This was when my oldest daughter had left the home for college, and it took getting used to. I was trying to establish a line of communication via writing since we both like to do that.
Childhood Issues
Thanks for the opportunity to contemplate and try to answer questions about things to talk about, related to the inner self. Rich topic, indeed.
When I was attending UCLA and you were a baby (2001-2003), a couple of Scientologists got to know me during the Bruin Walk, a time for fellow students to meet each other on campus; they were interested in sharing with me and potentially converting me, bringing me into their faith like I felt like I done with dozens of people till that point in my life to mine. I knew the ups and downs of attempting to share my personal beliefs with others and receiving indifference or even scorn, so I decided that I would show some interest and accept some of their lessons. After all, apart from not wanting to be hypocritical to entreat others as I would wish to be entreated, was I not in graduate school to learn?
I shared two sessions with them, and between those discussions and having purchased a 50 cent copy of Dianetics, I learned that they believed that confessing all the pains and turmoil up until the person was first conceived in the womb would help the individual become “cleared”. To be rid of all stress and angst that weighs us all down. These beliefs were founded on the teachings of their founder, L. Ron Hubbard, a person I had heard about from years before, so some of this exploration was scratching some itches that were among my curiosities from my years as a teenager. They thought, according to my understanding, that even hard times while in the mother’s womb would weigh an adult down throughout their life! So then you have to get “cleared” to be healed, essentially confess all your weighty pains of life. Apparently Tom Cruise and John Travolta had achieved this status, and this was part of their success. Success in Hollywood, a topic for another day…
I don’t know how much stresses or tendencies from early childhood tell us about ourselves. Our family was very attached to a baby that was abused so young before being with us, and I hope she is not tormented by those early months of her life all these decades later. Truly awful, abuse.
Mom would usually put you to sleep with her milk, and ever so carefully try to lay you down without you waking and wailing for more mommy’s comfort. Sometimes I could rock you to sleep and carefully lay you in your crib like you were some delicately sensitive explosive ordnance, ready to explode with any slight touch or misstep. Yeah, you would cry for comfort in the first months. I am not sure if it was from TV or a book, or some expert in person, but the advice was to let you (after maybe 5-8 months, I guess), to let you cry hard in your crib when we knew you were good and tired, and that after 10-15 minutes you would learn to go to sleep on your own. I believe an episode of “Friends” has a similar funny incident with a baby that two of the characters share. I think all parents know this feeling.
I still remember watching the door behind which you cried yourself to sleep that first real night of letting you be more independent. I recall having to assure Jen that you, and she, would live. She had a hard time letting go, which was fine for the first so many months. Of course she was the one arising 2-4 hours later to feed you again, normally in a rocking chair by your crib. Sometimes you might come into our bed, but probably not too often. And, I always felt reassured that she as a full time care taker helped your little soul that you were never truly abandoned, just that good night time meant you could lay down without our direct touch.
Driving was a chore sometimes, esp, same ecially if we forgot the binky. You would get very loud and upset without the blessed pacifier. That lasted maybe till you were 18 months? Two? And at 12 months almost to the day you rejected breast milk and went to the bottle. That was nice, neat, and kind of funny. No more of you, mama! It was a nice transition. At church you could be restless and I or mom would follow you out into the foyer, or we would at least sit at the end of the pew so you would not escape. You would try, and always there were times that you would slip under the benches and end up a few families away. I cannot remember if any of the other kids were as rambunctious as you in those early years. In L.A. the foyer had stairs and I had to make sure that you would not fall down. Up. Down. Up again. You were set to move. Like the time we lost you after church and circled the chapel many times, freaking out (especially Mom), until we found you chasing around other toddlers of slightly older ages. Whew!
More than once there would be a movie on that would upset Jennifer (not hard to do, like when the police are laying into Rambo), and you would spontaneously cry from the next room. Jen and I would look at each other like it was no accident. You were connected, I am sure of it. Same milk, same blood, same genes. It was always interesting to me when a baby got to nine months; that meant they had achieved more life outside the womb than inside. Amazing.
That is some about you.
Me as a dad has an influence, and perhaps I can provide insight there to chew on.
From 2002 to 2005 I took the foreign service exam yearly, and failed it at some level. I had thought that I was built for the State Department, but they didn’t. The lack of success or direction in things like that lead to us being in Chile, for example, where the money and work were not the sure thing of spending money on everything that came to mind. You, at that age, would daily ask for an ice cream when we lived in the peaceful town of Angol. A bar or sandwich of helado maybe cost 100-200 pesos, or better ones for 300-400. A half dollar to a dollar. I would try to explain to you sometimes that we needed to save our money to make sure we had enough for all our needs. Meanwhile, at least one if not both of my parents would scold me for troubling you about money concerns at such a young age. “I never bothered you about those things, Eddie”. However, I do remember my dad being extremely irate with me when I lost a toy plastic Mountie while in Niagara, Ontario. It was probably more the duplicated effort of purchasing the toy again, as he wound up doing. Funny how we can still feel the heat of tempers after all these years. 1976, the year was, pretty clear in my memory banks to this day!
We tried pretty hard to make you a bilingual in Spanish, but similar to a Chinese linguist that I came to know in 2012, he said his little four or five year-old finally pleaded with him: “Pae (dad), no more Portuguese, okay?” He told me this with a little tear in his eye, the language loving earnest father returned missionary from Brazil. He also spoke Hebrew and German; he wanted his oldest to at least know two growing up.
Entertainment has always been challenging. I remember you crying yourself to sleep after you saw the scary scene from I Am Legend, and me feeling guilty for terrorizing a tender mind. I have watched a lot of TV and film that is considered disturbing most of my life, and I have to compartmentalize times and places to “get away with it”, which sometimes means staying up way too late, which can also be unproductive or unhealthy for parents and children alike. Some things I have to see or witness, or experience. Some of that quandary or paradox might be explainable in My Name is Asher Lev. I feel like that book explains me, a bit. Chaim Potok really speaks to me. I have read almost all his books. I should re-read a few, too.
With sports, as obsessive and time consumed and madly entranced with so much of them as I am, at least they do not have questionable content when it comes to adult themes and violence and things for not-mature audiences, so within the worlds of sports I can feel that I am not corrupting others in my choices of entertainment as much as otherwise. Maybe simply neglecting their needs, by not sharing the same likes as theirs (people I live with) in endless games and competitions that have little meaning to the people that I share my life closely with, like animation and romances, yes, but not outright offending them with stories of war or skewed sci-fi, or crime and intrigue. I was always encouraged for your penchant for reading; I loved how you devoured both the worlds of Tollkien and Lewis. You did not have as much an interest in science fiction, at least you did read the first Star Wars book, at my behest, but Clarke and others would not hold your interest as much as fantasy. When I tried the female author that I enjoyed, McAffrey of the Dragon series, it appeared that a character living out of wedlock was too scandalous to introduce, or perhaps that was your alabi for showing little interest in the author or series. Although, that reasoning was consistent with some of the later books of L’Engle, of Wrinkle in Time fame.
Anyway, there is also the whole to-do about my history (now yours) with War and Peace, which could be psycho-analyzed one hundred and one ways, hopefully not in solitude (humor: see Garcia Marquez). Oh, 6th grade English teacher Mrs. Albright, so cute and cheery! What would you think of me now? Passing along generational guilt and laziness…
Speaking of laziness and motivation, there is a whole other ball of wax to delve into later…
But we shall broach those subjects later, ‘kay?
Thanks for sharing! Enjoy.
Love, Dadderonio
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