Nobody asks for life to be given to them. From the choices that were made for them, before they became a sentient human being to the fact that the zygote and sperm were non-sentient molecules bunched together relying only in innate biological urges to procreate and create life - everything stemmed from urges. And how I came into being...well, it was because two people wanted their lives to mean something: to give someone else some "satisfaction" before they died; namely her dad who was pressuring her to have a kid so he could have a grandkid. After all, Grandpa Torahide was approaching his early 80s and he'd had a hard life...especially with the internment during the 40s and now being diagnosed with throat cancer...
well, since my Mom was the first one married, she got the full weight of the "need to have a grandkid" pressure square on her shoulders while she was trying to start up a career. You could say she certainly wasn't happy about that. You talk about the mother of all guilt trips...my mother had gotten the guilt trip of her life. "After all that Dad did...the least you could do is make him happy...He's in the twilight of his years and I don't know how much longer he's got." And well, that was that... y'know...Me: I don't think that's a good enough reason for bringing someone into the world that you're going to resent the hell out of.
But of course...family pressures mounted and well, Mom and Dad did the good ol'...yeah...whatever... and well...
I'm sure that made for some awkward moments, all things considered. "Yeah, Mom...Yasunobu and I did the deed...and in about 9 months you're going to be a grandmother." Grandma and Grandpa were from a generation where that kind of stuff wasn't talked about at all. I'm sure the look on her face was one for the ages.
In fact, frankly, I don't think either of them were prepared for the commitment that a new life would bring. Both were getting their careers started. My mother was a high-school teacher teaching English and Social Studies and well my Dad...he started in the science career after moving over from Japan in '56 and it'd taken 13 years for them to work their way up...in their careers. And just when things were going swimmingly, well, neither of her older brothers had done anything in terms of getting into a relationship at this point in time...and well, there wasn't anything in the way of a baby coming from those two anytime soon.
I'm sure throwing up her guts every morning for 9 months didn't help soothe my mother's feelings towards me.
Evidently I showed up late to the party by several weeks. And that extra time in my mom's belly didn't endear me any. Frankly, it's probably uncomfortable as heck, and well, I wouldn't know, because I'm the wrong gender to know what that feels like.
Well, my arrival was a mixed bag of reactions. Both Hideki and Michihiro were ticked off that they weren't the ones who had provided the "first-born" grandchild. And my mother felt put-upon because of the fact that her career was being stymied by having to raise a child that was in all aspects a burden. My grandfather was kind of annoyed that the oldest son wasn't the one to give him the first-born grandchild, but he seemed to warm to the fact that I was the one that showed up. Not that it would have mattered much if any of the others had provided the kid.
At least there was one person who was glad to see me...
As a toddler, life was the usual, I got shafted off on my grandmother and she ended up taking the last few years of her life trying to raise me while my mother decided that her career as an educator was much more important to her well-being. What it was was that it gave her one more tool to use in mentally bashing me over the head with: "I had to quit my career to take care of you."
At least she was the only one that made me feel as though I was wanted.
When I was two years old, cancer finally took my grandpa and well, what can you do, that's life. Grandma was heartbroken, but she had a grandkid to take care of. My mother was too busy with her career and the kid she'd never really wanted in the first place. And Mom and Dad were making plans to move out anyways.
As a child, I was continually berated and told how s-tupid I was. "Why aren't you as smart as your uncle? He was deemed second in the whole country as far as grades were concerned, I guess you're too incapable of learning anything." So what do you do. I guess since it was Mom telling me all this, I figure, "What the heck, it must be true." So I started looking for ways to live up to what my Mom thought of me "You're lazy, you're s_tupid...you're no-good for anything..." Nowadays we know those words can cut deeper than a scalpel, back then it was just "parenting". I sabotaged my own progress. Why should I succeed? Negative feedback was better than no feedback at all. Hell, what my mother wanted was absolute perfection, be better than my uncle, and that wasn't possible by any stretch of the imagination. So if that was the case, then eff it, why bother?
Comparisons may be fine when you're comparing two inanimate objects, but don't bother doing that when you're dealing with a living, breathing human being. You're not going to get the result you're expecting. Better yet, just keep your opinions to yourself.
To the outsider, the family was the typical ideal family, kid getting good grades (for fear of getting screamed at), mother and father together, but no one was able to see the undercurrents behind all of this. All the so-called "parenting" was kept behind closed doors and never talked about. That was purely forbidden.
Besides, if the kid doesn't go to school with bruises on him and no-one talks out of fear of utter retribution, then it can't possibly be happening, right?
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