Dad and mom were a young married couple. By all accounts, they were happy but not immune to the struggles that you might expect from such a coupling. They had 4 kids by the age of 21. My brothers were born in the same year. One in January, one in December. On top of that stress, they were children of the 50’s. Mom was designated as the homemaker, dad was the wage earner. It seemed financial issues plagued the young couple for quite some time. They did their best to provide. My earliest memories have us living in a small house that they had bought. Dad worked at a factory. Long hours and from all accounts a pretty tough job. Dad insisted on a clean house. He was a traditionalist. Mom had an allowance. Dinner on the table and a clean house were a must. Dad had a penchant for drinking though to be honest I can’t remember in those days how much. Mom and dad fought often but they made up very quickly. Dads temper could never be predicted. The fight most prevalent in my mind was the house keeping fight. Dad thought his job was to instill housekeeping standards to his young wife. After a long day at work, Dad shows up to the house where mom has been taking care of 4 small children and a dog. This was in 1973 or so. That meant all the kids were under 10. To say moms plate was full would be putting it mildly. Anyway, back to the story. Dad shows up and is not happy with the house. Dishes in the sink, laundry, vacuuming, none of it seemed to be up to his standard. Then the fight began. Mom did a good job of holding her tongue. It usually took some time for her to boil over. As the argument got louder, dad would explode into a tirade of expletives. Getting louder and louder as things moved on. At some point, mom would start to fight back. As kids, we knew to stand clear for fear of distracting his attention towards one of us. Once mom engaged, dad needed more. That’s when things got broken. Usually an ashtray or a glass. To be honest, throwing glass against the wall does have an effect on the argument. Dad had to escalate. He could not lose. It was not in his DNA. During this particular argument, mom was taking a bold stance. She actually thought that using the excuse that she was taking care of 4 young children would gain some ground with dad. That was not going to be the case. He knew in his mind she had it pretty easy and that time management was her only fault. At some point dad pulled his ace card. His big ultimatum. “If you can’t clean the dishes and the kitchen, we will just throw them away!” Then he proceeded to pull trash bags out and start loading things up. Mom, having a rare moment of courage, told him to go ahead. (I am pretty sure she didn’t think he would do it) For the next little bit, we witnessed dad loading up all the contents of the kitchen. Dishes, pots, pans, silverware even the toaster. Then, still screaming at mom, he carried the bags to the curb for the trash man to pick up. Mom was stubborn. She was going to stand her ground.

The kitchen contents never came back in the house. I am not sure how the fight ended. Usually after one of the extended fights, dad would go to bed and mom would cook dinner. The next day, we got new dishes. Things seemed to be back to normal. Mom was holding dad’s hand and they seemed like a loving couple. Maybe dad planned the fight to get mom new kitchen supplies. Who knows, lol. As kids, this is how we thought spouses fight.