An Upbringing among Generations

My auntie, the younger sister of my mother, died a few days ago. This is for her. She would understand why. 

There he was, brought in by the nurse, wrapped up in a soft white towel, only the face visible. His grandmother took him, ignoring his mother's outstretched arms. His grandmother was the mother of his mother, who kept quiet, having submitted herself to the old lady's wilful authority since she was old enough to be told, she was in no position to object now. He was the first boy for two generations—his mother was an only girl and his grandmother had two sisters. His father sat in the chair next to the bed, a bit unsure of what to do, expecting recognition as the provider of all this, but none was coming, certainly not from his mother-in-law who disliked the fact that he was from a four-boys-and-no-girls family. She took it as a personal affront and had made sure that he understood her dislike the moment he had shown an interest in her daughter. Unfortunately, she could not possibly refuse him, after all he was from a respected and well-to-do family, but it riled her, four boys!

This was a rather unexpected aspect of the normally liberal woman. She was a fairly gifted artist whose paintings had been sold widely. The painting her grandson would inherit, Girl in the Reeds, showed a beautiful nymph-like girl. Many years later, when he saw the painting consciously for the first time, he had asked: "Grandma, is that you when you were young?" As his grandmother had never been that beautiful, the question earned him a nearly inexhaustible amount of goodwill.

Girl in the Reeds by Selma Gutzkow

"Hello, g'day everybody, top of the morning... Ahh, there he is, my grandson! Here, let me hold him for a sec"

This was his grandfather, the father of his father, self-assured, a bit too loud, but charmingly playing the country lad he was not. His grandmother reluctantly let him be taken from her. She silently hoped that he would start to cry but her wish was not granted. Men...!

"And what do we call him, have we decided yet?" That caused quite a little stir. His father had insisted that he be called after him but was overruled, even by his own wife. Grandfather had promised to set aside a fund for his education when called after him, but was rejected although nobody dared to tell him so. And his grandmother had insisted that he be called after her father, once a writer of local fame, but that was before the war, WW-I that is.

"Well, whatever they will eventually call you, I'm sure you'll make an excellent third-generation manager of our proud family firm." His grandmother was inhaling deeply in preparation for her undoubtedly snide reply, when his mother made herself heard asking for her baby...

"It is my baby, I believe, and you keep him away from me, squabbling over names. And if I'm not mistaken by the signs, the educational issue is coming up in a minute! So why don't you all leave me for a while, have a coffee in the canteen, I need a rest and so does my beautiful wee little lad."

They all tramped out, but before the door was closed the grandmother was heard voicing her opinion on traders—she called them tradesmen even though the company his grandfather had referred to was a multi-million business in tropical produce and oils.

The issue of the name would be settled within a few days. A victory for his father it was. His mother had given up, she was tired out by the delivery and did not want to keep on arguing. But, she would never call him by that name. I married one, she would say when asked, that's my contribution to the ugly names society, I don't have to further support the lack in aesthetic judgement of the family. So she called him Little Lad, which when he grew older was shortened to L-L.

She was a kind and soft-spoken woman who abhorred arguments and disharmony. Her contribution to his upbringing was concealed in the bedside stories she told her Little Lad. They always started with: Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten... which, she had explained, was the opening line of a beautiful poem by Heinrich Heine about the Lorelei on the River Rhine, and also that she would take him there one day. It meant I do not know the meaning... and then she would weave a tale of kindness and love ad tolerance, and nature full of beautiful animals and flowers. It was their little escape from the family fights and arguments...

The endless discussions about his education would drag on for years, forever it seemed. Grandmother wanted schools with strong arts sections, and grandfather came around with registration forms for the public schools of his choice, pressing for a quick decision to secure a place. In the end he went to a primary school at walking distance from the house, and for the secondary school his parents opted for the school the parents of his classmates had chosen, too. He was intelligent and gave teachers no problem. And as he also was fairly lazy he had quickly discovered that he could freewheel on sixes and sevens with a minimum input, leaving him lots of time to pursue other things. Although not very athletic he liked sports, especially the ones related to water—he was a good sailor and in university he was on the varsity rowing crew. After a failed attempt in mechanical engineering—mainly to get away from the MBA dangled in front of his nose by his grandfather—he switched to humanities and eventually became a much appreciated teacher, whose banner read: Each Child its Own Dream at its Own Speed! This, of course, was not his original thinking, but an adaptation of the theories and practices of a whole range of educators, from Pestalozzi and Friedrich Fröbel to Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner. He had studied them all and taken the bits and pieces he liked. And unknowingly (perhaps) he had fulfilled his mother's dream.

  

References:

Family secrets

and thanking you, Heinrich Heine