"She also doesn't understand why, as a woman in my 40s, I like certain things that she considers childish, like animated films. However, when I think about her childhood, I realize that she probably still has unhealed trauma that was never dealt with. She was born in France, just two months before the Nazis marched in, and spent the first five years of her life in wartime and economic struggles."
"I knew that my mom studied biomedical engineering in college, and that she even got to travel to London and Paris for work because of it. But I guess I didn't fully realize how incredible it was that my mom was killing it in a male-dominated STEM field in the late '80s and early '90s. She'd never intended on being a stay-at-home mom, but had to after my little brother was born due to his medical complexities."
Personal recollections reveal parents' lives before parenthood, including wartime childhoods, unhealed trauma, notable careers, international travel, and caregiving sacrifices. One parent experienced early childhood during WWII in France, which contributed to long-standing trauma and guarded behavior. Another parent pursued biomedical engineering, traveled for work, and excelled in a male-dominated field before becoming a full-time caregiver due to a child's medical needs. Stories also include efforts to recover memories of a parent's youthful personality after death. The accounts show complexity: kindness and joy coexist with anger and control, and past experiences continue to shape present behaviors.
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