My father escaped in 1956 during the Hungarian Uprising. He had been a Hungarian soldier who fought against the fast approaching Russians ready to invade and absorb Hungary into the ever expanding Soviet Union. He was the only one of a large immediate and extended family who left Hungary. My Dad often shared stories of escaping Hungary as the iron curtain was closing in on his beloved country. Once he left Hungary he found himself finding himself crossing Europe, landing in Austria, England before calling Canada home. He left behind decades of missed family milestones and events as he was unable to return to Hungary until the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the iron curtain. Before going to sleep, most children had parents read a story, my Dad would share his life story with vivid memories from as far back as he remembered until the almost immediate present.
My mother’s path was different. She was raised by her maternal grandparents after her own mother fled Hungary just before the Nazi’s invaded and before the Russians closed the iron curtain. She never knew her own father. Her father had been taken captive by the Russians when she was a young girl. Decades later she learned his remains were found in Siberia at a possible labor camp site. Her mother traveled throughout Europe and South America before finding her new homeland. My mother met up with her mother in Uruguay as a teenager. It was in Uruguay she was introduced to her step-father and her half-brother. She crossed the world alone, learned a new language and embraced a new culture vastly different than the one she left. In a few short years, she left Uruguay to Canada to live with her aunt and her family. She repeated the entire process again, but this time learning English and its related culture.
I felt the weight of what both my parents lived through and the strength they carried forward to start over in a new country. But this is not a history lesson. It is the story of how circumstance carried my parents across continents and eventually brought them together through common threads woven together and built a future together first in Canada and ultimately settled and became American citizens. It’s how they raised me to be a proud patriotic American and not forget my Hungarian heritage. They both instilled old world values and ethics yet embraced and reminded me I am an American first, as I was born in a country where opportunities are endless but it doesn’t come freely nor without effort. For this reason alone, my parents were always my greatest cheerleader, they supported my ventures and encouraged me to chase my dreams.
My parents believed in a different love but not in the authoritarian sense. Their values were shaped by survival not strictness. I never resented them but admired them. They left their homeland to start a new life, learn a new language, make new friends and assimilate into a different culture yet they built a future with nothing but resolve and hardiness. Upon hearing their story, my closest friends admired their courage and resolve. Friends from south Florida who moved away for college or starting their lives would always ask if they could stop by and visit my parents. Even after my Dad’s passing, those visiting regularly still want stop by to say hi to their “Mom.” My parents showed more genuine compassion and outwardly different love for my friends than some of own friends’ parents gave them.
Meanwhile, I saw many of my friends grow up with every imaginable trendy toy and gadget as kids and grow into brand name clothes and new cars in their teens. Their parents saw these things as part of raising their child. My parents saw things differently, not necessarily wrong, just different. One of my earliest memories in elementary school years, I recall asking about getting paid for chores like my friends. My friends received a weekly allowance or per chore completed item pay out for making bed, taking out trash after dinner, washing dishes, folding and putting away clothes. Both my parents questioned the idea as their thought process was chores were my contribution to the household. They paid for my necessities as a child but as I grew older, my wants became greater than my needs. My parents continued to pay for my anything beyond my needs, those extras became my responsibility to fulfill. They suggested and encouraged to find a job to learn work ethic and fiscal responsibility. The only condition given was it could not interfere with my first priority, my academics. They suggested the local burger joint or grocery store. I started working at Publix (a local grocery chain) at fourteen then shortly after left to work at the local YMCA. As I grew older, it became more apparent how differently my friends were raised.
They earned allowances for chores and grades.
They had later curfews when they went out with friends.
They had parents who invited friends to join them for weekend trips.
They hosted sleepovers and ate meals with families other than their own.
My parents treated my friends warmly but their views were shaped by their own upbringing. They did not understand many Americanisms (as we called it). They questioned why anyone would eat dinner at a friend’s house instead of their own or why you want to sleep at someone else’s home when you have your own bed. As I got older, I tried to explain these Americanisms were sort of rites of passage for American youth. Eventually they allowed me to participate in both and on a rare occasion allowed me to have a friend over for dinner or host a sleepover with a friend at our house.
I watched my friends drive around in their gifted almost-new car or new car as soon as they got their driver’s license. My father was an auto mechanic with toolboxes filled with tools and equipment to repair anything under a car’s hood, much like a good surgeon prepared to fix a human body. He could have easily found a handyman special car which he could have easily fixed for me in time for my 16th birthday. Both my parents and I agreed half-heartedly in waiting to get my driver’s license. I felt my parents wanted me to prove I could afford the car insurance policy differential and the associated upkeep costs of owning a car. A car was not a necessity for me. With proper planning or if it was raining, I was always able to get a ride from Mom’s taxi service or a willing friend. I was fortunate the school bus stop was in front of the YMCA. It was only a short hot and sweaty walk from the bus stop to the main entrance. With the exception of a month or two of less humid and cooler weather, I arrived home drenched from head to toe from not only my work day but the walk home. I ended up getting my driver’s license and my first almost decade old used car two weeks before starting community college.
My first position at the YMCA was a family services junior counselor which included both after-school programs and summer camp. During the school year, I worked fifteen to twenty hours a week as a part time employee which paid $3.15 an hour, earning less than fifty dollars a week. On school and summer breaks I walked to my job and worked up to forty hours per week. My job at the YMCA was an early answer to what would be my calling in a career most would only wish they had. I was afforded opportunities which the majority of my friends only dreamt of; growth, promotions and meeting people who would become nothing less than my extended family. It surrounded me with mentors who helped guide my post-high school education, career advice as well as offered their experiences in life to help me make my own path a tad bit smoother and easier.
One of my first supervisors at the YMCA shared during a training about the YMCA retirement plan and suggested we put a percentage of our pay into it. He handed out a cheat-sheet with a simple investing formula based on age ranges. It stated percentages of pay to put into a retirement plan regardless where life takes us. Along with my fellow co-workers, we laughed knowing very well we were high school teenagers making just enough money to do things with our friends on weekends. He explained, if we left the YMCA after high school the money would stay there and keep earning interest until we were ready to take a lifetime benefit when we retire as early as fifty-five years old. For those of us listening, we had laughed as fifty-five years old was a lifetime away. In other posts, I share my just over forty year career with the YMCA and how following that one supervisor’s retirement investing formula I retired with a healthy pension two days prior to my fifty-fifth birthday.
The grades I earned were treated the same way as chores. Both were treated as expectations not transactions. School became my primary job and grades were the paycheck I earned. It seemed like all my friends were paid for ‘As’ and ‘Bs’ and grounded for ‘Ds’ and ‘Fs’. My parents never punished me for a bad grade or two if I showed reasonable effort. A ‘D’ in math was tolerated much better than one in almost any other subject, especially of those I enjoyed. They understood my strengths and weaknesses. My parents praised good grades and helped me create action plans where I struggled rather than punish by placing restrictions on me.
My mother cooked dinner every night and we ate together as a family. I smelled her delicious dinner cooking before I even reached the front door. I may not have always known what was for dinner, but I knew it was something special as it was made from her heart. On rare occasions, Dad picked up a pizza on Friday night after a long week’s work. Dinner was sacred family time; it was ours to share the day’s activities and happenings. Invitations to celebrate birthdays or an achievement were better received for lunch and more likely accepted than a dinner invitation. Play dates were often arranged before or after meals to avoid imposing on another family’s family time. Later, I learned most my friends didn’t eat together, or even a home cooked dinner every night. It was more common for my friends to have a cup of canned soup and a bologna and cheese sandwich between two slices of overly processed white bread, eaten when hungry and most often alone. I was often invited to family events and weekend trips. I politely declined most invitations as my parents felt it was an imposition on another family’s time. By the time I may have been allowed to go I was already deep into my part time job and couldn’t take time off during peak program seasons.
Growing up different than my peers did not leave me disadvantaged. It left me better equipped in ways I only understood later. Curfews were simple, there was no reason to be out past ten without adult supervision. I never had a bedtime after grade six. They believed it was my responsibility to manage my own schedule so it would not interfere with my primary responsibility, school. There was no discussion, this was just the expectation. They were flexible in my bedtime at home but being out with friends without adult supervision was different.
Even when I was a child and teenager, I often try to find a positive spin all that happens in my life. Even during some of the darkest days, I always found at least one positive to keep moving forward.
While they were paid for chores, I learned contribution is part of belonging.
While my friends were handed new cars at sixteen, I learned how to earn one.
While they spent their parent’s money, I learned to budget and manage my money.
While they stayed out late, I learned how to respect boundaries and keep myself safe.
While they drifted with little responsibility, my job taught me others depended on me.
While they lead busy social lives, I interacted and built trust with adults outside of the usual academics and family friends.
My friends were raised with abundance but I was raised with purpose. I entered adulthood already knowing how to navigate hard conversations, how to live within my means and how to care for aging parents. I learned how to stay steady during loss and build friendships lasting decades. My part-time job taught me early on how to lead with humility and authenticity. I grew up different but I grew up prepared. My parents did not give me everything but they gave me what mattered. Most importantly, my parents taught me to live comfortably within my means not in excess or debt. In my writing, I share my two strongest traits: resilience and tenacity. Both still hold true today and helped mold me into who I eventually became.
Looking back, I see how my life was shaped less by what I had and more by what I learned. I grew up in a home built from resolve and quiet love. My parents taught me responsibility before reward and presence before convenience. They taught me family is not measured by size but by devotion. Those lessons carried me through every season of my life.
They steadied me during hurt and loss.
They guided me through decades of service.
They taught me to embrace every opportunity given to me.
They shaped the way I walked into retirement with gratitude instead of fear.
They helped me build friendships becoming nothing less than my chosen family.
I grew up different than my peers but I grew up prepared for the world in ways I never understood until adulthood. My parents gave me a life rooted in courage and shaped by purpose. Everything I have become is an extension of what they carried and what they overcame. Their story did not end when they left Hungary, it continued in me while I built my own tomorrow.
I did not grow up with the kind of childhood that fit neatly into the American mold. My life began in a home shaped by two people who had already survived more than most of my friends would ever imagine. Their stories were stitched into the walls of our home. Their courage lived in the quiet routines of our days. I learned early love could be steady without being loud. I learned responsibility could be a gift. I learned presence mattered more than possessions. I saw my friends race through adolescence with abundance at their fingertips, I was being taught how to build a life with intention. I did not know then how much those lessons would prepare me for my entire life through responsibility, academics, leadership, career, service, friendship and finally retirement. Each prepared me for becoming the man I eventually became. I only knew that my parents had given me something non-tangible and different than what my friends’ parents gave them. I was raised in the quiet discipline of old-world survival where my friends were raised in the loudness of abundance of American ease.
Something stronger than muscles can move mountains.
Something to be proud of not worthy of boastful arrogance.
Something more valuable than gold but holds no cash value.
Something balanced and stable when life throws awful curves.
Something much quieter than the loudness of those around me.
Something that would follow me long after their days are done here.
It’s the story which began deep within my parents but unfolded with me. I learned to live and not take for anything for granted knowing I was being raised in the polarity of culture and generation gaps.
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