Answer #2:

In looking back at my life as a child and as an adult I see fragmentation with only brief periods of continuity on three different continents — Poland in Europe, Israel in Asia or the Middle-East, and USA in North America. And the geo-political differences were roughly consistent with my personal growth and development: Poland was my early childhood (age 0 to 6); Israel was my adolescence and pre-teens (age 6 to 12); USA was my teens and early adulthood (age 12 to 22). And then there was my return to Israel where I married and built a family (age 22 to 35) and back to the USA to age and mature (age 35 to the present).

Under more stable conditions and less hopping between continents and cultures, growth and developmental transitions from one stage to another are gradual thus more gentle. In my case the transitions were abrupt and sudden. I was never afforded the luxury of easing out of one stage and into another. For survival I had to learn to adapt, be flexible, expect the unexpected, and to swim in deep murky waters, at times against strong currents. I think I did rather well, under the circumstances.

My early childhood in Poland was spent solely among adults. I have no recollections of interaction with children my own age or children of any age, for that matter. Due to their losses in the holocaust, my parents were so overprotective that they couldn’t let me out of their sight, thus I was not enrolled in kindergarten or preschool.

At six, I experienced my first encounter with my own peers when I started school. To top that off, first grade for me was in Israel — a new country with a new language. And on top of that, I was forced from being an overly protected child in an adult world to a child who had to become an adult over night — I enrolled and escorted myself, all by myself, straight to first grade.

Both my parents worked long hours and struggled to keep food on our table, and I was left to do as I pleased and what pleased me most was roaming the neighborhood with my newly acquired friends. I took to this new independence like a fish to water.

When my parents took me from Poland to Israel I was too young to voice an opinion — if I had one at all, that is. But leaving Israel for the USA was a completely different issue. I was an independent 12-year-old — an outspoken, albeit polite, preteen. I protested, I pleaded, I cried, all to no avail. I was forced to abandon schoolmates, friends, and neighbors. I was being dragged into the great big unknown and I simply had no choice. As independent as I was, I was still only 12.

My parents and I settled in Los Angeles and once again I was forced into a new culture and a foreign language. And if all that wasn’t enough, I was entering my next and probably the most crucial stage of my life — the teen years and puberty. But again, I took to my new environment exceptionally well and thrived while continually parenting my parents and helping them adjust.

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