Reply to How cruel is parents not paying for oldest children's college, yet paying for the youngest?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would never forgive my parents.  [/quote]

take pride in paying your own way in life- it’s more impressive than living off a parent or waiting for them to die in hopes get $[/quote]

My father - well off but abusive beyond belief - thankfully left the family when I was 17.  My mother turned to addiction to cope, and she was completely  out of it.  She obtained an incredibly poor divorce outcome arising from her addiction and my father's hiding of assets.  She was not educated which did not help her in getting on her feet.

My twin brother and I went off to some of the best schools in the country entirely on our own at age 18.  No financial aid, but we were national level athletes and obtained athletic scholarships.  We really never had enough to eat and it certainly not easy.  But we were no victims - we did well in school and had freedoms most students would really want.  I chose my school poorly because it was filled with wealthy private school kids (it still is) and between athletics and academics I had no social development.  My brother went to a similar school but it was an athletic powerhouse, and he had much the same experience as I did socially.  Phi Beta Kappa in math, though, and a brilliant student and athlete.

My issue with my father was not that he abandoned us and put us in a tough position.  My greatest accomplishment was in learning quickly not to trust him.  What I really was disappointed by him was by not being truthful about supporting us through college.  If he had told us truthfully early on, we both could have prepared better.  I would not have been an early signer of my NIL if I was more fully apprised by him.  He began dating women my age, and the trips to Italy, the Rolex watches, the gambling, and all of his vices were expensive.

He hated me with a passion.  I was always dumb, fat and lazy to him (national champion in my sport, 10th in a class of 700 in high school, state champion and so on and never any trouble).  He would put signs up in the house naming me fat dumb and lazy and questioning my sexuality (clearly laughable, but hurtful because one of my good friends, actually two, were gay and great people).  He treated my brother poorly, but not as poorly as me.  My mother did nothing but she was subject to awful humiliations and beatings and while she should have been responsible it just wasn't in her.  My father died hating me to the core (I was really successful in my professional life, by the way) and I did not learn of his passing until called much later by one of his friends.

I vowed not to be my father in any way. And in some sense I did.  My daughters were cared for and supported in every way, and both went to Ivy League schools (not my thing, theirs).  The problem is I felt like a bit of a fraud as I never saw a decent role model.  I looked carefully at others - such as with a really good guy who had four kids and was the President of my spouse's synagogue.   I for a time acted like I was stalking him - so I came clean and told hm I was just trying to learn.  Of course, he said come on board with great humility but to this day I never really knew I was doing right. I could be kind of smart academically but never really could fill in the blank space.  Better to be open about your weaknesses.

My twin - one of the most successful institutional finance people in the world and a Phd economist, felt the same blank space.  Being a twin, he spent his life protecting me, riling my father no end. He was generous to the core. My brother saw the world through the eyes of children.

My twin died last month.  I believed he died prematurely protecting me.  Not an easy thing to digest.  He was much more intense about my father than I was, and woke up every day to crush him, which in some sense he did.  But it was a difficult way to live.  I just stayed away entirely - made easier by father's intense Jew hatred of my spouse.  My mother died a few years back, and cried herself to sleep every night.  I could never help her properly, and it is my biggest regret.

I am not sure I did anything remotely right.  But I stayed away from negative things - no drinking - no drugs - and I treated women respectfully -  even at the price of being a terrific dork - and therefore enjoyed terrific freedom.  And simply by staying away and not getting involved in any of the trauma - going completely on my own with no emotion - has been incredibly helpful.  I won't say I have let it all go - but have done better than expected.

Where I lived when I was young, I always tried to travel north.  It was safer for me.  It was cold (Wisconsin) and things emerged with greater clarity.  The glaciers receded in Wisconsin leaving hilly and interesting terrain, and even the snow was clean.  But for those moments I don't know how I would have made it. I went to school out East because Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway did - and my English AP teacher challenged me to believe that green lights could be real.  The small things....
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