Giant Meme o' Me - Day 3
Mar. 24th, 2011 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deathpixieDay 03 – Your parents
My parents met in the Army. My mum (Gail) was dating a friend of Dad's, and my dad (John), while he actually had the hots for Mum started going out with one of Mum's friends. Then the two friends ran away and eloped together, leaving Mum and Dad in the lurch. Dad moved on pretty quickly, making his intentions known to Mum, but she resisted for a while. Eventually, she gave in to persistence, and after dating for a period of time I'm not sure of, they got engaged.
My parents are very much a classic 'working class made good' story. Dad grew up in Footscray, which, back then, was pretty rough. Dad was the eldest of six kids, with one full brother and five half-siblings. His father divorced his mother and took off and when she remarried, his stepfather would be violent, both to my grandmother and to her children. It wasn't a nurturing environment, and from an early age (he left school at 14, to support his family), Dad took his responsibilities as the eldest son very seriously. He joined the Army at seventeen, and wound up involved in the Borneo-Malysia conflict as well as Vietnam. When he got back, he was involved in recruiting and training and reached the rank of Warrant Officer. He quit the Army when I started high school, and after a number of temporary, feed-the-family type jobs, including selling insurance and bartending at a local pub, he got a position as a personnel manager at an aged care facility. The year my brother and I both left home, he had a nervous breakdown and finally began treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Mum is the eldest of four sisters. She did well in school, but wasn't allowed to go past Year 11 because her father didn't see the point in educating girls. They initially lived in Melbourne, then moved out to the country, the same house I used to visit my grandparents at years later. It was a small hobby farm, rather than a production farm - they raised chickens for eggs and grew their own vegetables and had some cows for milk and meat. Mum grew up a tomboy, like Dad extremely mindful of her responsibilities as eldest child. She joined the Army as a way of getting out of the country, initially in the Transport Corps (the same corps my brother would later join when he enlisted) until she was told women wouldn't be allowed to do anything more than drive VIPs around in cars/jeeps. She switched to Catering, since there was at least more room for promotion, and stayed enlisted until she married. Once my brother and I were old enough, she did her nursing training and worked as a nurse for the next twenty years, before finishing off as a physiotherapist's assistant in the same aged care facility Dad worked at.
Mum was four months pregnant when she got married. She was hugely embarrassed by this and hid in the house and disguised her baby bulge from everyone, to the point that, after I was born, people were surprised she'd been pregnant at all. I was born on Mother's Day, which was good timing on my part, as it earned Mum and Dad a lot of freebie baby stuff which they desperately needed - Army wages didn't factor in wives and children at that stage and times were tough back then. I grew up on stories of orange crate furniture and eating lots of rabbit.
I take after my Dad. We both like to laugh and tell stories, we both have a keen interest in people, and we both have the same tendency towards moodiness and depression. I'm a Daddy's girl, always have been - we've always been on the same wavelength. He can rile me up like no-one else, mostly because he knows my buttons, and when we start on politics, Mum usually winds up kicking us out of the house.
Mum and I haven't always got on, mostly in my high school years when I just utterly confused the hell out of her. As I've gotten older and better at talking to her, we've gotten past that, and she has been a confidante in many situations where I couldn't talk to anyone else. She is strong - one of the strongest women I know - and proud and great at leading. She's the source of my scary organised side and my tendency to take charge when I see people flailing.
Mum and Dad grew up in tough conditions, but they swore not to do the same to their kids. They worked hard to provide for us, made sure we had every opportunity they never had, supported us as much as they could. They went without so we wouldn't, and they pulled themselves up past the limitations that had been placed on them to make more of themselves. For that, I'm bloody proud to be their daughter.
Day 01 - Introduce Yourself
Day 02 - Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment
Also, to the blocked phone number who called me on my cell at 5:50 this morning? NOT. IMPRESSED.
My parents met in the Army. My mum (Gail) was dating a friend of Dad's, and my dad (John), while he actually had the hots for Mum started going out with one of Mum's friends. Then the two friends ran away and eloped together, leaving Mum and Dad in the lurch. Dad moved on pretty quickly, making his intentions known to Mum, but she resisted for a while. Eventually, she gave in to persistence, and after dating for a period of time I'm not sure of, they got engaged.
My parents are very much a classic 'working class made good' story. Dad grew up in Footscray, which, back then, was pretty rough. Dad was the eldest of six kids, with one full brother and five half-siblings. His father divorced his mother and took off and when she remarried, his stepfather would be violent, both to my grandmother and to her children. It wasn't a nurturing environment, and from an early age (he left school at 14, to support his family), Dad took his responsibilities as the eldest son very seriously. He joined the Army at seventeen, and wound up involved in the Borneo-Malysia conflict as well as Vietnam. When he got back, he was involved in recruiting and training and reached the rank of Warrant Officer. He quit the Army when I started high school, and after a number of temporary, feed-the-family type jobs, including selling insurance and bartending at a local pub, he got a position as a personnel manager at an aged care facility. The year my brother and I both left home, he had a nervous breakdown and finally began treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Mum is the eldest of four sisters. She did well in school, but wasn't allowed to go past Year 11 because her father didn't see the point in educating girls. They initially lived in Melbourne, then moved out to the country, the same house I used to visit my grandparents at years later. It was a small hobby farm, rather than a production farm - they raised chickens for eggs and grew their own vegetables and had some cows for milk and meat. Mum grew up a tomboy, like Dad extremely mindful of her responsibilities as eldest child. She joined the Army as a way of getting out of the country, initially in the Transport Corps (the same corps my brother would later join when he enlisted) until she was told women wouldn't be allowed to do anything more than drive VIPs around in cars/jeeps. She switched to Catering, since there was at least more room for promotion, and stayed enlisted until she married. Once my brother and I were old enough, she did her nursing training and worked as a nurse for the next twenty years, before finishing off as a physiotherapist's assistant in the same aged care facility Dad worked at.
Mum was four months pregnant when she got married. She was hugely embarrassed by this and hid in the house and disguised her baby bulge from everyone, to the point that, after I was born, people were surprised she'd been pregnant at all. I was born on Mother's Day, which was good timing on my part, as it earned Mum and Dad a lot of freebie baby stuff which they desperately needed - Army wages didn't factor in wives and children at that stage and times were tough back then. I grew up on stories of orange crate furniture and eating lots of rabbit.
I take after my Dad. We both like to laugh and tell stories, we both have a keen interest in people, and we both have the same tendency towards moodiness and depression. I'm a Daddy's girl, always have been - we've always been on the same wavelength. He can rile me up like no-one else, mostly because he knows my buttons, and when we start on politics, Mum usually winds up kicking us out of the house.
Mum and I haven't always got on, mostly in my high school years when I just utterly confused the hell out of her. As I've gotten older and better at talking to her, we've gotten past that, and she has been a confidante in many situations where I couldn't talk to anyone else. She is strong - one of the strongest women I know - and proud and great at leading. She's the source of my scary organised side and my tendency to take charge when I see people flailing.
Mum and Dad grew up in tough conditions, but they swore not to do the same to their kids. They worked hard to provide for us, made sure we had every opportunity they never had, supported us as much as they could. They went without so we wouldn't, and they pulled themselves up past the limitations that had been placed on them to make more of themselves. For that, I'm bloody proud to be their daughter.
Day 01 - Introduce Yourself
Day 02 - Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment
Also, to the blocked phone number who called me on my cell at 5:50 this morning? NOT. IMPRESSED.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-25 11:54 am (UTC)