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Mamapolo2016 · F
.All of us are a tapestry interweaving the threads of experience that compose our lives.
Those parents who abuse and betray their children or who neglect their physical and emotional wellbeing aren't really parents. They're monsters with offspring.
However, the rest of parents, including me, make mistakes, with the best of intentions.
Any child who blames parents solely for 'passing on' beliefs and behaviors that are now considered toxic by many should consider that their parents also had parents.
Life is a series of trial and error, generation upon generation.
In the end, our personal tapestry belongs to us.
Those parents who abuse and betray their children or who neglect their physical and emotional wellbeing aren't really parents. They're monsters with offspring.
However, the rest of parents, including me, make mistakes, with the best of intentions.
Any child who blames parents solely for 'passing on' beliefs and behaviors that are now considered toxic by many should consider that their parents also had parents.
Life is a series of trial and error, generation upon generation.
In the end, our personal tapestry belongs to us.
Mamapolo2016 · F
@Really It is interesting. I would guess the answer lies in peripheral but profound experiences and an ability to question.
I did not come from bigots but still, a foundation-shaking experience while on vacation in the deep South when I was sixteen changed me. A black boy, maybe sixteen as well, was walking along an unpopulated and unlit road when my Dad stopped to offer him a ride. The boy turned and saw five white faces and raced away like the hounds of hell were after him.
I have thought about that for many and many a year. We terrified him.
I did not come from bigots but still, a foundation-shaking experience while on vacation in the deep South when I was sixteen changed me. A black boy, maybe sixteen as well, was walking along an unpopulated and unlit road when my Dad stopped to offer him a ride. The boy turned and saw five white faces and raced away like the hounds of hell were after him.
I have thought about that for many and many a year. We terrified him.
Heartlander · 80-89, M
@Mamapolo2016 Interesting experience. At about that same period, when I was in college, I often hitch-hiked to and from Baton Rouge and would have been reluctant to extend my thumb for a car with 5 faces. At the age of 16, I would likely not accept a ride with anyone, even if I wasn't hitch hiking from anyone who wasn't a familiar face.
By comparison, Baton Rouge isn't and wasn't then as "deep south" as north Louisiana, non-coastal Mississippi or Alabama, but in-general, non familiar faces were responded to cautiously. Per my memory of "then" I lived in a familiar world where everyone had a place, and that brought both a sense of comfort and freedom as well as a cautionary filter for the unknown.
I'm in no way denying the harshness of segregation. But I think both sides had that sense of comfort with your own and caution with the unfamiliar. Maybe fright at times. But it wasn't just race.
:) if you were in the deep south in the 1950s with a Pennsylvania license tag .... hmmm????
By comparison, Baton Rouge isn't and wasn't then as "deep south" as north Louisiana, non-coastal Mississippi or Alabama, but in-general, non familiar faces were responded to cautiously. Per my memory of "then" I lived in a familiar world where everyone had a place, and that brought both a sense of comfort and freedom as well as a cautionary filter for the unknown.
I'm in no way denying the harshness of segregation. But I think both sides had that sense of comfort with your own and caution with the unfamiliar. Maybe fright at times. But it wasn't just race.
:) if you were in the deep south in the 1950s with a Pennsylvania license tag .... hmmm????