My mom was born in the mid 1940's in the U.S. and her parents got divorced after they had six children. The reason for the divorce was a dispute over whether the last child was really from my grandfather. She was although to this day he will still deny paternity. My grandmother allegedly had a drinking problem and trouble dealing with reality.
Both of my grandparents were of mixed racial origins and had to deal with many issue of their time. Both have been to college and held jobs. I personally think they were attracted to each other only on a physical level when they met. I have seen pictures of the two of them when they were a younger couple. They were very good looking. The problem when people get together for only physical reasons, it rarely goes beyond that level.
My grandfather is very much a perfectionist. His mother was a very harsh woman from what I have heard. She was actually downright abusive. She was straight from the Choctaw reservation. I believe that she was a control freak when she left the reservation because she wanted to rise above the expectations of her nation. She did not want to be just like everyone else she knew. By living on the reservation, she was more likely to become an alcoholic, addict, and being victimized by the men in and out of the reservation. It would not surprise me if she was already victimized as a child. I have heard all the stories of how she would beat on my grandfather and be very verbally abusive.
My grandfather's father was raised from parents who were slaves somewhere in Tennessee. I never really heard much about him, except from what I gathered, he left my grandfather with the abusive mother and there was not much contact with him thereafter. I think this is how my grandfather had a distorted view of what a family is supposed to be.
My grandmother is a very mellow and laid back person. She doesn't say much and keeps to herself. All of her conversations are only on safe topics. She seems to be in a world of her own and seldom reaches out beyond it. My mother swears up and down that my grandmother is a very intellegent person, after all, she did graduate from community college which was quite a feat for a "colored" woman of her time.
Of course, once my grandparents met, they fell for the physical aspects of each other and had a few similar goals. They wanted to get more out of their lives and to be set up as an example for all to follow. I think my grandfather was really more into that goal than my grandmother.
They got married and had children. My grandmother tried raising them as best as she could. She was starting to lose her figure and was having a hard time raising all of the children. My grandmother was an only child. She just was not used to being around so many little people and was overwhelemed at the task. Her mother then started to come around to help her out. My grandfather probably didn't get along very well with his mother in law lurking around so much and getting into their business. This is only part of what was causing their divorce.
My grandfather was very insensitive to her feelings and the feelings of his children. He was more interested in impressing people who had connections and what they thought. The family was on the back burner. He spent more and more time away from them leaving my great grandmother more in control of raising the kids while my grandmother tried to work to support the family.
When my grandmother was pregnant with her last child, my grandfather was already feeling too tied down to this family. He probably felt that having such a large family would not be an asset in trying to climb the social ladder. Besides, in his mind, he was hardly ever around so that could not possible be his child. Forget the fact that she turned out to look just like him.
They got divorced. My grandmother, great grandmother, and all the children moved to another country. My grandmother had to face the stigma of being a divorced woman who was pregnant and accused of having the child of another man. She also had to work to support all of the young children. My great grandmother did her best to raise them, but the newest one was just too much to handle so they gave her up.
My grandfather was pretty much an absentee father. No child support or alimony to help them out. Not much contact until the children were older. He had been married and divorced a few times after this marriage and even had another child.
The bottom line, my mother had a very screwed up childhood without much parental support and very little expression of love. She was very close to her siblings since it was pretty much them against the world.
My mother met my father in the country where she was living. I know my mother was starved for love. My father gave her a feeling of love and security. They had sex outside of marriage and she got pregnant. This was a secret up to the time I was an adult. My parents were in a different country and had to get married because of me. If it were not for my great grandmother who had by this time moved back to the U.S., I would have been born in that country and my parents may not have gotten married just then.
