confusion

I wonder how my kids will remember me later. They'll have pictures. Maybe they'll have this blog to read.... But still they could think any number of things.

The other day, I was talking to a friend, a 46 year old with 3 children. Her kids have been studying piano with me for years, and her son and my son have become very good buddies. Over the years, I pieced together the tidbits of a very rough childhood as 1 of 8 (then 7) kids. She was beaten regularly by both parents. And I don't know how we ended up talking about it, the other night, but she told me that her mother recently admitted that she beat her the worst of all her kids because my friend never cried. Her mother kept trying to get her to cry and she just wouldn't. Just recalling that conversation, I noticed she could barely look at me for fear of... crying? My friend, the only one of her siblings that hasn't become addicted to drugs or alcohol or lost in a hellhole of anger, instead eats organic foods, plays old fashioned games with her kids, is full of life and has so much presence in the now. A tough, tough, cookie paired with the hugest heart and I just love her. She lives a life, now, worlds apart from what she knew growing up, and yet it's right there, all of it. So close. I think she probably became a massage therapist because her every touch had to be a supportive and positive one....

My history is much different from my friend's. I love my parents dearly, but it was definitely complicated with my mom and in a way, subsequently, complicated with my dad.... And then look what happened. My one sis has not married. I really have no idea why. I consider her an amazing catch. I married someone opposite of my dad, someone who would never tolerate certain behavior from a spouse or mother of his children, and my other sis married someone very similar to my dad....  We each chose our different paths.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. It just matters a lot to me that I behave a certain way with my kids and that they respect me. That they know I really care about them. Maybe it matters too much. And yet I am like a fish out of water. My sisters and I sailed through prestigious schools and achieved certain things to a certain degree that my own boys may not...  It's just such a strange thing to figure out. Was it that hardness which created extremely self-sufficient, high achieving, but in some ways emotionally secure (and insecure) kids...? I mean, can't my boys become both high achieving and secure with a more supportive, softer approach? I'd be so proud of my boys if they turned out like my sisters.... but honestly, what is going on in their upbringing now is nothing like what I lived.