Our heroic parents

Just a short thought: How did my parents live through and thrive, having five children? I just finished a big organization project that involved a lot of old letters, among which were many from my parents at critical times in my life. In the first place- what will there be like this for my children? Maybe it's just as well not to have quite so many letters (that I can't bear to part with), but what will be the living record of the times of my life with the girls? Emails? Phone calls? In later years I have written very few letters, in earlier times I have a whole history of those eras.

I really can't imagine the anguish of my parents at times. First their seemingly perfect oldest daughter goes off to college and hangs on to her old boyfriend back home, a guy she barely likes who reports weekly to the parents about his plans to marry me ( I am not writing much at the time.) Then after freshman year I blow up everything, leave the Dartmouth Congregation of the Arts, drop out of Oberlin and marry Jonathan, who has flunked out of Oberlin, is 1A in the draft for Viet Nam and seems generally to be a sickly miserable character. Eventually things work out well, but there are still scary times in Pittsburgh before we get our symphony jobs and onto the right track. Later there is also the divorce and the nervous time in NY for a parent to worry about.

So, that was me. There were four more kids to go, each with unique challenges! I love my girls, and there were hardly any problems with them, but I was often exhausted by the weight of responsibility, the worries about whether I was doing all I could, the worries now in hindsight about my own failings and self-centeredness. That was just two children.

Yet I also read a letter from Dad extolling the joys of children. He said he didn't look forward to a time when he and Mother would be on their own with "freedom." He'd never trade peace and quiet for the pleasures of a house full of children. How lucky we were! It was a golden time for families, a very life affirming time after WW 2. I'm so glad for my sister who has grandchildren and I hope that if my daughters do have children, they'll forget about that heavy responsibility and just revel in the joy and the hope of it!