# Thoughts about my family - Part 3: My Nana



## decided (May 17, 2009)

I have been thinking about my family. My place in it, the way it works, and the things that I remember about growing up surrounded by these people. I decided to write down and type up my memories and thoughts, and post it all here.

Please be aware that this is all very very very personal to me, and it is all my own personal perspective, so please be gentle if you decide to comment.

*My nana*
My nana is my mother’s mother. She raised my mother and aunt by herself, after her husband left her when my mother was just a child. He moved to Australia, remarried and had another family. I never met my grandfather. Apparently he died a few years ago, and his new family never informed my nana. She found out through other people who saw it in the paper or something.

Anyway, my nana has a very forceful personality. My mother is very loyal, and takes my nana’s advice on everything. She had a lot to do with the running of my parent's household when I was growing up. A lot of the thoughts that my mother has are taken directly from things that my nana has said is the case. For example, the ideas that my mother has about all educated people being snobby, and university education being pointless is something she got off my nana. I never got along very well with my nana. She found me too independent, opinionated and argumentative. I found her overbearing, narrow-minded and meddlesome.

She used to look after us kids during school holidays. She would keep us in/around the house. This didn’t bother me when I was young. I only had one good friend until I was at intermediate school anyway, and her family would often go away. I was generally a very quiet child, and I would happily play with my brother and sister, or read and write by myself.

As I got older and more social I realised that I wanted to see friends during the holidays. I decided that there was no reason that I couldn’t go to a friend’s house for the day, or go to a movie with a friend or whatever. I was allowed to do this stuff during the rest of the year, so I started making demands for more freedoms. My brother never tried to get any of these ‘privileges’ from my nana, so I got into more and more fights with my nana.

She has always had an incredibly loud, grating voice, and I remember when I was 14, I was getting ready to hang out with some friends when she says to me “I KNOW WHAT YOU’VE BEEN GETTING UP TO WITH THOSE BOYS YOU SEE… I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LIKE!” I was shocked that she thought I was a slut, and just stared back at her, stunned and upset. She obviously didn’t understand me at all.

I haven’t bothered trying to keep in contact with my nana at all since I moved to Christchurch. I generally see her when I visit, on Christmas day or something, but otherwise I keep a wide berth. She still has a lot of control over my mother and brother though.


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