Mid century modern

 

My parents considered themselves modern, educated people who were trying to raise their children in the best way they knew possible. They had four, so that was supposed to end the problem of having a middle child. However I think it just created two middle children. One boy. One girl.

They gave us names that did not lend themselves to shortened nicknames, except for my brother Thomas, who had the unfortunate nicknames of Tom, Tommy, Tommy toes, and Tom Ass. None of these, except Tom and Tommy, were actually sanctioned by my parents and yet my mother used them all at some point.

They then assigned traits to each of us. Something my father would continue to do with his grandchildren later on. I began life as Angel, but once my sister came along, I was the brainy child, or my mother's little old maid. My sister began life as my father's ugly duckling and moved on to Pretty. Forever after that she was considered the pretty one.

My brother Tom was always odd man out. He did strange things that my mother encouraged. I think she mistook this as honoring his eccentric intelligence. She had a problem with intelligent people, considering them all a bit crazy. This along with a lack of discipline ruined my brother's life. My father usually worked at least three jobs, so he was seldom present once I was five years old and I am the oldest.

My youngest brother was the typical baby of the family with all the freedom and baggage of most babies. He was bright, stubborn, eager, and an over achiever whose main father figure was not my dad, the teacher, but our neighbor, the fisherman, hunter, salt of the earth type.

There was not much sibling rivalry between us, although I often found my mother was more lenient with Tom and his ability to get away with things infuriated me. I was very protective of Henry, the baby and considered my sister and I equal -- except she was pretty and I was not.

Looking back I see where these stereotypes set Caroline and Tom for life. She would forever judge the world on how pretty something or someone was and assume the prettier, the better. Tom never gave up trying to do the bizarre thing and the more bizarre the better. It finally killed him. 

Henry is the most successful of all four of us. 

I always wanted to be more like my dad, but I only saw his love for learning and exploring ideas. I did not notice how his need for change affected his life, or mine.

We were a mid century modern family struggling to understand the new lifestyle of buying houses and cars with credit rather than cash, so you could appear to have it all.