Last Sunday turned out to be a lovely family day at our home. It was beautiful to be surrounded by children, grand-children, and great grand-children for a few hours in the afternoon. Some almond-cake was left from Gaby’s birthday. There was also freshly baked cheese-cake. Peter had baked this cake!
Our daughter Monika took a few pictures with her phone. On most pictures you can see either Lucas or Alex, Monika’s two little grandsons.
As promised, Monika let us have these pictures. So I am going to publish here some of them:
The older I get the more I seem to reflect on times past. I often felt very much out of place as a young person. Also I tended to be “zurückhaltend”, that is I was usually more the listener and observer and did not show a great deal of affection and emotion. On the other hand, I also remember times when I felt free and communicative and very talkative.
When I think of my parents, the most remarkable memory about them is, how very different they were. Here is a bit of how my father may have influenced me, and then how my mother’s influence was so very different.
My father was the most open minded and tolerant person. He liked to talk to me about a lot of things. He always treated me as though I was trustworthy and mature for my age, able to understand different points of view. Very rarely did I see him being angry with me. He only tended to be somewhat angry when, all of a sudden, I behaved in a very unpredictable way. Despite his open mindedness he was basically a very conservative man. If I showed signs of departing from his view of the world, this would upset him personally. Still, he was loving and forgiving, and eventually he was always able to accept my departure from some of his conservative views.
Now, my mother was in every way the opposite of my father. On the whole she was maybe rather tolerant as far as I was concerned because she loved me. But she made it very clear, that she did not love my father anymore. She showed not the least bit of tolerance towards him, on the contrary, she showed a lot of hatred, for in her opinion he was a “Versager” who did not do anything for his children. She thought it was not up to her to look after him when he had serious health issues. Maybe she thought he was just pretending. Also, she hardly ever talked to me about things that were important to me. She tended to keep very important things from me, for she wanted ‘to protect’ me! At least, this is how I remember it. I knew she loved me very much. Still, I always felt I was not the daughter she imagined I should be. I remember she telling me, I was an “Oppositionsgeist”. So I must have been speaking up about some things that disturbed me a great deal. I felt very bad for opposing her, but I could not help it. Of course, on the outside I tried very hard to go along with what she expected of me, just to keep the peace. Alas, I think I came into inner conflict about it. In short, I often did not feel happy about myself.
But all this is in the past. Peter suggested, I could insert a few photos with my father and mother and Baby Gaby in 1958.
Last Sunday was a great day for us. The following Sunday, which is Fathers’ Day here in Australia, we are all going to meet for lunch at a Thai Restaurant.
AuntyUta 
Your childhood was certainly not easy, Uta, but you seem to have learnt a lot of lessons from it and treated your own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren better. That looks like a genuine German cheesecake, not the awful American type. Bet it was good!
Well, Cat, these things are really not so clear cut. For instance when my Mum did things for her children to the disadvantage of other children (in my view) a lot of people would simply praise my Mum for being such a good mother. When I became a mother I tended to be rather uncertain at times what from a moral point of view my conduct as a mother should be. The examples of a ‘good’ mother can vary quite a bit, which can be confusing.
Yes, German cheesecake is always popular in our family. Peter always loves to bake some cake, which is very fortunate for me. If it were not for Peter’s love of baking cakes more often than not, I would probably opt for just buying some cake.
I always feel kind of inadequate as a ‘housewife’ when having to confront women who just love baking cakes and are of the opinion that every woman with a family ought to be able to bake cakes.
Why can’t I do it or won’t attempt to do it? Well, there are a lot of things I am not good at. Come to think of it, my Mum never let me do any of these things. Somehow I always had the feeling that she thought I would never be good enough. Mum could do everything so much better!
Once Mum came to visit us in Australia. One day I actually ended up driving Mum and the kids to an outing. I think Peter had been on a shift and needed a rest. Anyhow, on that day it was I who did the driving. And Mum actually praised me. She said she liked my driving up Jamberoo Pass.
I love this, Aunty Uta. The presentation of present and past, and your acceptance, both then and now, of how things are. Thank you. It was a great read.
Fondly,
Elizabeth
Thank you so much for this, dear Elizabeth. 🙂
Enjoyed reading this insight into your world Uta, both past and present, Peter is a man of many talents I can see by that great cake.
Sad to read the differences between your mum and dad, as you say that is in the past, many people in those days were set in their minds on different opinions, not unusual to have opposites in the one house.
Cheers.
It was good for me to have known both mother and father, Ian. However my parents did not live together for very long. During the war years we saw Dad. only while visiting. Then the first year after the war we lived in Leipzig at Grandma’s place. Mum soon left to take up residence in Berlin again, Dad stayed with us children and Grandma and Cousin Renate. Easter time 1946 we children were reunited with Mum in Berlin and Dad took up residence in a town in Western Germany. As far as I can see, they did really not have much of a married life.
Thanks very much for commenting, Ian.
Cheers,
Uta
Reblogged this on AuntyUta and commented:
I just had a look at this what I wrote in September of 2015 and decided to reblog it, for it was very interesting for me to see all the pictures and what I wrote about my parents. So, I imagine it to be a bit interesting too for some other people to have a look at it. Anyway, I hope so! 🙂