White Gloves

I did my ancestry a few years ago. I believe I shared here that I had to turn off notifications because every day there were more and more relatives coming out of the woodwork emailing me. 

I didn't care about finding more relatives. But they wanted to chat.

I don't care about having more family in my life. A 6th cousin really?

If that makes me a horrible person, then I am indeed. I couldn't ignore the emails I thought that was rude. But after I did that I turned off all new notifications so I wouldn't continue to be bombarded with emails from strangers.

I just wanted to see my DNA in hopes of being more than I thought I was.

But nope, I wasn't Irish or Scottish or anything else at all that I was hoping.

Yesterday I received a notice of some updates to my DNA so I figured what the hell it's something I can do without physical stress so I went to check out my new updates.

They now have a way to show you what you got from Parent 1 and what you got DNA-wise from Parent 2. 

I find it fascinating that my sister and I who have the same parents could have different DNA. She could have received more from parent 1 than I did or vice versa. Then after thinking about it for a bit I realized well, she is my father through and through and I am more my mom so I guess why wouldn't our DNA be like that too?

But I do not know which parent is 1 or 2. 

I wish I knew if #1 was mom or dad.

Parent One gave me mostly Northern and Central Italy. I will assume that is mom's side because her parents came from an area in the north.

Parent 2 gave me mostly southern and southwestern Italy. I'll go with Dad because his family was in Naples.

There is a slice of <3% Cyprus from Parent 2. 

So my makeup is 98% Italy and <3% Cyprus. That is what it states but that adds up to 101 so I don't think that is correct. But what do I know?

Boy, I'd love to know which parent gave me what. 

And Cyrpus? That's a new one that was never there before. 

But after looking this over I went to another page and saw that I had 5,100 matches now. Is that more than normal?  Are those crazy dagos breeding like bunnies? That seems high to me. This is why I turned off my notifications because I was getting emails from everyone who saw a connection. Who has time for such things?

Rick knows I had strong feelings about never ever dating an Italian American man when I was a kid. So when he saw there were over 5K matches he said it was a good thing I never dated an Italian American man because they may have been related to me. 

I got a chuckle out of that because it could be true.

Not the reason I refused to date them but it is a good call I think.

Now before the Italian American men give me grief you have to understand that where I sat in my home these were not men that I would ever want to be dating. I loved my father but chauvinistic is an understatement. He was more of a 'do as I say not as I do.'   Oh, he had a lot of great qualities but there were some that would be deal-breakers to me. 

I didn't know a single one of them that wasn't a cheater. I saw how they treated women. They expected dinner on the table, do as they are told, barefoot and pregnant kind of thing. My father told me girls can do 2 things, get married or be a nun. Maybe if you must work be a nurse or teacher only.

To a young woman growing up in the early 70s, this was the anti-sentiment I wanted. I wanted a career. I wanted travel. I wanted to not be a teacher, nurse, mom, or ever be pregnant. I wanted a career, I didn't think I could have both. So I was not a good daughter. To my father, I was focused on the wrong things and he spent my 12 yrs in school trying to get those things out of my head. God love him. He tried. It didn't work. It only made me more determined to do what I wanted to do, be what I wanted to be, and live the life I wanted to live, not to live his life. He never fully understood and he even once told me he was disappointed in me as he sat in my new house that I bought with my career. He said a real woman would have had children and not a career. I took it and was respectful but don't think for a minute it didn't hurt like hell. But my mom is dead, she was not here to defend me, to support me. (stepmom was like dad & even if she didn't agree she would never ever say so to him!)

So I sucked it up because there was no talking to him. There was no reasoning with him. He was right, I was wrong and a disappointment..in his eyes.

I watched my cousins and uncles and my father, all of whom I loved and adored in a lot of ways. They just weren't my kind of dating material that is all. It was about ME.  Do I know that there are exceptions to this rule? 

Hell yes, I have a cousin who is not like the others. There were many but as a young girl I was so put off by their shenanigans that I felt it was best to only date those whose last names ended in a consonant. 

And that is what I did. 

I did not make this proclamation unless talking to my girlfriends. I mean I was young and dumb but not that dumb. I would NEVER have uttered those words in my home. Dear me that would have caused issues that I would not have wanted to deal with. It was bad enough that I rebelled against their religion then to add this salt to his wound would have sent my father over the edge. ( I couldn't leave his religion until I moved out though. I was respectful while living under his roof) 

But I ended up doing that to him all the time in some form or another so I guess it didn't matter. I never meant to but you all know me I have strong feelings and when I was 16 I let them be known. 

He would say something bigoted, racist, chauvinistic, and I would try to reason with him.(he was Archie Bunker) It took me a while to realize you can't reason with people like him. But I was a teenager. I was an idiot.

Now I would just shut up and do whatever it was unbeknownst to him so he wasn't hurt. I was the first of his 5 daughters. 

I broke rules and I paid the price! many times!

My sisters knew not to do that. But then none of my sisters are strong in their convictions and most are wishy-washy and are led around by their men and they do as they are told so it is more like, "one of these things is not like the others" and that was me. My father was proud of them, even the ones who had kids with different fathers, were unmarried or 'had' to get married as they say. Yet I was the disappointment. Why?  Well, they had children and were moms of course. 

I was my mom's daughter. Sadly she left when I was 13 and I had no one now like me. I have always felt alone in my family after my mom died. 

My mother grew up in a time when she had no choices either. She used to tell me how others called her an old maid because she was unmarried in her 20s. This really bothered her even years later. 

She was considered old at age 27 when she got married and that's so sad to me. She also wanted so much more out of her life that she was not allowed to have. So she was always encouraging me to be what I wanted to be. She was a cheerleader for my sister and me. 

On her last day in our home before she left for the hospital she told me to fly, to soar, to be strong and even though Dad is telling me I can't, be respectful but DO. I will never ever forget that conversation. Boy she knew my dad and she knew what I was headed into and she was preparing me I just didn't "get it" all on that day at age 13. But her talk with me is imprinted on my brain. It was a long conversation about getting a new mom in the future and really setting me up so I could deal with what was coming. I can't imagine her strength. 

She had to quit school in the 11th grade to help support her family during the war. Her brother was in school as a senior and her father told her

that her brother could stay in school because as a man he needed his high school degree, mom, he felt didn't need an education. (OH MY GOD) 

So mom got a job in a factory. She was angry. She hated leaving school because she loved school. For the entire 13 years of my life, my mom had a book in her hand, arm, purse, etc. She was reading all the time. I know it was because she felt she was inferior. I saw that even as a kid. 

She bought me the encyclopedias and I swear she got them for herself. 

She would read them for heaven's sake. I came home once and she was having a cigarette and a cup of coffee reading an encyclopedia at the kitchen table. Who does that? 

She would have loved the internet!!

She took me to the library and got me involved in reading.  

She took me to the museum and we learned new things and went to lunch. 

I loved those days. Mainly because I was a girly girl and I loved getting dressed up and wearing gloves to go to lunch and the museum. I never realized all that I was learning. To me, these were just fun mom days that were filled with art, music, and books. I realized much kater in life she did this to learn. I just loved those times together and I loved getting dressed up and putting on my gloves. 

Which now I find hysterical. Ah, the good old days before wearing yoga pants out in public. 

Can you all imagine wearing white gloves now? 🤣