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Subject: What Kind of Environment Were You Raised In? Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:57 am

Were there many fights in your household or was it usually a nice, quiet and relaxing place to be?

Did your parents careers leave you to your own devices or were they very protective of you?

Did you have a nice house and a nice neighborhood or did you find yourself often wishing you lived somewhere else far away?

How do you think it has effected who you are today?

My parents divorced when I was about 12. The environment got pretty toxic.

Tony Marino wrote:: Were there many fights in your household or was it usually a nice, quiet and relaxing place to be?
By and large, it was pretty calm. My parents had their disagreements, but they never seemed OTT (although they came close to divorcing when I was about ten years old, so at some point the drama must have heightened, even if I was shielded from it.) My sisters were older, so they sort of did their own thing.

Did your parents careers leave you to your own devices or were they very protective of you?
Both. My parents jobs did keep them away from home a little later in the day, but my folks were very strict and were great at keeping tabs on what was going on - even when they weren't there.

Did you have a nice house and a nice neighborhood or did you find yourself often wishing you lived somewhere else far away?
Yes, it was decent.

How do you think it has effected who you are today?
Yes. My parents had strict expectations that I had to follow and execute. As a result, I look for that same kind of order and expectation today.

Were there many fights in your household or was it usually a nice, quiet and relaxing place to be?
As a teen, many mornings I would wake up to my mom & stepdad yelling at each other. But they were of that gen who stayed together (I guess for a familiar sparring partner). It may have made me leery of marriage.

Did your parents careers leave you to your own devices or were they very protective of you?
My dad went to "work" every day - IDK exactly what he did at the aircraft plant. My mom stayed home until she got on as a school cook (yeah, Jr. High and my mom was in the kitchen - surprisingly it did not make me want to die like it would for teens in later years)

Did you have a nice house and a nice neighborhood or did you find yourself often wishing you lived somewhere else far away?
I started out in a rundown, old inner city St. Louis neighborhood but with no frame of reference didn't know it was bad. When I was about 11 we moved to the 'burbs, where I got to mow the lawn, had a bike to get around. It was a nice place to grow up.

How do you think it has effected who you are today?
I got experience in both slummy inner city and the more pleasant grassy lawn 'burb. I have lived in mostly city apartments since and knew in my late teens there was no way to afford to live in St. Ann.

It wasn't violent but it was loud because that's my father's solution to everything, if anybody says ANYTHING that he doesn't like, scream at them about it like they're complete idiots, and as long as you were in the house there was NO getting away from that.

As Alan said, we were what you call free range babies, no high chair, no play pen, we were allowed to crawl all over the house and explore, much to the horror of the neighbors who came over and couldn't figure out why any mother would let her son climb to the top of the stairs.

Nice house, I guess nice neighborhood, growing up I didn't know most of our neighbors and quite a few moved in and out frequently, but from the time I was 9 I wanted to get out and go somewhere where there was actually stuff to do.

Tony Marino wrote:: Were there many fights in your household or was it usually a nice, quiet and relaxing place to be?

The latter. Before my parents broke up, eveything was cool. Obviously they did have disagreements, but I wasn't a witness to any major fighting because I would've never known they had problems. I was shocked when they broke up. I was shocked when my Dad told me that it wasn't the first time they broke up.

Did your parents careers leave you to your own devices or were they very protective of you?

Well, my mother was a stay at home mom until they broke up. Then when she moved out, that's when she started working and having a career. I was a latchkey kid from that point on....although I did become a latchkey before they broke up because my mother was going to school. My dad worked 12 hrs day, but was always home by 7.....in time to play Jeopardy, which was our family nightly ritual.

Did you have a nice house and a nice neighborhood or did you find yourself often wishing you lived somewhere else far away?

Nice apartment, nice neighborhood. I remember when I was younger, I was envious of my cousins and people I knew who lived in Brooklyn because it seemed like so much living over there (and it was when we did). We grew up in a really quiet neighborhood. I remember wishing I grew up in projects!

How do you think it has effected who you are today?

Well, I'm glad I didn't grow up in the projects. I'm glad I didn't grow up with that mentality and I experienced have two parents at home, even though it didn't last long. I'm a well-rounded individual. Their breakup didn't hurt me.

Tony Marino wrote:: Were there many fights in your household or was it usually a nice, quiet and relaxing place to be?

With my dad YES...he used to get sick with it, after they divorced and my ma married my step-dad, things were calmer, they had their arguments but didn't escalate the way it did with my dad.

Did your parents careers leave you to your own devices or were they very protective of you?

Sometimes yes, there were times when my ma worked nights, stepdad was there though.

Did you have a nice house and a nice neighborhood or did you find yourself often wishing you lived somewhere else far away?

After my ma divorced my dad we struggled for a bit living with my grandma then being on section 8 for a few years, but eventually moved to a better neighborhood. Yes there were times when I was younger that I'd wish living in better neighborhoods and bigger houses.

How do you think it has effected who you are today?

I'm humble and don't need expensive things.

My house was so full of kids and the neighbor's kids in a tiny tiny house that was literally falling apart at the seams. There was so much noise in the house, that as soon as closed captioned TVs were available, we just got used to reading the tv and tuning everyone else out. I had three teenaged sisters when i was born, and dad died when I was three. I remember one sister blasting a stereo upstairs, and another sister blasting another downstairs--- you have no idea what it is like to hear Queen duel with Meatloaf for the volume! My mom worked for the USPS, and we were raised by one of my older sisters that we eventually called "mother hen" lol My neighborhood was incredibly poor poor poor! But we had a sense of community and protected each other. It was like having 50 mothers watching you at all times, and 100 dads to put you in your place! :O

how did it affect me? I'm not impressed by expensive things. I couldnt care about "powerful" people... i even debated tax proposals with the president of the united states... i just have no fear. As far as school work went, my mother had no clue what was going on in my life.. and still does not really. I was an honors student and did very well for myself--- BUT if my mom would have pushed me just a little, I might have really excelled in life.

However, I'm happy with the things I have, the places i have seen, and the people in my life... so life has been good

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What Kind of Environment Were You Raised In?