A Tale Of Two Households
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A Tale Of Two Households

Growing up as the middle-man between two parents.

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A Tale Of Two Households
Doktor.is

“Well, and then Dad said that you have minuscule common sense,” I explained breezily to my mother, fourth-grade-me trying to make her understand why I was sent home that Sunday in April wearing three sweatshirts and a scarf tied constrictively around my neck.

“It’s 55 degrees, you don’t need to be wearing a winter coat. And minuscule common sense, huh? Well you can tell your father that...”

And so, the game of messenger continued, myself playing the role as mailman, carrying envelope and word-of-mouth from parent to parent, notes on holiday schedules and dentist appointments. All these tiny combative conversations and terse remarks, carried by and centered mostly around, me. It was a crazy life of divided visitations and two Christmases, but it was, and continues to be, the only life I’ve ever known.

My parents divorced when I was too young to remember, and so I’ve never known or lived in a world of Mom and Dad, but instead a “World of Mom,” and a distinctly separate “World of Dad.” I would never consider this to be a bad thing, because while most children of divorce are forced through the trauma of watching their parents go their separate ways, finding out that the model they’ve imagined in their minds for all that was loving and wholesome in the world was simply a façade for an ever-growing division of two people-- I called such a witnessing “Tuesday.”

I went to school, I got home, heard my mother rant about something my father said in an “unjustifiably harsh e-mail” he had sent her (“Who does he think he is? Judge Judy? Jesus Christ that man is so outrageously formal.”), had a snack, drove to my father's, heard a similar complaint but from an opposing perspective- “Your mother, she has the most flippant attitude towards everything. Would it kill her to take something seriously one time, and perhaps not send me three smiley faces and an ‘lol!!’ at the end of very email?”, ate my broccoli and pasta in silence, and then drove the 45 minutes back to my mother's. Seeing my parents interact with little regard for each other, passive comments, and less-than-passive-but-still-very-aggressive phone conversations, were all facets of my everyday routine, and became painted into my own picture of “Family.”

Growing up in two divided households also meant learning two completely different sets of moral, mannerly, and behavioral standards. You know when you were a kid, and at home your parents would say something to you like “Screw them!” and you would say it in your mind, fascinated with your newly learned vocabulary- “Yeah, screw them!” Then, later in school when you’re learning about, say how Rhode Island wouldn’t sign the Declaration of Independence, something inside of you decides to be the funny guy this one time, and suddenly you found yourself standing out of your desk, exclaiming “Screw Rhode Island!” And when the whole class laughed, you looked at your teacher expecting the same approval, but found a very upset 3rd grade teacher indicating for you to sit back down and see her after class. Imagine my mother as the class of students, and my father as the disapproving Mrs. Smith with a look of sheer disappointment. My mother was the “fun parent,” and my father was the “Get good grades and practice proper dental hygiene” parent, and getting accustomed to having to switch my every funny bone in my body on and off pending household became part of my growing up.

At my father’s I was quiet and reserved, consistently respectful and always very anti-social. My father would be shocked to see on my report card that I was chastised for talking during class, exclaiming, “On here it says they can’t get you to stop talking, and when you’re here I can hardly get you to talk!” I knew to talk about sports teams and science on the rides home, and I knew to never crack a silly joke or tell a story about how annoying my teacher’s grading system is (because in the end, it turned out I “wasn’t working hard enough” and she “was doing her job”). And while I wasn’t shy, I developed a sort of shyness in front of my family, one which developed from years of quiet conversation and inability to express my opinion.

It wasn’t until I was 17-years-old that I openly admitted to not liking doughnuts, something which had been considered a special Sunday morning surprise to almost everyone in the house. But the second I stepped out of my father’s car, when I walked up to the front steps of my mother’s old ranch house and opened the door, I became a completely different person with a completely different set of personality traits. I was combative, audacious, I spoke out loudly and freely against chores and their violation of “labor codes.” I was silly and angry, and I walked through the door after school ranting about vocabulary tests and biology teachers. I watched MTV and I did my homework in my room (I know, call me James Dean, a rebel with absolutely no cause). It’s because of this that I am now a combination of some very good, and some very bad traits.

It’s not my parents' fault, because who am I to blame them for being two different people, but admittedly the sort of social awareness I developed at age 7 has turned me into someone that dabbles in both social and anti-social tendencies, giving me the ability to establish myself as a friendly, creative person, but often unable to break into the friendzone. I am often too content listening, unable to find my voice in a crowd of people, but then once I finally get the opportunity to talk, it borders on rambling, like a flood of words made free by a breaking dam. My social equilibrium spent too many going one way and then another, and now suffers from vertigo.

My parents did, however, create someone who despite the occasional inability to create conversation, has an incredible sense of middle-ground values. I saw the faults in my mother’s lucidity, the way she can so easily move on from one job to another without needing any sense of security, and yet I was frightened by my father’s routine life, his ability to work in a strictly numerical job and somehow find that mentally fortifying. Unfortunately for me, I am genetically inclined towards my mother’s “Math Is the Enemy and What Are Numbers Anyways” ideology, and so I could never pursue my father’s job, even if I put my heart, soul, and brain capacity into it. But I do want, rather vehemently, to pursue, something my mother never seemed to have the inclination to do, and something that scared me nearly as much as the Pythagorean Theorem.

It became clear to me that I wanted to be neither one of my parents, but because I had that separation, that ability to take a step back for a few days and look at the way they lived their lives, I could pick and choose certain respects of my lifestyle. I took from both of my parents a strong work ethic, which at times can border on insanity, hence my title as champion bus boy at Toms River New Jersey’s finest establishment, The Office Lounge. I saw my mother’s carelessness, my father’s strict concern, and became a caring, but in a loving-though-not-overbearing-fashion, sort of person.

I never blame my parents for my frailties, I never mess up or say something to the wrong person in the wrong way and cry out to the gods above, “Why couldn’t I just live in one house, with two cars in the garage and two parents in the kitchen to match!?” Instead, I take the cards I was dealt and play them to the best of my ability, often grateful for their versatility. I’ve never grown up in a “broken household,” much rather a household, which upon splitting, became two fully developed and unique homes. Two unique people, living two separate lives, having two different Christmases (a major bonus for any kid looking to score two sets of gifts), and helping to raise one distinctly unique child.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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