They're pretty badass. My parents have the love story that was never supposed to work out. My dad was the drummer for a band called Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders. To give you an idea of what kind of band they were, Wayne Cochran was known as "the white James Brown". My mom and her friends followed them (but don't call them groupies), and she and my dad started dating. They had an unplanned pregnancy (*waves*), and got married. It was very low key, my mom was in her disco dress and my dad wore his cowboy hat.
When I was four we moved from Florida to Chicago to live with my grandma. My dad stopped playing music and got into selling computers. My mom got a job, went to college, and built herself up in the company. I like to tell people that my mom raised me Feminist more than she ever raised me Catholic. Mom went for jobs that the men in her company never expected her to apply for, and she got them because she likes to work and likes being in charge.
My dad was fired from his job after 9/11. After trying to figure out what to do next, he discovered the answer was easier than he thought...music. He started teaching drums to kids, and started playing in bands again. We saw him playing recently at a beach themed bar out in the burbs, and he let a few of his students onstage to play along. His original band has reunions once every couple of years.
I'm very lucky to have incredibly supportive parents, who still look ten years younger than they are and danced to britpop at my wedding. They can drive me crazy the way that parents do sometimes, but when I hear horror stories of pushy parents from friends, I'm always relieved that I lucked out the way I did.
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