Adult Friendships with the ‘Rents

I’m friends with my parents. It’s unlike many of the other friendships I’ve formed recently such as when I’ve forced co-workers into friendship through humor and stimulating conversations. And it’s different than the friendships I’ve had since high school when we became friends because of our love for coffee shops to order Italian sodas after school.

This friendship with my parents has developed through travels, both domestic and abroad, and from the various times I lived with them as an adult as I figured out my next life step.

I haven’t lived with my parents in over four years, but I do still travel with them, visit them at their house for a weekend every now and again, and attend Oregon Ducks football games with them. Essentially, we like to hang out now and again.

But today, my parents are exercising their squatters’ rights at my apartment. What am I talking about? Well, my parents came to stay with me Friday night before the Ducks game on Saturday. Then had planned to go home after the game, but my dad was tired so they decided to stay a second night. When my mom realized that an NFL game was on this morning, they decided to stay a bit longer. I find it hilarious. My TV is a 13-inch VCR/TV combo that I bought back in 2001. It’s a crap television, but I have cable. My parent’s don’t have cable so watching NFL football real-time on my 13-inch TV is absolute heaven.

My dad was watching clips of Brandin Cooks on his phone… without headphones.

My mom perched herself on the accent chair and pulled out her phone to check the news when my dad was playing his clip so loud.

When they started joking with me about them overstaying their welcome, I laughed. I really don’t mind as long as they respect my decision to blog and write letters while they watch Marcus Mariotta and company take on the Oakland Raiders. (I’m not really a football fan; I attend Ducks games entirely for the social aspect.)

I think it’s fun to be friends with my parents. It changes the dynamics of what we’re able to do and how I can spend my time with them that likely differs greatly from how my siblings interact with them.

One of my prouder moments of our friendship also came this morning when my dad and I talked about women’s equality. He told me that our conversations in the past year about women’s equality have made him notice things differently. He noted that movies from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to films made in the 1990s depict female characters in small, traditional roles of secretary, mother, etc. and that there were no strong, female leads in films he has seen. My immediate thought: Duh, Daddy. It’s relatively recent that female actors are in key roles in film. But – as Tina Fey joked in her sheet cake skit on an edition of this summer’s SNL Weekend Update – people won’t show up for those powerful films with strong female leads. It’s frustrating. And yet honestly, I am incredibly grateful that my dad is starting to notice this and that he finds it weird. His friendship with me alone should show him that sassy and strong female characters make any story, travel, and adventure more interesting.

I enjoy being friends with my parents. Despite the fact that I disagree with their politics, I find them quite wonderful people. And I appreciate having an adult friendship with folks who are the very reason I was brought into this world. It’s kind of cool.

And honestly, if they want to exercise their squatters’ rights in my apartment any given Sunday, I’ll just learn to make due and enjoy it.

Tata for now.

Rece

Pool time and Going “Through It”

Pa Bunn has ensured that the pool is crystal-clear this summer.

My siblings and I spent a lot of our childhood swimming. This was probably because our mom learned in early motherhood that if you taught your kids to swim well when they were young, you could essentially have a great vacation every summer so you could read while your kids played in the pool all day.

We’d swim at the community pool in La Grande by the Armory where my dad worked. And when we moved to Dayton, we’d swim in our grandparent’s large pool with our cousins down the road or in the five-foot pool in the backyard of our house.

My love for pools, swimming, and general bodies of water has remained, but a few things are different which I will get to in a minute.

My sister had her daughter pee outside on the pee tree one afternoon this week. (If you don’t know what a pee tree is, you obviously aren’t much of a camper, farm kid, nor are you a part of the lower class. A pee tree is a tree in one’s yard, forest or camp site that you designate for peeing underneath so as to organize the place pee is dispensed.) When my niece was done, she walked over to the pool and waited the five extra minutes until she could get in the pool. Then my sister asked her daughter, “did you pull your swimsuit down our did you go through it?” “Through it,” she answered. Shelli (my sister) turned to me with a disgusted look. I didn’t respond with the anticipated sympathy look. Instead, I answered, “We used to do it.”

My nephew Spencer loves visiting his grandparents because he gets to swim all the time.

She chuckled and responded, “Yeah, but you have a different perspective when you’re an adult.”

What she said is true and not just when referring to peeing through one’s swimsuit. A lot of things change when you become an adult: facial hair, one’s body and metabolism, money issues, the way one relates to others, and many, many more. I’m glad we change as adults, because if we didn’t, we’d all be peeing through our swimsuits, and I’m sorry, but if that were the case, I would not go swimming nearly as often.

Tata for now.

Rece

A Word About My Pops

“Disparage” – (verb) regard or represent as being of little worth

My dad likes to play a victim. “Mother!” he shouts to MY mom. “Rece is disparaging me.” He usually says this after I laugh at him for stumbling on the rug or misusing a word. I laugh because it’s funny. My father, the colonel, the guy who used to yell at me for not holding the lamp straight when he was bottle-feeding a lamb in the barn, the guy who corrected every grammatical error I made from age two until age 22 made a mistake. This is always a delightful experience. There’s something karmic about my dad’s fall from perfection that helps me enjoy my life just a little bit more. But when complains about me “disparaging” him, I want to laugh and write tales of his imperfections in my journal. The thing my dad doesn’t and has never really thought about is the fact that for years he allowed my older brother Benji to disparage me without any consequences. Ben would torture me, poke me, call me names, tease me mercilessly, and ignore me so often that I hated him. He was the worst of my four siblings. What was worse than him actually making me feel like crap was the manipulation. Ben didn’t actually like me, but every once in a while, when he needed to borrow $4 or wanted a bite of my chocolate bar, he suddenly became my best friend. He noticed my talents and wanted to let me know how great I was. While I was floating on my bubble for being awesome, Ben would get my money or chocolate and leave. Not until I showed him his tab (he still owes me $16 by the way) did I realize that he never really appreciated my talents, but only wanted me for the money and chocolate. Both of my parents knew about Ben and I not getting along. My mom’s response was to let it roll off my back. Not once did she tell Ben to quit picking on me. I suppose she believed that bullying is a natural part of one’s adolescence and that perhaps if I went through it at home, high school wouldn’t be so rough. (This doesn’t work, by the way. High school is meant to suck.) So these days, when my dad complains about me “disparaging” him, I have to laugh. I love my dad. I compliment his cooking (when it’s good – I don’t lie about it when it’s bad. And he still complains about the night I fixed toast for dinner so the truth-telling is mutual.). And I give him hugs when he has a bad day. If I ever say a joke that I can tell hit him the wrong way, I apologize and give him a hug. I never let him believe that I don’t value him, because I do value him.

I think I know what the problem is. My dad doesn’t really get what the word disparage means. I should have gotten him a dictionary for his birthday. It would have been more helpful than the canned cabbage, candies, and note that said that I gave him consumables and recyclables so as to avoid hoarding any useless junk. That way, he could know that I don’t disparage him, but merely help him reevaluate the way he does things, like walking and talking.

Tata for now.

Rece