Family....yes or no......or maybe????

                                                                                      A friend of mine started her blog a few weeks ago and she elected to write about family and that got me thinking....was I in a family? I had a father, a mother, a sister and pets...we had very nice homes and nice cars and all the "stuff" ...but for parts of my childhood we also had housekeepers and nannies (big influence on me which I will discuss later). My sister and I were given a privileged life style but we didn't know it at the time. I'm sure my sister's memories are much different than mine (there is 5 years between us)....or maybe not. I think my next few blogs will deal with this issue. The reason I'm questioning all of this is that I have very few memories of my childhood (unlike my friends blog)...what memories I have are good (at least to me) but I was a problem child to all my elders, including everyone who took care of me..my mother, my grandmothers, my aunts, my teachers, our housekeepers and especially one nanny I remember named America...yes, that was her name. The most vivid memories I have as a child are of my "crimes" and my punishments...yes, they occurred often and yes, the old adage is true...."for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction". I won't get into specifics now but needless to say...I kept everyone on their toes. Was I craving attention...I think a good shrink would say yes to that question.


My father wasn't home much, he was doing what dad's did back then.....he was supporting the family and when he did have time off...he was a golfer....my mother was a stay at home mom but she was very social and as I remember, preoccupied most of the time. Granted, times were different back then and as kids, we were never at home very much so part of why I don't have deep memories of being around my parents much is because I wasn't there most of the time.
Both my sister and I attended many schools because we moved around a lot (no, my dad was not military). I think that during my 12 years of elementary, junior high and high school, I was in 13 different schools....sometimes 3 in one school year..therefore, my sister and I really didn't put down roots or make lasting life long friends.


I also don't know very much about my parents as they were growing up...I think, as parents, they never really told us much about their childhoods and we didn't know enough to ask. This needs to be a topic for another blog but I want to tell my son that I am trying to let him know as much about me as he wants to know because I don't want him to reach the age of 60, knowing nothing about his parents.

I think I will stop here....we will continue this discussion in the next few days.