Growing up, (ha, I say that as though I've finished,) I lived in an interesting if not chaotic world. My parents were an odd dynamic in themselves. Both were raised Catholic, though to different degrees of dedication. Though whereas my mother was often dreaming, social, and a regular fixture in her schools glee club, my father turned out to be technologically minded, methodical, and altogether skeptical of most ideas he was presented with. It's a wonder they managed to come together at all. Though who am I to talk as their overly accepting offspring, but we'll breech that subject later. What I'm ultimately getting at is that where my mother remained easily content with the ideas she'd been instilled with throughout childhood, my father naturally rejected anything that didn't involve logic, or reason.
You may already see where this is going, and opposed to drawling on about some long-winded explanation of my parents emotional makeup, suffice to say my mother ended up christian, and my father adapted atheism with a fondness for Buddhist principles. Naturally I wasn't necessarily educated in either realm,and rather was left to make my own decisions. This, I suppose, is really the only way to go about parenting children in a household where there are religious conflicts abound. I mean, you could argue into oblivion with you significant other about the issue, but in the end all you'll be left with is a headache and the kid is still going to make up their own mind. I like to think it is as the result of this that my religious affiliation is muddled to say the least.
Now, religion honestly isn't one of my favorite subjects. Or at least I like to convince myself it isn't, despite my incessant need to chime in whenever it's brought up. Damn outspokenness. It only crops up when it's least pertinent. However, as much as I'd like to avoid the subject and it's possible uncomfortable situational outcome, I find myself lured into conversation about it quite often. Lucky me most of my friends are like-minded, though generally more knowledgeable and less confused about their ideals. Essentially I teeter back and forth between atheism and agnosticism. How it seems to work is that I generally cannot even fathom the idea of there being some sort of almighty being(s) controlling or influencing the world around me. I can't imagine or begin to understand the concept of an afterlife, as my logically based though still irrational mind (I'm female, I swear is hardwired,) cannot make sense of it. As far as I'm concerned we die, and we become fuel for something else, and the cycle continues on. Or at least that's what I think most of the time. Every so often life events sway me into the realm of agnosticism and I'll let myself fantasize about the idea of it all. My interest is never quite piqued enough to want to engage in it though, as my mind inevitably returns to the solace of logical skepticism. I like to think that I got a little bit of both of my parents in the transaction.
I find my ideas about most things are pretty fluid. Sex and sexuality, love, the importance of various life issues... most of the time I don't know what I think, and I don't expect it to stay very rigid, and so I prefer not to label them so statically. I guess I'm pan-skeptical. ha... As life progresses my interests change as well as my viewpoints, and who I perceive myself to be. Why be so literal?
I like to think that letting me grow into whoever I wanted to be was one of the things my parents did right. Things were far from perfect, believe me. I was one of those kids who's parents were hoarders. I was "homeschooled" from about the 8th grade on, but I was never formally taught anything, It's a wonder my brother and I managed to at grade level as much as we did. I'm still wonder how my parents got away with it for the entirety of my remaining school life. On top of this my father worked 80 hour work weeks, and my mother was bi-polar and possibly schizophrenic. It wasn't as terrible as it sounds. Or at least it didn't feel so bad. Mom's depression essentially meant that she would allow herself to feel defeated when it came to teaching my brother and I, and she would often become very reclusive. This meant that my brother and I were left to our own devices every day, all day long. I think the only thing that kept us afloat academically was natural curiosity. Though I doubt the standards held against us by our homeschool "Assessor." We were required to be assessed by a state registered education assessor once a year as an alternative to test taking. Some time in August we'd make an hour long trek to this women's house, and she would individually assess our progress from the year before. Ironically this involved several tests.
Oddly enough my lack of religious knowledge came in to play here. The women who did our assessments was extremely religious (a fact my brother and I loved to prod at much to my mother horror,) and had been on several missions to other countries. As a result she had a wealth of small mementos from her travels. Some of these mementos included small religious, hand carved figurines representing different sects of what I suppose is a form of religious hierarchy in the countries she visited. One set looked suspiciously akin to KKK members, and I was horrified up until the point where I finally had the guts to ask my mom about it, and she explained it was actually a type of religious garb. The matter still confuses me to be honest.
A result of this style of not quite schooling was that my brother and I reached adulthood without any type of highschool diploma equivalency, and lacking many skills that quite honestly should have been drilled into us our entire childhood. The ability to clean and organize for example. I didn't honestly know how to properly clean anything until I got my first job. I was lucky enough to have been employed by a major coffee chain that takes care in enforcing fairly rigid cleaning and organization standards. I learned basic life skills from work, and I suppose I was eager to feel like I could accomplish something, since I've always had an unusually high work ethic when I know I'm being paid for it.
My parents did a whole lot of wrong when raising my brother and I. And yes we're still suffering for it. But I still feel like I can't blame them. Like I should be blaming myself for not stepping up, and taking my education seriously. I was lazy, and living in the moment. I hated the idea of being forced to learn. I wish I'd been able to embrace it, and love it for the simple pursuit of knowledge. I should have stepped up. But how many kids in my situation would? I'd always been allowed to be lazy. no consequences for not doing homework, or not cleaning my room. My brother and I never particularly rebelled, because honestly, what was there to rebel against. Perhaps the only advantage to be reclusive web surfers was that we didn't really get ourselves into trouble. There was no need. And when you're raised lazy, you tend to perpetuate it. Not that it's any excuse. My brother and I have good character, and moral values. I don't what my parents did, but for all their faults, and they were huge, they did something right that a lot of parents seem to be missing completely these days.
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