Growing Up Paper
3/31/2014

Parenting comes with a magnitude of struggles, from teaching your children right from wrong to helping them learning through experience, even if it’s through mistakes. Parents and grandparents have a lot in common starting with their love for the children in their lives. Unfortunately that doesn't always stop grandparents and parents from bickering about a variety of issues, especially about the guidelines of the child’s life. In the memoir Growing Up, by Russell Baker, Russell’s grandmother, Ida Rebecca, and his mother, Lucy Elizabeth disagreed on most everything due to a clash in ideals and generations. Russell Baker had a tough life, but succeeded, probably because of his mother’s constant hectoring. Lucy Elizabeth always wanted her children to be successful in life. To her, that meant that they needed to make a name for themselves through business. As a child, Russell constantly was told to make something of himself. From a young age, Lucy Elizabeth was very driven. She often speaks highly of her Papa and how he was “a good man.” He was her model of excellence. Although Papa failed at succeeding in life, he never gave up. She wanted her to brothers and her husband to turn out like the good man her father once was. When they failed to make some she turned to her children to make something of themselves. Russell talks about how his mother despised inactivity and was forced to start working at the age of eight so that he was able to keep up with the competition. At a young age, Lucy Elizabeth was a schoolteacher. She was forced to drop out of school and being a schoolteacher was all she could be with the education she had. She wanted more, but was not afraid to show off the knowledge that she had.
Once she was married, she was forced to work around the house and turned to her children to finish her success. Russell states, “I would make something of myself, and if I lacked the grit to do it, well then she would make me make something of myself. I would become the living proof of the strength of her womanhood. From now on she would live for me, and, in turn, I would become her future” (122). At a very young age, Lucy Elizabeth taught Russell how to read. Russell was her way of redeeming her failure. The flaw in Russell’s character was his lack of gumption. Once Lucy Elizabeth said, “You’ve got less gumption than a bump in a log” (17). Doris, Russell’s sister, had the gumption that he lacked. After Russell started working for a newspaper company, Doris was able to make the sales that he could not. Russell was not fit for the life of a salesman. Although Lucy Elizabeth wanted her children to succeed, it saddened her because she knew her daughter could not make anything of herself in the real world because she was a woman. When Russell became interested in writing, his mother was hesitant, but understood his decision and supported his desire to work. When he was first published in the newspaper, Lucy Elizabeth was proud and soon referred to Russell as the man of the house. His mother bought him the clothes to make him look the part, a suit, a tie, and most importantly, a hat. She taught him, not only how to be a businessman, but how to be a gentleman.
Russell and his mother’s relationship becomes very tainted as time goes on. Russell, despite his mother's nagging, managed to do well in high school and win a scholarship to Johns Hopkins. He was soon forced to leave after a year to enter the United States Navy Air Force. After the war, he graduated from Johns Hopkins and eased into a successful newspaper career with The Baltimore Sun. Ida Rebecca was a much more traditionalist when it came to raising her children and grandchildren and her overall look on life. For generations, the Baker family had been born and raised in Morrisonville, a small village, a third of a mile away from a paved road. When Ida Rebecca married into the family, she took on a very firm role. “Ida Rebecca had established herself as the iron ruler of her sprawling family” (40). Her children were known as children that listened to their mother and when one didn’t, they fell back into line after Ida Rebecca was done with them. It was her way or no way. All of her son’s wives accepted her supremacy except for Lucy Elizabeth who was as power hungry as she. As a mother, Ida Rebecca expected that her children would leave school to work. A man’s duty was to provide.
From a young age, Ida Rebecca taught Russell how to do things around the farm, like how to pick potatoes and start a fire. Although Ida Rebecca kept a tight grip on her children, she believed that Lucy Elizabeth kept Russell under too much discipline and would do things, like feed Russell in between meals, against Lucy Elizabeth’s digression. When Lucy Elizabeth would confront her about this, Ida Rebecca would tell Lucy Elizabeth that she should not question her ability to raise a child. Issues also occurred when Ida Rebecca and Lucy Elizabeth beliefs were questioned. Ida Rebecca was a strong believer in ghosts and omens, both good and bad. Lucy Elizabeth thought of these as foolish superstitions and didn’t want Russell to believe in them. She stated that the dead don’t come back and won’t hurt you. It’s the living you’ve got to worry about in this world.
Although Ida Rebecca and Lucy Elizabeth had such conflicting views as to how the house should be run and the way their children grew up, the main reasons they disagreed so often was because they were both such strong, hardheaded, exceptionally hardworking, and fierce women. Russell explains how both put in countless hours into keeping their house clean and “toiled like serfs” (59). Above all, both wanted the best for their children. Lucy Elizabeth thought that the way for her children to succeed was to become an active member of the business world. Learning and passion were vital to success. Ida Rebecca believed that a minimal education was all her children needed. If they could read, write, and locate Virginia on a map, they were set. To prove themselves as men, they had to work. One Christmas, Russell was given a toy steam shovel by his grandmother and he comments how his mother “would not have thought of such a beautiful, ingenious machine but would have given me a book” (49).
Russell grew up with many influences in his life, notably his mother and grandmother. Although he loved them both, it wasn’t until later in life when he reflected on how different each were and how this caused conflicts. Both Ida Rebecca and Lucy Elizabeth were passionate about their beliefs. Lucy Elizabeth grew up learning that hard work should lead to a good job. Ida Rebecca grew up learning that hard work around the house was the most important thing. Lucy Elizabeth stressed education and Ida Rebecca stressed work. Lucy Elizabeth and Ida Rebecca had a fractured relationship from the beginning. They started on bad terms and ended on them. In the end, Russell learned from both women in his life. He made a name for himself with his writing career, which is what his mother always wanted from him. Growing Up is a story about how parent’s future are their children and children want to break free from this role. A parent’s future becomes a child’s boring past. At the beginning of Growing Up, Russell states how he was angry with himself for “being one of those ancient bores whose highly selective memories of the past become transparently dishonest even to small children” (14). Both Lucy Elizabeth and Ida Rebecca’s future is Russell. In the end, each wants him to be