My Birthday, and Father's Day
My birthday falls on Father's Day today, an appropriate opportunity to muse on this photo and related appreciative topics. This is a photo from Christmas 2005 when my dad gave me the Robosapien. I was thrilled! He reminded me that when I was a kid I always wanted a Omnibot. Since Omnibot cost two hundred bucks it was about forty times as expensive as a toy I could realistically have (with the exception of a sweet poseable AT/AT Walker the size of a dog, and a 1980s version of LEGO Mindstorms, financial anomalies which to this day-- since I know they'd never rob a toy store-- have never been explained). Well, dad decided in 2005 it was time I got the modern equivalent of an Omnibot. That was very sweet.
You know what? I have good parents. They never ask me when I'm going to have kids, try to live vicariously through me, or apply any pressure of any kind. I mean, never.
I know a lot of parents who were competent at child-raising, but that type doesn't manage to get out of that mode. So they constantly put their adult children through guilt trips. I'm not sure why their offspring put up with it.
There is also a far worse situation to be in. I also know a staggeringly large number of my peers whose parents treated them with criminal physical abuse, and a level of indifference, malice, and psychological torture reminiscent of the Dursleys of Privet Drive; and yet they still love and respect their parents through some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. It makes me realize how well off I had it, and the accurate psychological perspective I got by having parents which were neither objects of worship nor monsters. Just human no different from you and me, in a situation for which nobody is prepared, doing what they can, and letting me take over from there.
Here's to my set of parents in particular. They deserve kudos.
Comments
rachelann1977 on Jun. 17, 2007 5:15 PM
Happy Birthday, BTW!
renniekins on Jun. 17, 2007 6:29 PM
That's a cool story. Happy birthday!!!
renniekins on Jun. 17, 2007 6:31 PM
PS - Don't know if you'd be interested, but I was at Menlo last week and it seemed like it might be a place you'd be interested in. They call their BAs High Tech Anthropologists!
http://menloinnovations.com/careers.htm
etain on Jun. 17, 2007 10:09 PM
I love the look on your face in that picture.
Leave a Comment