Petite Anglaise
Today I add a new blog to my list of daily reads. Petite Anglaise is an eloquent ex-pat, an Englishwoman living in Paris. I can relate to her on many levels, she has recently ended her relationship with the father of her two-year-old, I would love to have lived in Paris and I too was Elite. Having just broken up with her partner she has taken the brave but admirable decision to stay in Paris and not return home, although it sounds like home is now Paris, I think you catch my drift.
My father left my mother when I was about one and went to live in the south of France. I have mixed feelings about this, but my experience makes me feel that Petite is doing the right thing.
I had no problem with my father leaving, at that age I knew no different, just as my son G, now 3, accepted my departure. Leave it later and your children either grow up in the shadow of your arguments (as my elder sisters did) or they are more affected by the split (as my daughter B, now 6, was).
I didn't handle him being so far away that well. I saw him twice, maybe three times a year. He tried to rule my life from a distance later on, pushing me through private school, which I resented. I guess he thought he was doing his best for me, but being so far away he didn't know how I felt about things. I hated being taken to the airport by my mother, flying off to France with my 'UM' (Unaccompanied Minor) pouch around my neck. I hated the barrier it put up to me to building out-of-school friendships when I spent the summer holidays in another country.
As a teenager I hardly ever saw him. In more recent times we have grown a little closer, him being supportive through my divorce. We are similar in the way that we do not work on our relationships, if one doesn't make the effort neither will the other, so it is my hope that I can overcome this mutual failing and find my father, or at least not lose him again.
Petite has ended an unhappy relationship before it could hurt 'Tadpole' but stayed close so that her daughter has a father as well as a mother.
She also appears to have found new love, and I know how good that feels.
My father left my mother when I was about one and went to live in the south of France. I have mixed feelings about this, but my experience makes me feel that Petite is doing the right thing.
I had no problem with my father leaving, at that age I knew no different, just as my son G, now 3, accepted my departure. Leave it later and your children either grow up in the shadow of your arguments (as my elder sisters did) or they are more affected by the split (as my daughter B, now 6, was).
I didn't handle him being so far away that well. I saw him twice, maybe three times a year. He tried to rule my life from a distance later on, pushing me through private school, which I resented. I guess he thought he was doing his best for me, but being so far away he didn't know how I felt about things. I hated being taken to the airport by my mother, flying off to France with my 'UM' (Unaccompanied Minor) pouch around my neck. I hated the barrier it put up to me to building out-of-school friendships when I spent the summer holidays in another country.
As a teenager I hardly ever saw him. In more recent times we have grown a little closer, him being supportive through my divorce. We are similar in the way that we do not work on our relationships, if one doesn't make the effort neither will the other, so it is my hope that I can overcome this mutual failing and find my father, or at least not lose him again.
Petite has ended an unhappy relationship before it could hurt 'Tadpole' but stayed close so that her daughter has a father as well as a mother.
She also appears to have found new love, and I know how good that feels.
posted by Anonymous at 11:38
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