I have a friend whose uncles were all Sicillian crime bosses. His dad opted to steer clear of “the family business” and run a grocery. When the “heat” was on, the bosses would hide out in the grocery freight elevator. No one messed with my friend or his family.
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The importance of a college education has been in my family values for a long time . My grandmothers mother died when she was 7 leaving her father with 8 children. Desperate for a new mother for his kids he asked the only woman he knew, a “ spinster “ who was the bookkeeper in the jewelry store where he worked. His older daughters who were tween/teens didn’t want a new mom and didn’t like her. But my grandmother loved the nice lady who fawned over her. As my grandmother grew older she told her “You never know if you’ll find someone to marry. Look at me I didn’t marry til I was 45. You are a smart girl, work hard in high school and go to college so you can support yourself as a teacher “ My grandmother did and won a scholarship to the U of C which accepted woman back then. ALL of her friends came from the wealthiest homes in Chicago. That’s who sent girls to college. On her first day at school she met my grandfather. Like many young men he was working his way thru college and planned on medical school. He hung out with her group of friends and these became his patients in his medical practice which catered to the wealthy. My grandmother wanted to major in chemistry but they told her that was no job for girls. When my daughter became a Chem E major I feel like her legacy was fulfilled.
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Short version of long story, with some of the interesting facts… Born to a pretty young teen in San Francisco area. She didn’t finish school, and she chose not to marry my birth father. Her parents had their own domestic issues, and it wasn’t a happy scene. Lived the SF life in the 60s (I remember being at Haight and Ashbury when the flower children were there, and I remember going on a BIG navy ship when someone came to SF to visit my extended family, and we could just walk on the ship. I think it was the Enterprise, but I may be wrong). My uncle played guitar for fun with people like Carlos Santana (verified by internet - they went to the same school) and I believe Janis Joplin and others. He’s his own kind of cool story. I remember going to many music festival kinds of things, and yes there were drugs. I (as someone else mentioned on this thread) was considered a “gifted” kid, and I remember being offered some cool opportunities in California. We moved to the east coast when I was a very young teen, partly because of a unhealthy domestic situation, in addition to other “interesting” family facts. I was poor but fortunately had lots of relatives to love me and sometimes assist (and sometimes be pretty bad influences) along the way. I did have one aunt who graduated college before me, but I was the first to live on campus/do the 4 year thing. I got a scholarship from my congressman and got lots of need based aid for the first couple of years. I had to fill out all the forms and have my mom sigh them. I realized I needed to get a job when I graduated, which definitely influenced my major. I feel like my mom did the best she could with what life gave her, and I did “better” than she did. I’m hopeful my kids will do “better” than I did. I’m not sure how I’m measuring “better” but it’s not just financial.
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Starting when I was in seventh grade, my family lived in India, where my parents worked as United Methodist missionaries.
My brother and I attended boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. It was about a day and half to get there by train from where my parents were living and working.
My parents didn’t have a phone, so I was unable to talk to them while at school, could only write letters. There was no TV in India at the time, and we had no exposure to popular American music.
We didn’t return to the States for even a visit until I graduated from high school.
When I returned to the USA, I felt like an outsider and I have ever since.
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I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this thread, but I have certainly had my eyes opened by reading your posts. I appreciate the sharing.
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My parents are first generation, and neither went to HS (although Dad got a GED while in the military, one of the only options available to get off the farm for a Mexican-American male). I was the only one in my family to go to college – juco and then transferred to a close regional uni.
I was an oops baby – seven and eight years after my siblings. They started me in school when I was 4. I think I was driving my mom nuts with all the questions. She started working PT when I was in second grade as my dad was overseas and she hated sitting around worrying all day.
I was raised differently than my siblings, thankfully, and I am different. I think it’s a nature vs nurture thing. Was I treated differently because I was different or did I turn out differently because of ways in which I was treated differently? 
I was only seven when Dad finished his 20 years in the military so I think that had something to do with it. My sibs were almost out of the house. But how I was raised, the good and bad, absolutely informed the way I raised my kids. The years my mom leaned into work is when I pulled back. My parents had no idea the things I was doing as a latchkey kid, home alone a lot as my older sibs were gone (sister got married at 19 and brother moved out when he was 18). Fending for myself made me independent, something I value (although my therapist says my hyper-independence sometimes doesn’t serve me well).
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Many of you could write a book!
Mine was not unconventional, just formative, LOL.
Both my parents were Depression children and from their “way”, I became pretty frugal, hate debt.
Mom did not finish school and dad was a h.s. grad. His mom died when he was 4 and he had a mean stepmom. It shaped him, of course. Luckily he chose a positive response rather than going off the deep end. He was a WWII vet and could have gone to college for engineering as he was very smart and clearly inclined to that. But he didn’t and was a tool and dye maker at G.E. and provided for us pretty well. Nice little rambler house, vehicles,etc. Mom was a gifted homemaker and she was a day care provider for 2 or 3 kids at a time. Much appreciated extra money. Interestingly, it was always her who encouraged me to college so I could take care of myself and any kids I had if needed. In retrospect, I wonder if she felt insecure somehow. Maybe scared that Dad would die.
They were religious, I guess, but not holy rollers. Sometimes I think the going to church thing is just habit and a social outing for a lot of people. But, they were very conservative, very. I was raised in our church and it was a real family back then, like youth group. We were all close.
Total abstinence from alcohol. No dancing, swearing, dirty jokes etc.
They paid for my education. I knew early I was bright and absolutely intended to go to college and I did. But an example of how they rolled they told me if I became pregnant while in school, they would cut me off. Sheesh.
They were very serious and I’ve always said God forbid they have a good time. We didn’t travel at all, just some short trips to the beach or mountains. (East Coast). They had a HUGE garden that provided s with tons of frozen and canned veggies which was wonderful. But when other kids had a week at the beach over July 4th, my 4th was spent “pulling potatoes”.
The biggest influence I think was it all fueled my determination to go to and finish college. None of my cousins did.
Oh, I was always socially insecure because we were “poor” and so many were well off, belonged to the country club, travelled, had beautiful homes in the best parts of town, that kind of thing. I hung around with them but I was never really “in”. You know the old “so, what does your dad do?” and boom. There it was. I was not like them.
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You nailed it!!
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So this thread is really fascinating and interesting.
My parents divorced when I was 5. Father pharmacist from the Navy and mother wanted to be a dietitian. But with 4 children in 6 year’s that wasn’t going to happen. She had a nervous breakdown from the divorce and life. We moved from Chicago to Detroit area to be close to her sister for both emotional and financial support. But we were still on public aid and food stamps. She worked almost 7 day’s a week. But enjoyed her work. I went with we after school and got paid 25 cents sweeping the floors. I walked to elementary a block away and came home after if not going to work with her. I payed water bills /car bills at 16 and all of us gave money to help support our life. It just wasn’t a big deal. My mother “hated” being on aid. She used to make all types of excuses when using food stamps with tears in her eyes. She felt like a failure but she wasn’t. She gave us all an incredible work ethic. She was the top furniture sales ’person in a sea of men. She gained massive respect when all were from the “school of hard knocks”. She met Florence Marks, inventor of Weight Watchers going to it at her first local shop. Still wanted to be a dietitian. I wish somehow she would of just talked to her about helping her with her business.
I put myself through a local college after a year of cc. I had state financial aid and thank goodness for it. Went to med school etc.
I was the first in my family to finish college . Well, that’s actually not true since I got into med school a year yearly (they must of needed to fill a seat or something 
), so I never finished undergrad. But you get the idea. My sister’s all started college. They worked retail in high school and oldest was a medical assistant and one worked for the city for enforecement and one was a mail carrier.
We were the “loud” family on the street. Dysfunctional. My mother gave us love. She didn’t take chances and regretted that. She sold mattresses from connections out of our garage just as a test. She sold out. She wanted her own store. She could sell you back the clothes you are wearing now and you would thank her for it. Lol.
So I took the chances and she saw the success of that.
Education to me is the best gift you can give your child so we did that. They went to private school from elementary to 8th grade. Well my daughter went to a private pre Profesional high school for the arts also.
College was paid for, for both.
They had a good upbringing. But my mother’s work ethic spilled over to them. They are grateful for everything we gave them. They see their friend’s in different situations.
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My dad was a minister and from the time I was born until the end of 3rd grade(except kindergarten and 1/2 of 1st), he ran an 60 acre conference center. The place we lived was rural and poor with a mix of families that had been there for generations and back to the land hippies.
The school system was small and unique in that there were 2 grades in each class. In 2nd grade the teacher got concerned because I was more interested in what she was teaching the 3rd graders than my work.
In the summers there were often youth groups that came and did work projects. The week always ended with a lobster dinner and as a 4 year old, I could break down a lobster and eat what the kids didn’t want.
The 18 months we didn’t live at the conference center we lived on an island that had only 1,000 people in the winter and 6,000 in the summer. It was unique in that folks stuck around (I visited in 2013 and learned that early all of my kindergarten class still lived there. Part of the reason we only stayed 18 months is that it was super insular and my dad got the option to move back to where we’d been.
In general being the kid of a minster in small town was interesting. We were definitely poor (going out to dinner really only happened when my dad did a funeral) but it didn’t feel like it.
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Each generation of my family has had less struggles than the previous one. For example, my grandfather grew up a small home, in poverty, with ~15 siblings. They’d use the oven door as a bed for infants. As an adult he was a real life Frank Gallagher, with comparable degree of drinking and similar type of scheming to raise money without traditional working. He took my father to bars with him as early as 4 years old. My father was the first in his family to go to college, with active discouragement from his parents.
My grandmother grew up mixed race in the south, during a period of segregation and racial violence. She was valedictorian of her college and also received multiple PhDs, which was especially uncommon for mixed race women at the time, and had related challenges. This unique racial status also led to complications when my mother was growing up, such as having torches and pitchforks type mob come to house due to being unhappy about a mixed race student from their family winning the “black prom queen” designation when she looked white (or may have been “white prom queen” being non-White, I don’t recall). My mother was the first person from the HS to apply to or attend a selective college.
In comparison, my background wasn’t particularly unconventional or challenging – for the most part not abnormal middle class, suburban life. One unique factor is my parents being extremely slow adapters to new technology. For example, I wrote papers with an ink typewriter when my most of my classmates had computers. I had a black and white antenna television when everyone else I knew had color TV with cable.
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This is one of my most favorite CC threads ever. Thank you everyone for sharing your stories… 
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Thank you all for sharing these amazing stories/family histories.
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I will add to my story above that I went to something close to 12 elementary schools (some of them more than once, so maybe less than 12, but 12 transitions - I can’t remember any longer), 4 middle/junior high schools, and somehow only 1 HS. I find it a minor miracle that I was able to do OK with all of the transitions. If it were now, I don’t think I would have survived.
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I think that “unconventional” may be an understatement for me.
I was born in the Midwest to parents who were left-leaning. My father was doing his PhD at Columbia, then a post-doc in California, and then started a TT position at MSU. I spent a year in Minneapolis, a year in NYC, a year in CA, and then Michigan. It was late 1960s/early 1970s semi-bohemian academia with side of Progressive Judaism - my mother baked her own bread, my father pickled kimchi when 95% of the country had never even heard of it, there were multicultural parties at our home. There until I was 7.
Then my parents decided to immigrate to Israel, as part of a group that was supposed to establish a semi-cooperative settlement on the way to Jerusalem. We became observant Jews (“national religious”, meaning that we were integrated in the mainstream culture), and I had to learn that, as well as new language. I still remember walking into 3rd grade without understanding most of what the teachers and kids were saying.
We were stuck in an “Absorption Center” for almost two years (we were supposed to be there for 3-6 months), as the group fell apart instead of settling anywhere. My father found a faculty position at Hebrew University, and we moved again to Jerusalem (same school district). In 8th grade the school system decided to experiment with middle schools, and I found myself in a new school. I was a problematic teen and managed to attend three different high schools, all boarding schools, religious, and boys-only. They were nothing like boarding schools in the USA.
Having matriculation exams meant that my high school GPA was meaningless, and I tested well. So, despite the trouble I got into, my tests scores were more than good enough to be accepted to any university. I was the only one in my graduating class who attended University (it wasn’t common in Israel at the time among the society that I grew up in). I may also be the only graduate of that high school (high school #3) to ever get a PhD. It was a decent place, but the place where a kid who had been kicked out of their previous school would go. Most of the kids in all schools (from 3rd grade) were Mizrahi (their parents or grandparents had come from majority Muslim countries), with few Ashkenazi kids. So my cultural background is pretty mixed.
Then I was conscripted for three years (combat medic in armor corps), 1982-1985. Spent two of those three years in active duty in a combat zone. I stopped being religious after I left regular service (I remained in reserves for a decade). The next decade of my life was no more conventional. Started university at the age of 21.
Growing up in Israel in the 1970s is really difficult to describe to people who grew up here in the USA at the same time. It was “free-range” parenting on steroids, and once I was at boarding school, all bets were off. I still cannot believe that I not only survived, but survived with all limbs intact.
Oh, growing up, there was also a war (the 1973 War), political turmoil, and a constant threat in the background.
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I had a pretty unusual childhood as my father served in the Foreign Service. I went to a Japanese kindergarten in Tokyo, an international school with a mostly British curriculum in Yokohama, I was homeschooled briefly until my mother put together a one room school house in Hargeisa, Somalia, then an
American school in Mogadishu, Somalia, then a big public junior high in Washington DC and then a private girl school outside DC first as a day student then as a border. I also took a gap year and did an immersive French experience before heading off to Harvard for undergrad (where I realized I liked making things better than writing about them) and majored in Visual and Environmental Studies. (Though I ended up writing a thesis about low cost housing in London, Paris and Berlin.) I took another gap year where I lived in a camping van and photographed firehouse thanks to a Youthgrant from the NEH and ended my formal education with an MArch from Columbia. I’ve taken lots of painting classes since.
My parents were the opposite of helicopter parents. In Hargeisa at the age of 9 or 10 I’d get on a horse and ride off for hours without anyone worry about me. I spent hours outside playing “mud roads” which involved making towns. My best friend was a boy because there were no girls my age in the ex-pat community.
My parents were a bit shell-shocked by the changes in the US coming back in 1967, but they were soon bailing out Vietnam War protesters and putting them up in our basement.
My mother taught me it was never to late to learn. We both learned set theory from the New Math books she had chosen for our curriculum. When we got back to DC she enrolled at AU and finally finished her college degree. (She had attended Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe and Northwestern all for a year or less.) She got a degree in elementary education. In the 1950s it was a big scandal that she wanted to be able to work when my Dad was assigned to Bangkok. She got permission as long as she didn’t miss the ambassador’s wife’s teas!
@MWolf I think I have some idea about the nature of your childhood! Interestingly I went on a few dates with an Israeli guy one summer who ended up fighting in the 1973 war. Very tame ones! I remember listening to Fiddler on the Roof with him.
I’ve always thought that my childhood gave me the travel bug and the willingness to take risks. When asked what I thought of my husband doing a post-doc in Munich I was all for it. Ditto for a sabbatical in Hong Kong.
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Wow! That’s an amazing story!
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@MWolf Are you still in Israel?
If not, when did you return to the States?
I love these stories! My life has been pretty cookie cutter, and I’m enjoying your lives and triumphs vicariously.
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It’s amazing to me how many of us had rather unconventional backgrounds and how they enhanced our lives.
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