Anti-Authoritarianism
My German-born father was rather strict and accustomed to getting his own way. When I turned 14 and was about to graduate from junior high he wanted to send me to boarding school in Switzerland. I refused, not wanting to leave my friends and family.
“It’s like the army,” he retorted, “and I’m the general and you’re the private.”
“Then I’m going AWOL.” I said.
That September I enrolled at Forest Hills High, my local neighborhood school.
The writer with unnamed Retro admin
– Danny L, guest writer
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Tags:
Parent Child Relationship, Parental Authority, Humor
Characterizations:
been there, funny, right on!, well written
Thank you for this brief glimpse of defiance from Danny L (cute photo too!). It must have taken a lot of chutzpa to stand up to his father back then!
Thanx Betsy, you’re surely right!
The first time you win one with a parent is sweet indeed!
Thanx Dave, I’ll pass that on to the guest writer!
I agree. Your guest writer was wise to question authority, even if that meant standing up to his father. He would probably have been very unhappy at boarding school.
Yes Laurie, I’ve come to know the guest writer rather well, and indeed he would have been unhappy at boarding school!
Such an intriguing story. I hope your guest writer will provide a context such as was the father a German vet.? Was he the eldest child? How did this experience affect his life as a father? And a citizen? He has sparked my curiosity.
Thanx Richard, will try to get a hold of the guest writer – he’s actually in another room watching the Yanks lose to the Red Sox.
Will get his responses and revert!
Richard, to answer your questions –
My father escaped Germany a few weeks after Hitler rose to power.
I am my parents’ only child.
I have always been anti any attempt to control me, so sometimes I have conflicts with my son.
As a citizen I have no issues.
Thanks for reading my story and for your comments.
Danny
Thank you for your response. It clarifies a lot for me, but I still wish for more.
What more can I tell you?
Sending love to my fellow Brandeis alum, Dana!
xoxo
Betsy, the Brandeisian sends it back!
Looks like you and I are the only posters again this week, sigh. But I had to smile at this. Good for him! I actually did spend a year in a Swiss boarding school (for very different reasons) and it was an enlightened place serving an eclectic international group. But the place his dad was thinking of was surely somewhere else!
Thanx Khati, indeed the handwriting is on the Retro wall!
Danny tells me the school was L’Ecole Internationale de Geneve.
By chance is that where you boarded?
Yes Dana! That was it. And it was hardly a cruel military place—it was formed in the time of the League of Nations to promote peace and International understanding, and many students were kids of various international dignitaries. Classes were offered in French or English, in preparation for English or American colleges, or French or Swiss baccalaureate. Most of the students were not boarders, but day students. Too bad Danny never had the experience. It might have been a really positive thing.
Thanx Khati, just read your comment to Danny who agrees it would have been a positive experience, but at 14 he didn’t want to leave his friends.
When I was in grad school the Peace Corps was recruiting librarians to set up libraries in Africa and South America and I was intrigued, but there was a guy I didn’t want to leave.
But that relationship ended badly and I still think .. what if?