Dr. Laura Schlessinger and the problem of growing up as a child of a mixed marrage

Dr. Laura Schlessinger:

My mother was a war-bride from Italy. My father, a second lieutenant in the Army, met her in Gorizia, after the American forces liberated northern Italy. My mother was an amazing beauty. When I was 21 and planning an anniversary gift for them, I asked my father what anniversary it was. Turns out they were married in Italy, outside under a beautiful tree when I was some 5 months into my fetal development. I actually liked hearing that I was a "love child," because it meant there was at least one time they had been happy with each other.

When my mother, a nice Italian Catholic girl, came to America after having married my father, a nice American Jewish boy, all hell broke loose when my father's mother went on a relentless attack against the "shicksah," which means in Yiddish the non-Jewish wife of a Jewish man. My grandmother tried to do everything she could to get rid of my mother, and turned much of the family into rejecting her/us.

When I was 2-1/2, my mother took me back to Italy, probably to get a break from this cruelty. My mother's mother and father were dead by this time. She was not close to her brother, and her older sister had been killed by the Nazis on the first day she joined the underground resistance (I like to think that I channel her courage).

There was always tension in our home, and I was always trying to smooth things over and try to make things better. My sister, 11 years my junior, and I really didn't have much bonding time because I left for college at 17 (she was 6) and never came home to live again. She and I handled the negativity in our home in different ways – she was more free-spirited, and I was more serious; this brought conflict between us.

My parents finally divorced after my father was involved in some extracurricular activities, and he married a nice woman with whom he lived until his death. My mother never remarried, and constantly expressed disdain for men, sex and love. Neither one of them had ever developed any close friendships at all. I felt responsible for her, while my sister gravitated toward my dad – who was feeling some guilt for the whole family mess and would indulge her.

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