After my father died I inherited a lot of his personal letters and diaries, narratives, etc. But I never really understood him. My mother is still alive, and as she raised me I know more about her.
As Martina McFly, I might have been friends with my mom. At 17 she was a hard-working, idealistic, young woman who craved higher education and social activism. She was held down by an overbearing mother and three combative sisters, and was a dreamer. I would have got along with her well.
My father was a massively underachieving drugged-out hippie freak who got a lot of girls to sleep with him because he played a guitar. He was one of those people “concerned” about social issues but too fucking lazy to even protest or march or even put up posters. He was a closet racist who hated blacks and Mexicans, even though in public he professed to be tolerant and accepting. He did not really have any ideals, no work ethic, and his philosophy on life was strange and alien to me - he felt like he should be allowed to go around to coffee houses in the midwest and play guitar for money and sex and drugs, pay no taxes, obey no laws other than those which suited him, and generally was a narcissistic spoiled asshole. Had he been alive when I made my transition, he would have made a great show of publicly “disowning” me.
My father was Biff, but since we’d likely be teammates on the school’s sports teams, we’d get along. At some point, I might want to let him know that he should dump his girlfriend, because she’d probably be banging every other kid in school.
As a 17 year old my father was in the Marine Corps hoping to get in the fight. The war ended before he could. My father was very outgoing, extremely funny and liked by all his entire life. I see no reason why I wouldn’t like him. All I would have to do is talk baseball with him. This was long before the Brooklyn Dodgers broke his heart.
I would have to take another trip to visit my mother since she was 8 years younger. At 17 she graduated high school and was working as a secretary on Wall St (literally on Wall St but nothing to do with stocks or finance, there are other companies there). I’m picturing a young girl in Mad Men. She’s a very nice person so I don’t doubt she was then too. It would be odd because she was pretty hot when she was young.
Dad was Irish, Catholic, a Navy brat, and smart. At 17 I think he was in Hawaii, preparing to graduate from high school. As far as I know he was a pretty liberal guy for the time, but tough and driven; he might have had no time for the lost and awkward dork I was at the same age. I cannot imagine him running in the same circles as Mom, even if they were on the same continent, because…
Mom was the youngest child of a fairly prominent Communist politician in Amsterdam. In 1939, Mom’s mother and brothers were smuggling literature, supplies, and weapons to resisters in Germany. When the Germans invaded Holland, they went underground, and Mom began her short career as a courier and occasional spy for the Resistance. I think she and her family would have found me soft and politically uncommitted, and her brothers would have pounded me into sausage for talking to her. Mom was always nice, though, so maybe I’m being pessimistic.
Allowing for the age difference and having to go back to see each of them separately, not sure how it would work out. When I was 17 my dad and I clashed. A lot.
I reckon if 17 yr old me met 17 yr old him in 1947 he’d peg me straight away as being related to his father and we’d have bugger all in common to speak about. He would have just lived through a depression and a war, I’d have flown in from the comfy 80’s.
Mum? NFI either. When she was 17 she was living in town and working in a local electrical shop. Not a lot in common I could think of.
My mom at 17 was a tall, beautiful South Jersey beach bunny (she lived 50 yards from the beach, and would walk around in a bikini 24/7 during the summer). She probably wouldn’t give me the time of day.
My dad… well, my dad changed from a shy, chubby loner at 12 to a lean, charismatic campus radical at 20; I don’t know what point he was at on this continuum at 17. Either way, we probably would have gotten along pretty well. He’s still friends with his old high school gang, and I would have fit in with them just fine.
I grew up in the same neighborhood my parents did. I went to the same elementary school my father and his father went to. We all went to the same high school. Some of the same teachers my parents had were still there 20 years later.
I most likely would know my dad and we might be friends. We would be playing the same instrument in the band and orchestra together. (Twenty years apart, we played the same music in the marching band at high school football games.) We would be in the same classes. We’d probably be in the print shop together.
Mom would be with the girls in the “business course” rather than in the “college course,” but it’s not a big school. Obviously, if they met and shared friends I might be among them.
I’m very much a product of my parents. I enjoyed the music they listened to. I read the books they did. We watched the same TV shows on the same handful of black and white channels. My first job was in a printing shop that my dad had worked in when he was in high school. Today, we still have many, many common interests. Our careers have been somewhat different, but our hobbies are very similar.
I personally find it odd that so many people seem not to be compatible with their parents.
At that age, my dad was pretty seriously involved in the Boy Scouts and JROTC and generally striving to be the best Air Force Brat. I might’ve taken some classes with him, and gotten along decently enough but I probably would find the Enthusiastic Junior Cadet routine pretty abrasive. I doubt I would have socialized with him much outside school.
My mom wore the Rich Girl persona – her daddy owned a car dealership! – so she always had a new convertible to drive around, and all the clothes she wanted. But she also hung out with the super-geeks and has a completely obsessive competitive streak. I bet we would have ended up in overlapping social circles, and played several all-night games of Risk together.
I think me and my mom could’ve been good friends, nerdy, eager, smart girls interested in deep stuff.
I definitely would’ve been friends with my dad, but, am I the only who’s going here?..only the knowledge that HE IS ACTUALLY YOUR DAD! would keep my 17 year old self from trying to be More Than Friends.
I was always the little girl who wanted to marry my dad, I did, in fact, marry someone very much like my dad, and my dad at 17 was very very handsome.
Well, Back To The Future got creepy that way too you know!
To meet my mom when she was 17, it would have either been working in a factory or playing music locally. Other than music, we wouldn’t have had much in common, but maybe have been friendly anyway.
Dad, on the other hand, would have been that girl-shy farm boy who always liked talking to the geeky girls but when he was younger, would have had no self confidence with them. Once I got him to talk, we would have been friends.