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Aug. 15th, 2021 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI have a lot of reading I need to write up, but right now I want to write up what I read this last week. My parents were here last week, and I spent a lot of time working (while they hung out with the kids) and hanging out with them, of course. But the main thing I was doing when I wasn't doing that (and the reason I haven't been around at all, if I owe you a comment) was betaing (and betaing and betaing and editing and proofing and typesetting -- basically making up for a year of doing some but not a whole lot on) my dad's memoirs. (The deal was that he would play with the kids while I was working on it.) His memoirs are actually really fascinating reading.
-It is a fricking miracle, actually multiple miracles, that my dad survived until adulthood, and even more miraculous that he turned out mostly functional. There are so many times when he should have just died (like, literally died: that time when his mother died when he was a couple of months old and his aunts fed him rice water because, hey, milk is white and rice water is kinda white too, and he was so malnutritioned his father poked him with his finger and the skin didn't bounce back -- or the time he would have drowned in the ocean as a kid in Korea except a boat of tourists happened to show up in the nick of time -- or that time when he was 8 and he and his friend were playing by taking turns pounding on a LIVE bazooka shell because it was just there on the ground after the Korean War (fortunately a military officer happened to be walking by and told them to stop before they triggered it; other little kids who came across live ammunition and decided to play with it were not so lucky) -- or that time as a teenager in NYC (this was after his parents kicked him out) when he was this close to dying from an infection and his home teaching companion happened to find him and also happened to be a doctor-in-training who could give him antibiotics), and even more times that he ought to have just given up or turned into something super nonfunctional.
-I complain about my parents sometimes. They're not perfect, but, like, my parents are actually really great in any number of ways, not least that I've never doubted that they really love me and want the best for me (even if we often disagree quite a lot on what "the best" is or how one gets there). My dad's father and stepmother (his mother died when he was a couple of months old) were... basically just completely and utterly awful. Well, my dad was never physically or sexually abused (even spanked, the lack of which was apparently not typical), but that's pretty much ALL you can say about them. (He was basically not given any parental warmth or support -- probably they didn't spank him because they could not have cared less -- he was farmed out to other relatives (in extremely poor living conditions) for years at a time (multiple times), and finally kicked out of the house at age 17. We are all pretty sure they didn't love him at all.) I mean, I knew this well, just, after reading it all in one place I know it more, and there are lots of little details I didn't know, like the farming out multiple times (I had sort of conflated them all into one time).
(Yes, Frederician fandom, this is another example of therapy-by-memoir. Dad has never been to therapy and never will, but I think writing this all out -- and, probably, equally, seeing his family read it -- has been therapeutic and validating for him.)
-His stepmother S. was a Piece of Work (again, something we have always known) and his memoir makes it clear how badly she treated him. But then we get passages like this, which happened when my dad was 6 (he had lived with his grandmother until then) [YS is my dad's older sister, my grandfather's oldest child]:
...I mean, it's not exactly a secret in our family either (at least my nuclear family) that my dad's father was a piece of crap too. (My dad's memoir makes it clear that we owe him something for being the first in his family to have a sense of education being the key to success... but that's about the only thing.) But, yeah, if you read between the lines, S., while she absolutely does not get a pass for treating YS and my dad like utter crap (which she did her whole life, even after they came to the US and were reasonably secure), had a life that was... not great. Therapy for everyone, yeah.
-My sister edited some of this before she got sick and had to stop. It is kind of hilarious because the voice will sometimes change from my dad's voice to a voice which sounds to my ear much more like a 21st-century American. (Not always, to be fair -- I like a number of her edits. But sometimes...)
I got about halfway through; fortunately, I expect the second half to take less long because a) I have now done most of the wrestling with Microsoft Word (GAH) b) I've actually done an editing pass on the second half already (I hadn't even ever read the first half before). I don't know when I'll do the rest. I'd really like to do it soon if I can, because there is a LOT of redundancy (it is really clear where my inability to communicate things in a straight line came from) and I have to filter all that out, which is easier to do if I do it all at once.
-It is a fricking miracle, actually multiple miracles, that my dad survived until adulthood, and even more miraculous that he turned out mostly functional. There are so many times when he should have just died (like, literally died: that time when his mother died when he was a couple of months old and his aunts fed him rice water because, hey, milk is white and rice water is kinda white too, and he was so malnutritioned his father poked him with his finger and the skin didn't bounce back -- or the time he would have drowned in the ocean as a kid in Korea except a boat of tourists happened to show up in the nick of time -- or that time when he was 8 and he and his friend were playing by taking turns pounding on a LIVE bazooka shell because it was just there on the ground after the Korean War (fortunately a military officer happened to be walking by and told them to stop before they triggered it; other little kids who came across live ammunition and decided to play with it were not so lucky) -- or that time as a teenager in NYC (this was after his parents kicked him out) when he was this close to dying from an infection and his home teaching companion happened to find him and also happened to be a doctor-in-training who could give him antibiotics), and even more times that he ought to have just given up or turned into something super nonfunctional.
-I complain about my parents sometimes. They're not perfect, but, like, my parents are actually really great in any number of ways, not least that I've never doubted that they really love me and want the best for me (even if we often disagree quite a lot on what "the best" is or how one gets there). My dad's father and stepmother (his mother died when he was a couple of months old) were... basically just completely and utterly awful. Well, my dad was never physically or sexually abused (even spanked, the lack of which was apparently not typical), but that's pretty much ALL you can say about them. (He was basically not given any parental warmth or support -- probably they didn't spank him because they could not have cared less -- he was farmed out to other relatives (in extremely poor living conditions) for years at a time (multiple times), and finally kicked out of the house at age 17. We are all pretty sure they didn't love him at all.) I mean, I knew this well, just, after reading it all in one place I know it more, and there are lots of little details I didn't know, like the farming out multiple times (I had sort of conflated them all into one time).
(Yes, Frederician fandom, this is another example of therapy-by-memoir. Dad has never been to therapy and never will, but I think writing this all out -- and, probably, equally, seeing his family read it -- has been therapeutic and validating for him.)
-His stepmother S. was a Piece of Work (again, something we have always known) and his memoir makes it clear how badly she treated him. But then we get passages like this, which happened when my dad was 6 (he had lived with his grandmother until then) [YS is my dad's older sister, my grandfather's oldest child]:
When we arrived at my father’s house, my father and my new stepmother came out of their house to greet us. I was intimidated and was afraid to go close to my father and his new wife. My father introduced his mother and YS to his new wife. “This is my mother and my daughter YS, as I told you.”
S curiously then asked her husband, “Who is that boy?”
My father hesitated and looked away from his wife.
Then S said, “You told me that you just had a daughter.”
...I mean, it's not exactly a secret in our family either (at least my nuclear family) that my dad's father was a piece of crap too. (My dad's memoir makes it clear that we owe him something for being the first in his family to have a sense of education being the key to success... but that's about the only thing.) But, yeah, if you read between the lines, S., while she absolutely does not get a pass for treating YS and my dad like utter crap (which she did her whole life, even after they came to the US and were reasonably secure), had a life that was... not great. Therapy for everyone, yeah.
-My sister edited some of this before she got sick and had to stop. It is kind of hilarious because the voice will sometimes change from my dad's voice to a voice which sounds to my ear much more like a 21st-century American. (Not always, to be fair -- I like a number of her edits. But sometimes...)
I got about halfway through; fortunately, I expect the second half to take less long because a) I have now done most of the wrestling with Microsoft Word (GAH) b) I've actually done an editing pass on the second half already (I hadn't even ever read the first half before). I don't know when I'll do the rest. I'd really like to do it soon if I can, because there is a LOT of redundancy (it is really clear where my inability to communicate things in a straight line came from) and I have to filter all that out, which is easier to do if I do it all at once.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-19 04:39 am (UTC)