Bryan W. Alaspa 1The funny thing about parents
January 10th 2010 22:11
I am going to be thirty-nine-years-old in 2010. It is hard for me to imagine this. I am older than my parents were when they had me. What amazes me, when I think back about it, is how I was so sure that my parents had all of the answers when I was a kid. I mean, I was so sure that mom and dad knew the answer to any question when I was in kindergarten. Of course, I think about that now and realize that my parents were in their early to mid-twenties during those years. I shake my head when I realize that. I think of how confused I really was, heck, still am, about the world and the way it works.
I have no children of my own as I write this. I have never felt the deep desire to be a father that my brother and some of my friends have felt. I love being an uncle. Uncles get to give out cool gifts, do cool things, but then they get to give the kids back to the parents and go home. Maybe someday I will have kids, but I don’t feel rushed about it.
No, what I find funny is looking at my parents as they head into their sixties. They are some of the most amusing people on the face of the earth to me. I shake my head at them almost every weekend as I spend time with them. I am still a home-body, I admit. I like hanging out with my parents. However, they also exasperate and dazzle me.
The first thing is that neither of them can hear a damn thing. My dad spent thirty-some years working in a factory and much of that time he didn’t bother putting the earplugs in he was supposed to wear. Watching television with him now is an exercise in going deaf and having to shout to be heard. My mom has always had some trouble hearing thanks to some ear infections she has when she was young. She is virtually deaf entirely in one year. What this has lead to is two people, married, still in love, but completely unable to hear anything the other is saying.
Every conversation especially with my dad starts out like this:
ME: Saying something about any topic either sports, news, my life, whatever.
MY DAD: Huh?
It happens whenever my mother says anything. Then again, my mom does the same thing much of the time, especially when my dad says anything. I have told them that they either need to go deaf entirely so they can stop trying, learn sign language, or perhaps say a phrase entirely in gibberish when they first want to start a conversation since they know they are going to have to repeat it anyway. They just laugh and shake their heads at me, but I honestly think any of those would work better than their current method.
The second thing is that the two of them have to spend a lot more time with each other now than they have had to for decades. Both of them have had jobs for pretty much my entire life. They had weekends and some time together during the evenings and that was it. Now, my dad is retired and my mom has been laid off and they spend every day together. It turns out, they can’t stand each other. It’s so funny as the two of them argue about, well, pretty much everything.
And yet, you can also tell that they still love each other. They still depend on each other. They still wouldn’t know what to do without the other. How that all works, I cannot imagine, but they seem to enjoy the ride and I hope it lasts for a lot longer.
I have no children of my own as I write this. I have never felt the deep desire to be a father that my brother and some of my friends have felt. I love being an uncle. Uncles get to give out cool gifts, do cool things, but then they get to give the kids back to the parents and go home. Maybe someday I will have kids, but I don’t feel rushed about it.
No, what I find funny is looking at my parents as they head into their sixties. They are some of the most amusing people on the face of the earth to me. I shake my head at them almost every weekend as I spend time with them. I am still a home-body, I admit. I like hanging out with my parents. However, they also exasperate and dazzle me.
The first thing is that neither of them can hear a damn thing. My dad spent thirty-some years working in a factory and much of that time he didn’t bother putting the earplugs in he was supposed to wear. Watching television with him now is an exercise in going deaf and having to shout to be heard. My mom has always had some trouble hearing thanks to some ear infections she has when she was young. She is virtually deaf entirely in one year. What this has lead to is two people, married, still in love, but completely unable to hear anything the other is saying.
Every conversation especially with my dad starts out like this:
ME: Saying something about any topic either sports, news, my life, whatever.
MY DAD: Huh?
It happens whenever my mother says anything. Then again, my mom does the same thing much of the time, especially when my dad says anything. I have told them that they either need to go deaf entirely so they can stop trying, learn sign language, or perhaps say a phrase entirely in gibberish when they first want to start a conversation since they know they are going to have to repeat it anyway. They just laugh and shake their heads at me, but I honestly think any of those would work better than their current method.
The second thing is that the two of them have to spend a lot more time with each other now than they have had to for decades. Both of them have had jobs for pretty much my entire life. They had weekends and some time together during the evenings and that was it. Now, my dad is retired and my mom has been laid off and they spend every day together. It turns out, they can’t stand each other. It’s so funny as the two of them argue about, well, pretty much everything.
And yet, you can also tell that they still love each other. They still depend on each other. They still wouldn’t know what to do without the other. How that all works, I cannot imagine, but they seem to enjoy the ride and I hope it lasts for a lot longer.
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