meh....in 14 years of racing, my mother has been to the track once to see it. my father, who now lives 5-6 hours from vir has been there prolly 3 or 4 times. when he lived in maryland, he and i made the trip to loudon i think 2 times. and im talking overnight drives after racing all day, packing up, and heading home, leaving the track at 7pm. im not saying hes a shining example of fatherhood, but he was a real trooper when it came to going to the track. much more than i would have expected from anyone but another racer. summit is 90 mins away from my moms house.
Wow, there is another person with a f_^k-uped family just like mine. I am still debating to forgive or not after 40 years. David
Moms re-married to a totally cool guy who treated me and her with absolute respect, and lived the rest of her life out in bliss despite passing from cancer eight years ago. My "real" Dad died in 1975 from cirrhosis of the liver at age 35, not unsurprisingly. I was just a kid. Started off bad, turned out wonderfully. From all bad to all good. :up: -jim
jim, it makes you question how and why people get involved. but thats awesome. my parents finally divorced at 7. dad was sleeping with a barmaid before that. they are actually still married. i think they eloped. city cop. did a lot of drinking. i remember seeing weapons around the house as a young young kid. there was always shooting at his house growing up. guns, cars, dirtbikes.... dad was military also. airborne. he could scare the living crap out of us kids. he could be a mean mofo. up til about 15 years ago, he could still pretty easily hand many guys half his age their asses in a fight. and he did every once in a while. he knocked my mom up when she was a sr in hs. raised catholic. catholic hs. she is a bit younger then he is. they gave my older brother up for adoption. my mom went away to "visit relatives in wisonsin" for the summer to deliver him. when i was born, my father was participating in military exercises at ft benning. he missed my birthday. baggage much? haha.
oh...hears another great piece. growing up we had a family dog. "pj". they named my older brother patric joseph. so they named they dog after him.
Well, his response did kick your dick in the dirt and should shut you up for about 6 minutes. SCHOOLED!!!!
my dad broke my jaw, broke pool sticks over my back, threw me through a window, beat me bloody and purple countless times. He was a hardcore drug addict and drunk when i was growing up. I fucking hated him growing up but somehow we got passed it and I loved him. When he died there was no hate. I felt a sense of catharsis
It is what it is. If somebody is in my life, family or friends, they are there because I want them there. If I don't like somebody, I wont have anything to do with them. It doesn't make a shit to me who it is. I have no time for drama or bullshit and will tell anybody to fuckoff and be done with them if I feel it is needed. I haven't spoken to my mom in probably 8 years.
When someone does/says something appalling do you just sit there and say nothing? My folks didn't teach me to do that.
My parents weren't perfect. Neither were their kids. They did the best they could and we knew they loved us. Clarity came when I realized they didn't know any more about raising me when I was born than I did when my daughter was.
I had no love for my folks, they made a mockery of parenthood. Both were alcoholics. Everything I did as a kid, i.e. little league baseball ect. I did alone, their beer and Vodka was more important. My brother, and sisters didn't have many friends, due to my drunk folks being so nasty towards everyone. All of us left home as soon as we left school. So yeah, I can understand not liking your mom or dad.. One thing all this taught me was, what Not to do as a parent.
I realized a long time ago in my early teenage years that I could not depend on my parents the way most kids did. They did not prepare me for life. An optimist would say I learned to be self reliant and not depend on others for my success. A realist would say that I had shit parents and every reason to fail at life. I stopped all contact with my mom years ago. Drama, drugs, financial woes - she wasn't a grown up, she had no business being a mother, and doesn't deserve my time/energy/happiness. According to my sister, who only recently stopped all contact, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Its true. You can't pick your blood relatives, but you can pick your family and choose who gets the best part of you. Keeping someone in your life who drains you, takes so much from you, and gives nothing in return is merely a boat anchor holding you back. As much as it sucks, I'm better for it. There's only a couple of times of year that still give me a little difficulty, but I get over it and keep moving forward. My dad and I have mostly gotten past a lot of things. We work together now, and I think that's brought us closer in some ways. He has a new family, with my two MUCH younger half brothers, who have been given the world compared to what my sister and I endured growing up. And that's good for them, I guess. I have an odd perspective on parents, and is probably why I don't have kids of my own. History has a funny way of repeating itself despite best efforts, and I don't want to put someone else through what I went through.
Shit, now you guys are making me freak out that my kid will hate me! My parents were far from perfect, but I can't complain. I mean, I can... But no one would take me seriously.
