“I saw the effort and tenacity involved in making a life”
Sometimes my mum would say to me, ‘I just want you to be happy,’ but I knew that was sort-of a lie. Her preference was for me to be successful, and if I were happy that would be a bonus.
My mother and father fled Poland with my three siblings and I in 1980, as the repressive communist regime became unbearable and their friends started to get arrested for political activism. My twin sister Maria and I were five years old when we arrived in Melbourne, and my parents immediately started looking for work. Mum had trained as a social worker and Dad, an economist, secured a job with Fujitsu. Mum has an abject horror of vulnerability – economic, social – born out of her experiences as a child in post-war Poland, which is why she places so much emphasis on success.
Mum and Dad worked long hours. We’d eat breakfast at 6.30 and then maybe our next-door neighbour or my parents would drop us at school. We were always there an hour before it started and I remember that feeling of being on the monkey bars at a totally deserted school… After school, we’d go to the public library across the road and stay there until it closed. You know, it just felt like there wasn’t very much time for us. I made a decision to work part-time when my children were small.
But I think it also helped me develop empathy, because I saw the effort and tenacity involved in making a life. As I’ve got older, I appreciate how little support they had. There was no extended family, no one to call or borrow $50 from. You had to make your own life, and that’s not a very soft way to live.
In our family, there was also a real investment in education; I have three degrees and that’s the way I accepted their values.
I rebelled against my parents by finding an Aussie, suburban, Pentecostal Christian-raised husband, which was challenging for my family. I think a more urbane Anglo-establishment guy would have been more their scene.
My husband adores my parents. And they’re good seeds, kind and generous, even if they’re fierce. I find them inspiring.
By Anna Saunders & Felicity Robinson, published in PRIMER for Refugee Week, 2020.
