It also makes one realize how hard it must be to break from repressive or abusive families. It takes real courage to throw out all you know to seek a better life. It took a lot of experience for me to understand how people could stay with abusive partners or hide their identities from parents that aren't understanding.
i accidentally unsubscribed, but i am back. you are a charming pair of writers. and as an immigrant (at 3 years old) with a father whose exception proved the rule, i appreciate your remarks.
compelling to learn that this Substack is a family affair.
Yes, it is all so true Evgenia - thank you! And forgetting this we lose our самостоянье (what would be this Pushkin’s word in English?) replacing it with public narrative. Btw, did you read the memoirs of Andrey Tarkovsky’s sister Marina Осколки зеркала? https://imwerden.de/pdf/tarkovskaya_oskolki_zerkala_2006__ocr.pdf
You describe +/- my own trajectory through parentdom and learning, clan-osmosis and the bewilderment of trying to comprehend another’s. I imagine this is the story of the immigrant, always -- awash in cultures and expectations and norms that have no mold inside for the cast (lock/key, antigen/antibody).
I’ve always wondered why it takes so long — often until procreation, to recognize these inherent ties. And what it means for those who never do procreate, either by choice or otherwise. Some of the extended realization is, sure, the fault of American individualism-ideology myth. Some of it’s maybe what “growing up” means, working out your own individual “place”?
The trick, seems to me, is how to incorporate awareness of grounding, roots and history, into an advanced new. You get pulled back, as a new mother, into the past but your task is to shepherd this one forward into a constructive improvement. Just like, as another commenter remarked, it gives wide-eyed appreciation of the difficulty breaking from past abuse, we have to enable the next gen to progress even recognizing the stickiness of the past. That is the promise of the new world even if the myth of individualism is …confused.
I inherited shame, guilt and morals from my family. They are fundamentalist Christian types - I stopped believing that in middle school but that eventually helped me understand why religion keeps people from going insane. (and that the majority of people believe in undefinable "spirituality". Atheists are actually rare. )
Your daughter is very lucky you recognize your power. We're inevitably a product of parents in so many ways, nature and nurture, sometimes in the least expected combinations (there's a whole ology for it). Yet I also think my late mother might caution underestimating the capacity of one's individual to emerge as their own individual, walk away permanently from the world of their parents, and beware that the apron strings can clap back hard when they come loose. Maybe my American glasses are too thick, but it seems "I" can punch higher than a mere illusion. I also feel like I might have no business leaving this comment and I definitely blame that on my parents.
I'm stuck in a hotel in a blizzard and closed highways. In what seems a stroke of synchronicity, while channel surfing and remembering why I don't have cable TV anymore, I landed on TCM channel that was showing "Lady for a Day". I'd never heard of it before and got totally sucked into its cute, campy, fairy tale story.
It also makes one realize how hard it must be to break from repressive or abusive families. It takes real courage to throw out all you know to seek a better life. It took a lot of experience for me to understand how people could stay with abusive partners or hide their identities from parents that aren't understanding.
i accidentally unsubscribed, but i am back. you are a charming pair of writers. and as an immigrant (at 3 years old) with a father whose exception proved the rule, i appreciate your remarks.
compelling to learn that this Substack is a family affair.
Thank you for speaking eloquently and clearly about
the role of family and family history on the development of an individual. Cultivation,Pursuit and reaction.
Reminds me of Sapolsky’s latest book ‘Determined’ on the fantasy of free will.
Yes, it is all so true Evgenia - thank you! And forgetting this we lose our самостоянье (what would be this Pushkin’s word in English?) replacing it with public narrative. Btw, did you read the memoirs of Andrey Tarkovsky’s sister Marina Осколки зеркала? https://imwerden.de/pdf/tarkovskaya_oskolki_zerkala_2006__ocr.pdf
Thank you so much again,
Ваш Саша
You describe +/- my own trajectory through parentdom and learning, clan-osmosis and the bewilderment of trying to comprehend another’s. I imagine this is the story of the immigrant, always -- awash in cultures and expectations and norms that have no mold inside for the cast (lock/key, antigen/antibody).
I’ve always wondered why it takes so long — often until procreation, to recognize these inherent ties. And what it means for those who never do procreate, either by choice or otherwise. Some of the extended realization is, sure, the fault of American individualism-ideology myth. Some of it’s maybe what “growing up” means, working out your own individual “place”?
The trick, seems to me, is how to incorporate awareness of grounding, roots and history, into an advanced new. You get pulled back, as a new mother, into the past but your task is to shepherd this one forward into a constructive improvement. Just like, as another commenter remarked, it gives wide-eyed appreciation of the difficulty breaking from past abuse, we have to enable the next gen to progress even recognizing the stickiness of the past. That is the promise of the new world even if the myth of individualism is …confused.
I inherited shame, guilt and morals from my family. They are fundamentalist Christian types - I stopped believing that in middle school but that eventually helped me understand why religion keeps people from going insane. (and that the majority of people believe in undefinable "spirituality". Atheists are actually rare. )
Your daughter is very lucky you recognize your power. We're inevitably a product of parents in so many ways, nature and nurture, sometimes in the least expected combinations (there's a whole ology for it). Yet I also think my late mother might caution underestimating the capacity of one's individual to emerge as their own individual, walk away permanently from the world of their parents, and beware that the apron strings can clap back hard when they come loose. Maybe my American glasses are too thick, but it seems "I" can punch higher than a mere illusion. I also feel like I might have no business leaving this comment and I definitely blame that on my parents.
I'm stuck in a hotel in a blizzard and closed highways. In what seems a stroke of synchronicity, while channel surfing and remembering why I don't have cable TV anymore, I landed on TCM channel that was showing "Lady for a Day". I'd never heard of it before and got totally sucked into its cute, campy, fairy tale story.