Grading on a Curve

Our Parents

I love my parents. Yes, they have their faults. Of course they do. And yes, so do I. Of course I do. But they gave us a childhood I wouldn’t trade. Though, of course, I didn't realize that at the time. Kids don’t ever want what’s best for themselves. They don’t know what’s best. They want to be spoiled. They want to have a cool parent who lets them do things other kids aren’t allowed to do. There is a reason why parents exist. We wouldn’t last long without them.

We weren't rich. My parents were teachers. They didn't buy us tons of presents all the time. We never had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. We didn’t get big birthday cakes with our names etched in frosting from the bakery at Kroger. We had a box of Betty Crocker mix. You got to choose your cake flavor and your frosting too. A thin cardboard banner that read “Happy Birthday” hung above the mantle. They kept it in a box somewhere in some closet and every night before our birthday they got it out and hung it up again. We never had all the coolest or newest stuff. I wanted Jnco jeans so bad, but all I got were these knock-offs from Meijer. They weren’t nearly as wide as JNCO jeans.

We weren’t poor though. We never wanted for anything that we needed. We didn’t buy new cars. We didn’t pay for cable. We had three channels. We didn’t go out to eat that much. It was a rare occasion when we went to a restaurant. That made it all the more special. To be able to order pop with dinner was a delight. We had to drink our water first though. No pop until our water was gone. That was the rule. We would all chug our ice water as quick as we could once the waitress brought them out.

They spent their money in other ways. They took us on trips in the summers. Camping and old family cottages. Never amusement parks or resorts. You could’t bring friends, and you couldn’t opt out either. Everyone always came. We went as a family and only family. Lunches in the cooler, ice from the fridge in Ziploc bags. They sent me to music camp in the summer. They cared about the arts and our education. We all went to Europe in our high school summers through it was an arts program. That’s what they cared about.

They spent time with us when they could. They taught us to care about the things that matter. They wanted us to be good more than rich. They told me to do something I enjoyed. They didn't let us watch things we shouldn't watch. We never had phones in our rooms, never a computer either. They didn’t let us hang out with kids whose parents didn’t get home until late at night. They looked disapprovingly on us when we were listening to garbage music. If my dad came home and we were watching TV in the afternoon, there was a judgmental kind of aura about him, we would shut it off right away. We all felt it without him saying a word. We didn’t watch TV in the day.