Growing Up, part 1

A German Youth

Grown up in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s

Dear Reader,

   Deep from my heart I am grateful that you take your time to read my lines, stay with them for a while, might think about or even be inspired by them.

   I am very excited about the possibility to communicate through the medium of a blog for the first time. While I am typing I hope that you do not only find the pages entertaining but also discover something new and worthwhile for your, your family, your environment and your life in general. If I should be carried too far from the main subject please forgive me this in my excitement for my first publication.

Preface

   To understand me better I would like to introduce myself and my parents first. I hope that, especially between the lines concerning my time growing up, you will discover how important it is for parents to work responsibly on an intact family. While I write this the divorce rate in Taiwan, the country I am living, is at a staggering 50% in the first 3 years of the marriage!  The most who suffer under the quarrels, pain and separation of families are the one least guilty: the children.

   My parents got married after their previous divorces. Since their own relationship did not work either my mother permanently blamed us children for her ‘own misfortune‘ by telling us permanently that ‘we are the reason' why she is so misery. Not only with words but even more with the outright explosive violent character and reflexes of a child growing up during the 2nd World War she not only hurt my elder sister, me and my two younger sisters but also her daughter, or our stepsister, from her first divorce who lived with us, both mentally and physically.

Me and my 'loving' mother

   My father, who never wanted to be and whom I never considered a ‘Dad‘, was a truck driver. In Germany the work of a trucker includes cleaning, maintaining and preparing the truck for the next week on Saturday mornings. From this work he returned home drunken only to terrorize each and every member of the family with violence and insults until he fell exhausted into bed. On the next morning the drama continued with my mother insulting him the whole holy Sunday. The following weekend the same tragedy started all over again...and again...and again...

(to be continued)