Faith to move mountains

I've blown through so many Hathor comics in the last week that I forgot one of my initial reactions I'd wanted to noodle out here.

To my surprise, I got really sad when I read the cartoons about the unschooling/homeschooling she does with her kids. I felt sad for the upbringing I had in a way that I hadn't felt sad before. I felt like my childhood was a missed opportunity.

I had the same reaction when I read Persepolis. In it, a woman tells about her childhood in Iran in the 70s and 80s. Her parents were political activists and unhappy with the fundamentalist direction the government was going. There was a lot of political and social upheaval surrounding them. Although they tried to shield their daughter a bit from the ugliness of the world, they mostly explained to her what was happening and why. I devoured the two-volume set one night at my in-laws, staying up until dawn while Anonyhub and a six-week old Anonybabe slept on their palatte on the living room floor. I sat in the leather lazy boy, transfixed, mesmerized by a life and childhood that was so different from my own.

That was the first time I felt this pang, this sense of loss. I was jealous. Mostly because this little girl was being treated like a thinking, feeling, intelligent human being who was expected to become an adult some day. I wanted to emulate the main character's parents. This Hathor character is also trying to teach her kids to be political and outspoken, to fight for the kind of world they believe in. It's hard for me to recapture the sense of loss I felt seeing this comic or this one. As a child I remember playing by myself a lot. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but where were my parents? What were they trying to teach me? Anything at all? Why wasn't my mom teaching me to speak up for what I believe in rather than teaching my to conform? Why didn't my mom want to play with us rather than watch us play? (And why am I only fingering my mom as the guilty party?)

When I brought my feelings up to Anonyhub, I realized as I was grieving aloud that my parents did teach me some things that I appreciate. And they did it through an avenue I resented immensely for many years: religion. We ate, slept, and breathed Bible stories, prayer, and church in my childhood home. As the oldest and a born parent-pleaser, I latched on to the faith of my father & mother in an earnest fashion that would embarass the bejesus out of me in my twenties.

But I was encouraged to listen to the still, small voice in my heart and to pray to it (to "Him") at least every night. And pray I did, pouring out my questions, my frustrations, my guilt, and listening for an answer. When I was seventeen (?!) it finally dawned on me that I was pretty much praying to myself. This entity I'd been turning to for guidance and comfort wasn't GOD, it was just fucked up, lonely, naive me. I was angry. I felt like I'd been sold a bill of goods, that I'd been hoodwinked. It wasn't until much later, once I started learning to value myself, that I saw my parents & church had actually done me a favor.

Anyway, that, and the gorgeous Bible stories and the anti-authoritarian bent (my parents wouldn't agree, but they pretty much believed in religious anarchy), and the ability to sink myself so deeply and earnestly into something - all of this I honed during my religious upbringing.

So some of what I was pissed that I didn't get - a deeper understanding of human nature, the assurance that I'm in charge of my own destiny, a social conscience - I did get in a roundabout way.

I want to be more direct in my teaching with Anonybabe. I think. I don't want to turn into a zealot, but I want to be passionate about something, about life. This is perhaps what made me sad reading those comics. Hathor and the Persepolis parents seem to be passionate about having the best possible life for themselves and for their kids and their vision is so different than my parents' and until now, my own. Something is stirring me to rethink my definition of a good life. And that definition involves a lot less money and a lot more involvement. It involves treating Anonyhub and Anonybabe the way I wanted and want to be treated. And it is kind of blowing my mind.