You Mean It DOESN'T?

At what point did you realize that your parents' world did not completely revolve around you?

Obviously, the birth of my younger sister was a bit of a shock. The pre-existing sister was problematic, of course, especially since she kept reminding me of my usurpation. Still, it didn't really sink in until I had a fundamental, philosophical disagreement with my father. Over a fella. Obviously, if his world revolved around me, he would somehow manage to fall in love with my choice of Prince Charming, to say nothing of getting his philosophy in line with the center of the universe.

Here he is!
I think he leaves his eyebrows like that on purpose- he likes the intimidation factor.
(Except at Christmas time. For obvious reasons, he's under a lot of scrutiny
at Christmas time. He lets his beard and his hair grow, but I think
he tries to lose the intimidation part.)

It wasn't THIS Prince Charming. Frankly, my father probably
has more legitimate points of contention about this one than he ever
would have about Prince Charming I. But he didn't bother
to learn anything about PCI. Just what he could determine
from a photograph. Unfortunately, it was a case
of that ugly "B" word- bigotry. I don't know how else to put it.
There's a lot to like about my dad, and of course I love him.
But we just aren't in agreement about the meaning of life.
(I am perfectly safe in telling this story, readers, because
according to my father, COMPUTERS ARE A FAD.
See what I mean?)

And then my mom, in what was in retrospect almost certainly diplomatic, measured wisdom, said that whomever I chose for a partner, it should be someone with whom I could agree philosophically.

And, since she was my parent, and therefore presumably in collusion with my father, and therefore the subject of my fury, I responded, "Oh, yea right, like you would know what THAT looks like."

And she said, "That's what I mean."

Which shut me up.

And one of the many, many lessons that came from that encounter was the idea that a marriage can survive, evolve, mature and possibly even strengthen IN SPITE OF differences that could seem seismic.

Still, we all know that the Earth revolves around Rose, so my little youthful fantasy was misguided anyway.