Filed under: Exemplary Children of Divorce, Living with Grandparents, bi-racial, links to articles
Here’s a link to a really nice portrait of Barack Obama’s Mother called “Free-spirited wanderer set Obama’s Path” by Janny Scott. I think the original article is from The New York Times but this link goes to MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23623222/
Filed under: Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, Suicide, bi-racial, indifferent parents
The Comedian Richard Pryor is #1 on Comedy Central’s list of the 100 top Stand-Up Comedians of All Time so he certainly belongs on the Exemplary Children list. But, of course, everyone knows that his exceptional gifts did not come without a huge price.
Pryor was raised in his Grandmother’s Brothel. His Mother was a Prostitute and his Father was his Mother’s pimp. Pryor’s Mother abandoned Pryor when he was 10 years old. He was expelled from School when he was 14. He joined the army when he was 18 and he spent most of his enlisted time in the army jail for committing a racially driven attack along with some of his buddies. This is the story on Wikipedia. I don’t how much of it is true and how much is hype. It’s generally accepted that Pryor had serious drug problems and later on he struggled with serious health problems. I personally cannot wear Polyester without worrying about whether or not I’ll blow myself up while free-basing and I don’t even do drugs. At any rate, it sounds like this may have been a fabricated story (no pun intended). It sounds like Pryor tried to commit suicide while in a drug induced psychotic state. He poured booze all over himself and set himself on fire. The melting polyester complicated the situation. Pryor recently passed from complications due to Multiple Sclerosis.
But, meanwhile, Richard Pryor stood up on stage and opened people up to their problems and helped them to laugh about how difficult life is.
Wikipedia says that Richard Pryor fathered 7 kids. One of them is Rain Pryor. Rain is the daughter of a Jewish GoGo Dancer on her Mother’s side and African American Stand Up Comic on her Father’s side. She was raised by her Maternal Grandparents who were successful showbiz folks. She talks about being rejected by both sides for being a “Half-breed”.
Rain’s parents divorced shortly after she was born and she didn’t meet her Father until she was 4 years old. Both parents suffered from severe Mental Illness. Rain attempted suicide twice when she was a kid. Since then she seems to have reconciled all the differences she grew up with. She is a succssful performer of her own who toured with her own show Fried Chicken and Latkes about growing up in her family situation and she has written a memoir called Jokes My Father Never Taught Me. I’ve read only parts of her book. Her spirit is very positive and inspiring.
Filed under: Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Living with Grandparents, bi-racial
Barack Obama, current Senator of Illinois and Presidential Candidate, is a indeed an exemplary Child of Divorce. He’s pretty much exemplary at everything. The New Statesman chose him as one of “10 people who could change the world.” And Time magazine has chosen him twice (2005 & 2007) for their “World’s Most Influential People” list.
Obama shows the intelligence and sensitivity that can come with growing up in a divorced home. I didn’t want to add him to my list of Exemplaries until after I had read his book, but I found a quote on Wikipedia about his attitude towards his screwy family dynamics at the Holidays which I think is really healthy and timely to include now. He seems to revel in the diversity of his extended family. The quote goes: “Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it’s like a little mini-United Nations.” What a perfect training ground for a future political leader!
Obama has written a best-selling memoir, Dreams From My Father, in which he reconciles the struggles he felt as a bi-racial child who never really knew his Father. His parents separated when Barack was 2 years old. Barack’s Father was an economist from Kenya who left the family in Hawaii in order to continue his studies and his parents subsequently divorced. Obama’s Mother remarried and gave birth to Obama’s sister. The family lived in Indonesia for a few years and Obama moved backed to Hawaii to live with his Maternal Grand-parents until he graduated from High School. He attended Columbia University and then went on to Harvard Law School.
Both of Obama’s parents died young as well. His Father was killed in a car accident in Kenya in 1982 when Obama was 21. His Mother passed from Ovarian Cancer in 1995 a few months after the book was published.
Obama has been married to his wife, Michelle, since 1992 and they have two children, Malia Ann and Natasha. If he becomes the President maybe he’ll paint the Columns in front of the White House ebony.
Filed under: Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, bi-racial, indifferent parents, links to articles, name change, self-absorbed parents, separate households, two religions | Tags: Books, indifferent parents, links to article, name change, self-absorbed parents, Successful Children of Divorce
Rebecca Walker is the daughter of the poet Alice Walker & Mel Leventhal, a famous civil rights lawyer. She is a feminist and writer herself and has written about growing up in a mixed race family(ies) and of her parents’ divorce in Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self. Time Magazine has named her one of the 50 Future Leaders of America.
Rebecca’s parents divorced when she was in the 3d grade. She switched back and forth between her parents, 2 years with one then 2 years with the other which meant that not only was she living with 2 separate parental households, but she was living on different coasts in the U.S. every other year, as well as having to living with biracial ethnicity. “Exhausting” is how she now describes bouncing between families of two races and two religions. She went through a drug phase and got pregnant when she was 14. When she was 18 she switched her last name from her Father’s surname to her Mother’s.
She is bisexual and has currently had a baby boy. She is estranged from her Mother. Her most recent book is about her attitudes and experiences with Motherhood.
Here’s a quote and link from a 2001 article about Walker’s book:
www.rebeccawalker.com/article_2001_coloredparent.htm
Trapped in a destructive cycle, needing to re-invent herself every couple of years (and having had little clue as to who she was in the first place), Rebecca found she belonged simultaneously to two worlds and to none. Not surprisingly, some of the adjustments she made took on a racial twist: Denying part of herself each time she shuffled from city to city, from Jewish to black, from status-quo middle class to radical-artist bohe-mian, she trained herself to keep the code, not to say anything too white when she was with friends from the inner city, not to say anything too black when she was at Jewish summer camp.
But mostly Rebecca Walker’s story, as she tells it, is about raising herself. Her mother bragged in interviews that she and her daughter were like sisters, but as Rebecca points out, “being my mother’s sister doesn’t allow me to be her daughter.” So while Alice Walker was off on speaking engagements, sometimes for days on end, her “sister” Rebecca was choosing her own high school, taking drugs, having sex and generally fending for herself.
