I absolutely love my father

I always have. I can't imagine having anyone else for a father. He is a bright man and he speaks quite well. He's educated and he is a discriminating man who I have never, in my entire life, ever seen in a polyester suit. He always came home from work in a suit and tie and he showered and shaved every single day. He doesn't drink and has never used drugs. He did spank us with belts and stuff like that, but he came from the Depression era and he did what he thought was right. I disagree with beating kids with a belt, but I don't hold that against him because I know that he was doing the best he could on any given day with the tools he had. He believes that a father has the responsibility to raise children to be responsible adults with respect for authority while mother's have their own separate and distinct roles to play in a child's upbringing. I do not fault him because I absolutely know that he did the best job that he could do as a father. We were never hungry, we always lived in a house after 1964 and somehow we were all educated to, at the very least, high school graduation. I adore him, I really do. When I was 6 years old, I asked him, "If you met me before you met mom, would you have married me?" He assured me that he would have. I have always judged other men based on how I felt they compared to him. He obviously was a role model of whom I have always had great admiration. I respect him for the man he is and I really do love him. But, of course, he isn't perfect.

I've been staying with him for the past day and a half because he was kind enough to let me stay here until he takes me to the airport. He didn't let me stay here before because he didn't feel it was the right thing to do. After all, if I don't have to face hardship, how else will I ever learn anything? Personally, I would never allow a child of mine to go through the crap I've gone through but that's because I realized long ago that the one thing a child requires in life is a parent who tells them how wonderful they are, not a parent who belittles them. I noticed something as I was passing through my time on this planet. Every kid I knew who had loving, caring parents seemed to do much better than the kids I knew who didn't.

I also remembered Mrs. Irene Nichols, my 5th grade teacher. She used to play the piano with the entire class standing around her. One day I was standing behind her as I was singing and she turned around and said, "Margaret, you have a lovely voice!" That meant so much to me that I never forgot it. One day I realized why it meant so much to me...it was the ONLY nice thing anyone had ever said to me. No one else in my life ever told me that I was good at ANYTHING. I never heard a nice word from my parents although my mother did tell me once that I cleaned the kitchen better than she did. That's it, that's the entire extent of how good I was as I grew up. I was a good kitchen cleaner. By the time I had kids, I had decided that I would always tell them how good they were and that I would never beat them. My kids would never have to lie on their bed as I whipped them with a belt. They would never go to school with bruises and welts and they would never feel the sting of a belt on their thighs. I've refined my parenting to the point that I'm a wonderful grandmother but as I raised my kids, I did the best job I could do to let them know how good they were and that they could accomplish whatever it was they wanted to accomplish.

I'm paying quite a bit of attention to things lately and now I see why I've always been such a flake. I've always tried to make him happy and he won't be pleased. I have to take him the way he is and get my self respect from elsewhere.

I have so much more to say on this but right now, I'm still trying to get ready for the flight I have that doesn't leave at 8:45 AM, but 8:45 PM. I'll be back when I can, right now I have to fix my father a fish sandwich.

:)