better place if more people were acquainted with William of Occam and his handy razor.
I personally would have thought that prohibitionists would prefer it if this were simple. All black and white morals with the occasional grey area when it suits them. Oh, and lots and lots of boxes to put people in.
My kids clearly think that Fathers’ Day is nothing more than a Hallmark Holiday.
I definitely think your dad is like 99% of men of his generation. Emotionally reserved, demonstrated his affection through helpful acts, etc. He sure sounds like my grandfather.
That’s kind of how my dad is, too. When we talk on the phone he ends the call with “well, talk to you later, bye, love you [immediately hangs up]”. It’s funny but definitely sweet, too.
(And there’s nothing wrong with calling what we forced Japanese Americans into “concentration camps”. Most historians think the first such camps were invented by Americans to hold Indians, and the term itself dates from the US occupation of the Philippines.)
Germans and Italians were also interned during WW2, although obviously not on the same scale as the Japanese.
Cultural differences and great “unknowns” – is why Japanese were treated differently – along with the fact that (a) the Japanese attacked us (the Germans and Italians never did and it’s rumored Hitler was just as surprised as Roosevelt when he learned of the Japanese attack). And (b) the Japanese were known for especially brutal occupations – so people were playing for “keeps”.
Yes, they were “concentration camps” however – they weren’t concentration camps of the same class that “Auschwitz” was.
What you had here – was basically the American homeland attacked with devastating effect which basically destroyed the Pacific Fleet. There was a solid belief that the Japanese could invade California. The “Rape of Nanking” was widely known and no one wanted those horrors to be visited on American civilians in their own homeland. Couple this with the fact that, compared to Western culture – which places more of a premium on individuality – the Japanese culture placed a premium on subservience and loyalty to culture. No one here knew to what extent the Japanese-Americans would adhere to these traditions.
Hindsight is 20-20, were I raised in the 1920’s / 30’s, had no access to an internet or international travel – and faced with the same circumstances I would have ordered them “detained” also. Then again – I don’t fuck around when it comes to security because I’ve seen Americans killed by the bad guys and I know the story of history is completely a story about aggressive cultures taking advantage of passive ones. I’ll take the aggressor role, thank you – not that I’m happy with it but I’d rather have my boot on someone else’s neck than to have theirs on mine. Anyone who thinks there’s a “middle ground” – is fooling themselves and you just need to be a student of history to realize this. We haven’t reached the point of mutual respect on this planet yet (someday maybe) – until then, it’s the wolves and sheep.
I wan’t to argue with you, but I can’t and won’t. Rape of Nanking, Burma Railway, I’ve often wondered that had Hiroshima/Nagasaki not happened the Japs would have been dealt the same treatment from us that the invading Russian armies did to the east Germans.
It’s fine to disagree – I’m only stating my opinion and I respect those of others – even if they are contrary to my own.
In my mind – there was no excuse for the Rape of Nanking, or the Bataan Death March, or the attrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army throughout the Pacific theater in WWII. All of these attrocities have one thing in common – racism. They viewed other races as subhuman and were not only willing to rob them of their liberty – but also their dignity and lives. So, although we can whip ourselves for our own treatment of Japanese Americans – that treatment was pale in comparison to the systemic racism demonstrated by the Japanese during that war and there is no way one can argue otherwise.
I read something when I was a very young man and it has stuck with me throughout my life. It was “The World of Epictetus” – an essay by Admiral James Stockdale – who’s mostly known for being Ross Perot’s buffoon running mate for the Presidency in 1992. However, Stockdale was no “buffoon” – but a very educated and very good Sailor and former POW.
He wrote this in his essay (which can be found here …
http://www.yorktech.com/l-tool/Secure/The%20World%20of%20Epictetus_Stockdale.pdf
The reason i still remember this essay is I still read it often – because I’m in the last category that he describes here – a man with “a little knowledge” – at least, that is where I started out years ago. It’s not a category I wanted to be in. Yes, the US has done some bad things – but on balance, compared with everything else that’s transpired on this god forsaken planet – and compared to all the other alternatives – we are STILL the best bet on the table.
Whoa, easy tiger. I was agreeing with your earlier post, even though I found it hard to swallow. One of those lesser of two (w)evils situations.
As long as one aknowledges the risk of “A Little Knowledge”, it’s a decent transitional point.
It’s when you halt the learning curve there that the real danger arises.
Methinks you got that angle well covered, big guy. 😎
I’ve been on this massive and very depressing read through of the holocaust and yes, the internment camps were concentrations camps. But Auschwitz and its fellows were actually exterminations camps, not concentration camps.
The Nazi concentration camps were overcrowded and under supplied versions of Japanese internment camps, that were also guarded by sadistic Nazis.
But if the Nazis wanted to kill someone, they’d shoot the person, or send them to an extermination camp. At the actual concentration camps there were no dedicated killing facilities. (If they did they would be called death camps.)
So calling the internment camps concentration camps is correct, it implies that they lacked sufficient food, medical supplies and sanitation to support the number of people there and operated alongside camps designed to murder the inmates.
There were serious issues with the camps, but not genocide level ones.
I had always heard that the term “concentration camp” dates from the Second Boer War, which was at the same time as the Philippine-American Warl
But I agree with Maggie — the US was concentrating Japanese-American civilians in camps… exactly what a concentration camp is.
A PoW camp is a concentration camp, too — prisoners of war are concentrated there.
According to Wikipedia, concentration camps date back to the 18th century.
My dad and his siblings had an incredibly hard upbringing – all of them were taken into care due to neglect and as a result, there’s a half of my extended family that I’ve never heard from.
As a result I think my dad’s never felt ‘comfortable’ around new people for extended periods of time so he’s very anxious. I think this and other reasons probably made me an introvert. Without my dad though, I’d never have developed a respect for wildlife, the sea and history.
– Classes in logic and thinking beginning at 13?
Why not earlier.
I remember the Dalai Lama telling in a lecture (about twenty years ago) how his own education began at age 5 with the fundamentals of logic, first in practical application, followed by abstract exercises. I would have loved to sit in on some of those first sessions! In his lecture he argued that understanding of life, suffering, spirituality, sentient behavior, and the application of compassion, non-judgement, and kindness are (very) difficult without the help of logic. I think he has a point there. Interesting that a charismatic spiritual leader and peace promotor is a respected scholar of neuroscience.
– Becoming a whore because of “daddy issues” (or any other childhood / adolescence issues that happened on the parents’ watch).
Ah! Blame arguments!
They come up in our culture because whoredom is considered wrong, pitiful, lamentable, socially useless, sinful, et cetera, and a balanced person growing up in a balanced milieu would never need to “escape” in the gruesome reality of harlotry.
Does society use such blame arguments also when kids fail or become unhappy in respectable trades that were forced upon them by parents?
Coming from an old-fashioned Catholic milieu I know dozens of cases where (first-born) sons and daughters were destined from birth to become priests and nuns not of free choice but of “daddy and mommy issues”. Daddy and / or mommy believed this “sacrifice” was their obligation to God and the Church.
This relentless recipe for “interment in life” (Gabriel García Márquez) is nothing but parental abuse out of serious ignorance and parents should be held accountable, at least by history and moral indignation.
This clerical trade was and still is being forced upon legions of defenseless youngsters. Because of “parental issues” their lifelong unhappiness is often immeasurable. Because of “parental issues” too many are sexually abused during their training years and later too many turn into sexual abusers. Yes, their ignorance makes them accountable, but to what extent are they? Isn’t this old tradition a demonstrable form of “child trafficking” with potentially insufferable sexual consequences? (I came away unscathed more through luck than skill.)
Shouldn’t we blame “daddy and mommy issues” here, and give a medal of honor and wisdom to parents who happen to raise children for the honorable profession of whoredom? All things considered, the efforts of sex workers have a predominantly healthy impact on their clients.
“Life has us.” (Marguerite Yourcenar). Indeed!
My dad and I had a very good relationship until I was about 16 years old. That is when I rejected the “one-drop rule”, which he seems to hold as some sort of official law and personal psalm (although these days he seems to be letting go of that). But even then, it became the subject we didn’t talk about. Where we truly disagreed was religion. My father was robbed at gunpoint and pistol-whipped, which is obviously a significant trauma. After that he became born-again. This always confused me because he was always a church-goer but something in him I guess felt as though he wasn’t part of the “correct” denomination. So instead of continuing his attendance at our Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches (though I was attending mass at the Catholic church my best friend attended more often), he went Bible-thumping, “everyone else is wrong but us” Baptist. Gag me with a frakin’ spoon.
Maman was always very liberal as far as religions. When my brother started questioning the church and didn’t want to go, she was fine with that. They had a talk but she never forced him. Same with me. We went with my father to this new church of his (which he still attends) to, you know, support him. The pastor (whose creds I seriously question) spent the entire sermon talking about how wrong other denominations are primarily because they don’t spend all frakin’ day at church. And this was on Father’s Day; shouldn’t his sermon have been about, you know, fatherhood? There’s lots to draw from in the Good Book!
Needless to say, it turned the rest of us off. And from then on, my family and I have been distant from him. He went from being fairly open-minded and fun-loving and enjoying damn near every holiday there is, to only listening to gospel (ughhh) music, only reading the Bible and other books by religious shysters (including one serious book on “demonology”. Yeah, I’m done), becoming anti-gay (despite the fact that his favorite nephew was FLAMING gay), and refusing to celebrate Halloween because all of a sudden “it’s the devil’s holiday”. Everything for him revolves around that church. The brainwashing that occurs at this church is disturbing.
As some of you know, my father was killed in Vietnam in 1969. Valentine’s Day. I’m told we got along well, though of course I don’t actually remember.
My mother remarried, but it didn’t turn out well. Many years later, she again married, and that’s turned out quite well. I was in my late teens, so it wasn’t easy to get used to the idea that this new guy is daddy. About half the time I still call him by his nickname, and the other half I call him Dad. We get along great, in part because I’m not living at home having to accept somebody in a role I haven’t had to accept from anybody.
I’m not a father myself, and never will be. If I fathered a child now, I’d be collecting Social Security before the kid left for college.
Maggie, your description of how your father expressed his love by doing things for people, but wasn’t big on talking about it, reminds me of the older brother of somebody I know. Somebody like this can love greatly, but sometimes you’re glad you have a sweetie for the emotional support stuff.