You, Your Baby, and Your Parents

Nowadays people spend so much time thinking about the genetic legacy we give to our children as parents or grandparents. What I've been contemplating as equally dark are the financial, spiritual, and emotional legacies our children inherit from us whether we want them to or not.

When I was growing up it was not in a Leave it to Beaver middle class home. Because I had educated South Asian parents, a father with a PhD, I often had to pretend this was the case. Living in a suburb of north Florida also didn't help matters as most people were upper middle class in our social circle - the whites and the South Asians. I lived a double life that became increasingly difficult to manage through high school. When college came, I moved several states away and lived in a dorm. This was a great equalizer because no one knew about the apartment I shared with my parents. My entire past was erased and I could start again.

These emotional challenges of growing up poor did not mean I had it as bad as others; I always had something to eat and clothes to wear - even if I didn't particularly care for the selection of either. Though I was surrounded by books, they were those of the library's not ours, and watched movies, they were the ones on T.V. not in the movie theater. Certainly people had/have it worse than I did.

But this is why I can't think about cooing over or coddling an infant. Because the facts remain: my father never saw any of his three children born and my parents were disappointed I wasn't a boy (relieved when my brother came long four years later). Since nothing but blood kept the bond in our family when I was growing up, it took a faith perspective to instill in me any sense of belongingnesss as an adult.

I forgive my parents because as I know now, you can only do the best you can.

I still can't shake the facts. My parents didn't feel that 'oh-you're-mine' rush when we were little; that didn't make their faces light up with joy or pleasure.

So what makes people think it will for me?