A quarrel of love or friendship, family or professional tear shouting match marked their lives … They tell it to the “World”. This week, Daniele, 76, pensioner living in California.
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We left France to Silicon Valley when our son was two babies, in 1984. They grew up here, real Americans. They attended public school. Teenager, my eldest was full of life, very sporty, even if it was not brilliant in his studies. It was the stud, the popular boy attractive.
In the first year of college, he was cornered by a recruiter marine, and signed up as a reservist. I was against, and I told him, it seemed a strange choice, away from the values we were raising. And then there was the war in Iraq, and his battalion was one of the first called. He stayed two years. He participated in the fighting while I was going to demonstrate against the war in American streets … After returning, he chose to become a firefighter. With this training, he found a frame as marine. A highly structured environment, hierarchical, very masculine. He had to do a two years, during which he worked that summer as an auxiliary. The rest of the year, from October to June, we were supporting financially, his father and me.
In 2008, he met a young American. She soon became pregnant and, four months after they met, they were married. In the meeting, I had the impression of being a Martian in his eyes. Stepparents who spoke with a French accent, obviously it was we really strange. This is a young woman who has no education. I’m not sure she knew where to place France.
Two visions of motherhood
they have bought a house, because they had no income. What struck me immediately was that she was not looking for work. In my opinion, choose to become a mother at home was unthinkable. My mother was, and nothing in the world I would not have to follow the same path. It is also a philosophy: my children have never been all of my life – it was the world beside, active living, social, cultural. Many times, I encouraged my daughter to enroll in a community college [an alternative to university]. She did it then abandoned. As soon as she had her baby, she plunged with delight in motherhood. Many times I proposed to come to keep my little son one day a week, so she can work part time. There were only three hours away to go home, I could very well have done. In addition, I had made my movie on my grandmother role grandchildren who spend a vacation filled with activities, that I would tell my life in France by teaching them a few words of French … But no: my help was never accepted. My stepdaughter not confided her child to anyone. Neither mine nor his own mother. She was a mother, it was her job. Better, its reason for being.
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