the editor talks with you

If you had loving, supportive parents, thank God or your lucky stars. Not all of us are so fortunate. I’m not complaining. I won the parental lottery. Mine were everything to me. But Winston Churchill’s weren’t. And some think it was one of the keys to his success as a military and political leader during the Nazi bombings of World War II.

I’ve been reading Andrew Roberts’ biography of Churchill. It is an unsparing retelling of his subject’s life story. Churchill’s father and mother probably never should have married. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was busy with his own political life and private love affairs. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American beauty who spent her time with the social set and her own love affairs as well. This left them little time for their sons. They packed Winston off to a boarding school. There he suffered beatings at the hands of a sadistic head master. Did this leave Winston feeling neglected? You bet. But it made him love and crave his parents’ attention even more. It’s a love-starved way to grow up, But it toughened Churchill for the tests of war and made him appreciate his own family.

Winston’s plight reminded me of what a couple of our friends went through as children of indifferent parents. One craved her alcoholic mother’s attention but rarely did she receive it. Her mother would start drinking early in the day. By the time school let out, she was too drunk to pick up her daughter. The child would wait patiently for a mother who never came. She was forced to learn to find her own way home. Later in life she realized that, in an unexpected way, this was something of a blessing. It taught her resilience, independence and the will to fend for herself.

Our other friend craved his father’s attention but it was not to be given. His father left the family when he was small, leaving their mother to raise 4 children alone. Over the years, as he grew up, he tried to establish a relationship with his father. His father lived 15 miles away in Columbia but showed no interest in reciprocating. Facing constant rejection, the son finally came to realize it was pointless. If his father wanted nothing to do with him or the family, he would have to accept it. When he told me his story, I suspected reaching acceptance had to be painful.

As adults, both are successful people in business and life. She is a happy grandmother who dotes on her grandchildren. He is a successful businessman with a wife and children of his own. He has found what his father never knew. I like to think they are the lucky ones. They found the love of their families, a love their parents never enjoyed. The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr had an answer for this. You probably know his well-known Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.”

Next: The extra mile.

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