THE GENERATION GAP

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation

These lyrics are definitely the antithesis of our family life, but images which I longed to have as a family reality.

Australia in the early 70's was a time of both political and social revolution.  Data says that if you were born before 1965 you are a baby boomer and if you were born between 1965 and 1980 you are Generation X.

Well I believe that for those of born in the early 60's the lines are more blurred.  I believe that for those of us whose parents embraced the cultural and social changes of the times then they are more Generation X.  For those of us whose parents staunchly refused to change with the times we are definitely Baby Boomers.

My parents were definitely of the latter type.  Politically conservative and with the parenting ideology that 'children should be seen and not heard'. They were so conservative that we even stopped attending Sunday mass when the church modernized and replaced organ music with guitars! 

This is where I can explain our family dynamics a little more clearly and allow my parents to be seen in a more sympathetic light. 

My father was a deeply frustrated man.  Scarred by his childhood war and post war experiences and separated totally from his family.  Unable to express his intelligence both verbally and career wise and deeply frustrated that we were not the totally obedient, honour thy father family that he wanted us to be.

My mother was also deeply frustrated.  Expecting a loving and romantic husband and happy family life as she had experienced in her childhood.  She ended up with a domineering, quick-tempered and verbally abusive husband. 'Bloody stupid woman!' was his favourite pet name for her, and not just in front of the family.

Mum (I would realize much later in life) with her constant nagging, correcting of my father's poor English and obvious disgust of my father's bad habits was actually the catalyst of most of the discord in our family.  Although, according to her she was of course the victim and as we spent much more of our time with her than our father, we blindly believed her.  

When Mum finally 'got with it' (her phrase) it would profoundly affect only my father and myself.  My oldest sister already had her own work life and friends and my middle sister, little did we know had her own secret life and would soon be gone.

Mum befriended our new, younger neighbours, started dressing in the latest fashions ('bloody hell woman, what are you wearing' was my father's usual remark), and started throwing amazing parties in our new completed downstairs rumpus room. Her best friend was 'the only openly gay man in the neighbourhood' and she started going to see plays with gay men and often transsexuals performing lead roles.  She also became my best friend...and convinced me that my father was my worst enemy.

We children simply wanted to be like all our friends whose families were harmonious and supportive and in our eyes indulgent towards their children.

For us, it was we who had to indulge our parents.  Rules were strict and social events were always centered around our parents whims.  We never socialized with our school friends families, but rather with our parents friends.

For my sisters this was not so bad, but for me it was always an ordeal.  My parents friends all had children much older than me, or in the case of one family, children who were total nerds - rich spoilt brats. To rub salt into the wound, my father would suddenly turn into Mike Brady at these events.  Acting the perfect, fun loving and indulgent father, but only with the children of their friends.  My sisters and I allowed to straggle behind.  We were not amused!

While our school friends spent their holidays at the beach we had to do our father's bidding and found ourselves camping every holiday and long weekend up some god forsaken mountain, or bushland swamp.  Knee deep in freezing water, indulging my fathers obsession with finding gemstones.

I think I enjoyed it more than my sisters though.  My mother was thoughtful enough to limit our digging and sieving time to a few hours each morning.  Then after a few camp chores we were free to wander.  Always told 'not to go to far', I of course ignored this rule and would wander for hours along the creeks, in the bush, or amongst the rocks, totally absorbed the wonders of the bush or countryside and my own little world.

Even better was that a few years into this we were joined by a family who had 3 sons.  All of whom were very good looking and all of whom I was to find out quickly enjoyed sex as much as I did.  It's every gay man's fantasy to do it with brothers.  Well at 13 I was doing it with 3 at the same time.  One my age, one a year younger and one who was 17.  We even snuck away once during a Christmas party at their place and romped around in the bedroom while all the adults were downstairs drinking.

There would many other boys, usually older on different holidays.  It didn't take long for them to befriend me and I was happy to indulge them.  My poor sisters were always trying to chat up these boys and would be upset every time at  my uncanny knack befriending them and spending most of my holiday with them.  I assume my parents just thought it was hero worship - the older brother I never had.

Weekends were a mixed bag.  The general routine on a Saturday morning was that we all had to creep around like mice before 9am, while my father read the paper and listened to his favourite radio station.  Which played a combination of church, classical and country music.  After this we all had to help him in the garden, which my parents were still constructing.

As mush as I enjoyed gardening and seeing our  steep, scrubby and rock strewn backyard transform into a delight of gardens, fishponds, bridges and BBQ area, working with my father was a nightmare. Dad not only made us work hard but was constantly criticizing us for not doing things exactly his way.  Even if we did exactly as he instructed us he still found fault and we at best got called useless idiots or at worst belted.

Clever me soon found an escape plan.  I swapped the house-cleaning with my mother.  She was happy to give me the job and Dad was happy to have his useless son out of his hair.  I was a house-keeper extraordinaire!  By 12 midday I would have the house spotless, ironing done, windows cleaned, furniture polished......

After lunch we were free to do as we pleased as long as we were home 10 minutes after the street lights came on my parents didn't care or often didn't even ask what we had been up to.

My oldest sister seemed least affected by our upbringing. Being the oldest she was the most indulged and allowed many liberties which my other sister and I were not.  My middle sister was smart and extremely pretty.  She managed to appear the perfect angel, whilst I on the other hand deliberately went out of my way to rebel against authority of any kind.

I wasn't a bad kid, no worse than most of my friends, but from an early age I liked to throw it in people's faces - challenging any alleged unfairness or prudishness just to shock people.  As my teacher had said ' my own worst enemy'.

But I didn't even have to try to get my father angry.  I remember once a friend and I were exploring the cliffs behind houses towards the end of 'our neighbourhood'.  We came across a vegetable plot and my friend promptly jumped down and pulled out every vegetable in the garden.  I honestly and truthfully tried to stop him and took no part in the vandalism.

Later that afternoon a man knocked on our door.  He was speaking Czech to my father.  My sister and I thinking it may be a long lost relative both went outside whereupon my father grabbed us both by the hair and smashed our heads together!

The man returned an hour later.  His neighbour had seen the incident and explained that I had done nothing wrong.  The man was kind enough to come around and apologize to me - my father never did.