Huckleberries Online

High Noon: Did You Turn Out All Right?

Posted by DFO

Feb. 23, 2009 11:59 a.m. • 19 comments

The thread launched below from Bill Hall’s “Flying Farmer On Frozen Pond” prompted JeanieSpokane to post the following comment: “What would (or do) your parents think of your life choices and career today?” (I remember crying on my mother’s shoulder when I was about 35, over something bad that happened, and her remark was (sad to me, today) “why don’t children ever grow up?” I think she would finally be proud of how I turned out.)

Question: Would your parents be proud of the way you turned out?

19 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

BrandonHansen on February 23 at 12:19 p.m.
I’m pretty sure they cringe every time I tell them I passed up a date to go to a Spokane Chiefs game.

Brandon Hansen
Just South of North
www.justsouthofnorth.com
scootermom on February 23 at 12:28 p.m.
My parents expected me to get married and have kids. I went to law school instead. I have a great career and am proud of the work I’ve done to challenge stupid laws and change public policy.

I think they’re proud, although they don’t understand what I do or why I do it. I know they’re disappointed that they aren’t grandparents.

Sorry, mom.
Escapee on February 23 at 1:04 p.m.
I never really had my Dad’s approval on anything, and of course, Mom had to back up dad. I’m sure he’d hate me now at this point in life. I don’t much care.
Escapee on February 23 at 1:06 p.m.
It’s not that kids don’t grow up…it’s that mothers never stop being mothers, which can be a good thing or not. My Mom always really cared about me, and when my life took a stumble, she suffered along with me. Dad just got madder and madder.
Bent on February 23 at 1:19 p.m.
(somehow this post wound up in the wildcard thread. I thought I was posting it here).

I was interviewed on public radio last week and my Dad heard it broacast in Tri Cities on his way to work. He called me up to say it gave him goose bumps to hear his son on the radio.

He told me he was proud of me… (that gave me goose bumps).
JeanieSpokane on February 23 at 2:27 p.m.
“It’s not that kids don’t grow up…it’s that mothers never stop being mothers” | Escapee.

You are right - I will never stop being a mother, even though my boys are in their mid-30s. I like to think, though, that I learned from my own mother, to be much more forgiving and not let MY expectations cloud my vision of what THEIR expectations are. I’ve made it a point to tell them (a lot) how proud I am of them.
JohnA on February 23 at 4:05 p.m.
My folks placed a ton of expectations on their six kids, like getting a college education and staying out of trouble. We all achieved the first and have mostly achieved the second.

The great thing about my folks, now going on 62 years together, is they have always heaped lavish praise on us when we did well and mentioned it not at all when we didn’t. That’s the key to life I’ve learned from them. Don’t dwell on the negatives but focus instead on all that’s good and right with people, especially if they happen to be your loved ones.
Liz on February 24 at 1:34 a.m.
It has taken my mother until I am 48 years old to express some approval of my life choices. Having raised two decent human beings I think has been a major factor in negating some of the stuff that I never did well enough to make her feel OK about herself..It’s still a bit of a sore point…
marmitetoasty on February 24 at 3:39 a.m.
My parents never lived to be proud of me….. not that they were proud of me when they was alive LOL…..

Im proud of myself…… and thats good enough for me..

x
Kendramama on February 24 at 8:11 a.m.
I have never been closer to my parents- or all of my family, for that matter- than I am right now. It’s absolutely fabulous.

I think they never actually stopped believing in me, never lost hope, even though for years I isolated myself from them while in the worst stages of my addiction… my dad, in particular, a gruff and not very demonstrative guy, said that he would get choked up every time he heard the Eagles’ song “Desperado”. He said he still thinks of that as “my song”.

And my mom, well, you said it, Idaho Escapee- moms never stop loving you. Now that I am one, I totally understand.

So yeah, all those years I told myself I could care less about anyone’s opinion of me, that I was just a modern-day Gypsy who wasn’t running from anything, just exploring the world… all that melted away bit by bit, every time I would see the pride in my parents’ eyes after leaping one hurdle after another, cleaning up my train wreck of a life and becoming a wife, mother, and actual daughter. I love it!

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.