A long line of single women.....

A story about four generations of women in my family... a short one (trust me on this, the unabridged version would resemble War and Peace – that possibly being an appropriate title for it too!)

My maternal Great-Grandmother was an 'army-widow' even though my Great-Grandfather lived to a ripe old age. Their stories are fascinating, spanning continents and involving mutinies, wars, ox wagons, ships, and battles with spear wielding and shotgun toting rivals. India, Africa, England, and Ireland were places either called home at some or other point in his or her life. The Boer War, Empire building and so much more were small tidbits of their lives, but these stories are worth a book! (one I am attempting to write.. but the process is slow).

G-Gmother had around a dozen children, ten of whom survived. Whilst g-grandfather was off serving the British Armed Forces in Africa, she was left alone to raise and care for their offspring, I have it on good familial authority that amongst her children, she was referred to as a martinet! In her defense, in a society dominated by men, she probably felt it was the only way she could cope and her legacy of child rearing is a reflection of her own upbringing and religion and everything else which Victorian and later Edwardian society determined she should or should not be.....

My grandmother was the youngest of her children, raised virtually as a single child since her siblings fled home as soon as they were able. The result being that my grandmother, born in 1903 in the British Colony of South Africa was perhaps more old fashioned, more Victorian and more narrow minded than most of those who went before her. She only married in her very late 20's or early 30's which was OLD for a woman of that time. My grandfather was 22 years her senior and an American divorcee (hmm that has a familiar ring to it?!).

Gran was a strange woman, but also kind, intelligent, and strong. Her strangeness, to me, stems from the fact that she had some of the oddest superstitions; mimicked no doubt from her own mother, who had spent years in Ireland as a child where her father served as an Inspector of Fortifications for the Royal Engineers. G-Gmother probably learned these superstitions from nannies or governesses she had as a child.

It has to be said that in my misspent childhood, I took great delight in opening umbrellas inside the house (one of her pet hates) and usually right behind my grandmothers’ chair that was conveniently situated in the sitting room with its back to the front entrance of the house and each time I did it, she was as horrified as the first! I was a horrible child and were I to go back, I would probably do it all over again.

My mother was born in 1934 also in the then British Colony of South Africa. My grandfather died a short eighteen months after mum was born and so my grandmother and her English teacher sister (considerably older than herself) proceeded to raise my mother whilst staying together. Grandmother never remarried, never considered anything other than to raise mum as best she could. Grandmother was a nurse and her ancient medical remedies were combined sources of horror, fascination, and amusement to me as a child (opening for another story later on – if you can bear it :) .

Mother was left handed and her aunt, forced her to use her right hand as a child. Aunt May (stories of false teeth and falling pantaloons to follow!!) did this with all the love in the world, knowing full well that mother would be subjected to having her hand strapped behind her back at school (how were we still this barbaric in the early 1900's???!!!!). Mum was a bright student being quickly promoted and skipping a few grades at school. However, according to my grandmother women became either, teachers, nurses or secretaries - Yah boo! Gran, what were you thinking!!! Mum, being a typically good child and following parental advice, chose to become a secretary, her rationale was, it at least offered the possibility of being exposed to different environments, she was right, if not frustrated for the duration of her working life. She did stop working when she married my father.

Poor mum, she stood little chance of a happy upbringing with two gnarly, superstitious and obsessively British Colonial women raising her. Do not show emotion, do not show weakness, do not this.. do not that... the list is endless and there are VERY few dos in it!

Mum in turn has been kind enough to pass this affliction on to me, the youngest of her three children, separated by a few years from my two older siblings and having been raised by my grandmother and my mother after our own father died one month after my third birthday. Jealousy and sibling rivalry caused splits between us children early on and I can say with reasonable confidence that I too feel as if I were raised an only child, my brother and sister having always been closer to each other than I ever was to either of them.

Mum never remarried after father died, she withdrew emotionally (if it was at all possible to withdraw any more than she already was!). I was young and my grandmother no doubt saw in me the child my mother had been at the time of her own father’s death. Three years old, vulnerable and .... how bad a picture can I really paint? I became the next victim of the family inheritance... cold parenting! Oh and before you think too badly of them, we were loved, in a strange, almost indifferent kind of way....

I am in turn a single parent, I did it the modern way, I skipped the whole marriage, widowed thing, and went straight to the baby. It saved a lot of heartache, or so I thought; but now as years have passed and my son (YES a boy, the cycle is broken!) is almost grown, I realise how much happier I may have been to at least have had someone to love and care for and hopefully receive these gifts in return. Truth be told, my earlier choices probably saved some poor man from many years of torment and pain, although I see some who have survived worse, they must love the women in their lives a great deal! As for me, I am a reformed batchelorette!

It has been an interesting; yet deeply emotional and mentally demanding journey to try to break the pattern of singleness and parenting. I hope I have done a lot better at the parenting; if not, at least, quite differently; but the singleness I have been unable to correct, yet!

Learning to try to understand the generations of women who passed before me and who left this legacy, of possibly the worst style of parenting, has been a fascinating one. I am in no doubt that were I to have a daughter, she in turn might include me in this collective but I trust that my stubbornness, logic and passion have dealt it a harsh and shattering blow. A world in which words, intellect, manners, and society take precedence over love, warmth, consideration, and feeling in general cannot endure, surely!

This was a true British tradition, those who had it differently are amongst the most fortunate – and we who are left are in dire need of therapy!