Tag Archives: eric zale

Coop’s Childhood Part 2 – Play, Play School & Other Explorations

Me & Molly age 5
Me & Molly age 5
Though I was born in the 1950s with all its conventionally stark division of gender roles, my mom and dad were a pretty unorthodox couple, with a much more egalitarian relationship than the norm. They had been acquaintances and friends for a number of years before their relationship became a romantic one. They were both intellectual and athletic, and both comfortable with parenting tasks ranging from changing diapers to throwing a ball.

I believe theirs was a natural inclination to parent in the most progressive way, but it was certainly aided by the new parenting wisdom championed by the most popular pediatrician of the day, Dr. Benjamin Spock. His bestselling book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, challenged the rigid childrearing practices that had been prevalent since the beginning of the century that included warnings against excessive affection to prevent children from becoming spoiled or fussy. Instead, Spock advised parents to be flexible in order to treat each child as an individual. He also educated parents about the stages of child development and how to create an appropriately safe but nurturing environment for each of those stages. And perhaps most importantly for my mom and dad and how they raised me, Spock urged them to trust their own common sense, instincts, and judgment.

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Coop’s Childhood Part I – As I Was Told

Eric & Jane
Eric & Jane
I was born on April 2, 1955 in the maternity ward of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor Michigan. My mother, Jane Roberts Zale, was 32 years old, older than many first time mothers in those days. My father, Eric Michael Zale, was six years older than Jane. Theirs, I would later learn, would be a very unorthodox style of parenting, much more egalitarian than conventional practice, giving me a greater amount of freedom than most kids were blessed with. But given particularly my mom’s childhood story (I know little about my dad’s) that gift of an independent childhood had been passed through the generations.

As I get older, I am more and more amazed about the story of how my mom decided to go to Ann Arbor. An unlikely odyssey in 1947 for a single young woman of 23, but one consistent with her independent spirit, well nourished in her own childhood, that started a chain of events that led to my birth. Another thirty-two years later in 1978, I would embark on my own comparable odyssey to Los Angeles, coincidentally at age 23 as well.

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Saying Goodbye to Dad

Eric Zale around age 60
Eric Zale around age 60
My dad died of pancreatic cancer in March of 1984 at the age of 69. His great calling and passion was teaching, and he taught his university classes right up to the very end, dying on spring break after the finals were graded and the grades were turned in and posted. Part of my motivation for writing “Lefty Parent” is to reclaim and honor the best of my memory of my dad. He gave me so much love and support and I find in so many (sometimes too many) ways I am like him.

After he and my mom remarried each other and moved from Ann Arbor down to Dayton Ohio in 1977, and then I moved to Los Angeles in 1978, I became increasingly distant from my dad. I think he had been at his best with me when I was a young kid, relating to me through sports, his sense of adventure, and the realm of imagination. But as I moved into adolescence and young adulthood, with issues of self-esteem and emotional development taking the fore, I think he felt increasingly inadequate as a parent to play a mentoring role in those areas and in my life. When I would call home from Los Angeles I would invariably speak to my mom for a long time about her issues and mine and then just a few final moments saying hello to my dad, him saying he would hear all my news from my mom after the call. Continue reading →

Life as an Adventure

My dad as a young sports writer in Binghamton, New York
My dad as a young sports writer in Binghamton, New York
Life, at its best, is an adventure – not always successful, not always happy, but a compelling narrative worth living and sharing with others. Though he never said it in so many words, that was one of the most compelling lessons I learned from my dad, exemplified in how he lived his life, and how he inspired others to do the same. I try to frame my own life as an adventure (or maybe better, a series of them), exemplify that in how I live day to day, and inspire my kids to do the same.

Maybe the greatest adventure my dad ever inspired was in the late 1940s when he convinced my mom (at the time just a friend, they were not engaged or even a couple) to accompany him to Ann Arbor (some 600 miles west of where they both lived in Binghamton, New York), promising her that after a year of establishing residency, he could get her into the University of Michigan. They lived separately for several years and continued their relationship as friends while he got his bachelor’s degree in English and my mom hers in Sociology. Eventually they did become a couple, married and my brother and I were born. It was certainly a very unorthodox adventure, particularly for a single young woman during that period. Continue reading →

Jane (and Eric) Go to Ann Arbor

Jane Roberts as a young adult
Jane Roberts as a young adult
As I get older, I am more and more amazed about the story of how my mother, Jane Roberts, decided to go to Ann Arbor. An unlikely odyssey in 1946 for a single young woman of 23, but one that started a chain of events that led to my birth. Thirty-two years later in 1978, I would embark on my own odyssey to Los Angeles, coincidentally at age 23 as well.

Based on her telling, Jane had had a childhood mixing idyllic joys and adventures with some difficult family relationships, particularly with her mother Caroline. Jane was the first of three children, her brother John just two years younger and her sister Pat born to an entirely different generation 14 years later. Continue reading →