I should be grateful I don’t have a story to tell about my upbringing. I have found that folks with a poor upbringing have that story to tell. Example: a new memoir, Hotel Goodbyes by Stephen Jon Thompson certainly delivers an interesting tale.

Sadly, Thompson’s memoir paints a story of being raised by a mother who was all the things a mother shouldn’t be. She easily got pregnant with a number of different men (five children.) She was unskilled, neglected her children, suffered boyfriend abuse and ultimately just disappeared from a motel in Reno, Nevada in 1980. The following paragraph was Thompson’s memory of being a very young son at a time when his mother was still at home:

“One morning, I woke up to find my mother splayed out in the middle of the hallway. She had passed out, either on her way to or from the bathroom, with her underwear and pants hanging down around her legs. I gingerly stepped over her as I headed to the bathroom. When I was finished and was heading back down the hallway, Mom looked up at me from the floor and said, “You go back to your room and stay there for the rest of the day. I don’t want to see any of y’all until the sun comes up tomorrow morning!” I knew not to disagree with her when she was in that kind of a mood. My siblings and I stayed in our bedroom where we played quietly and did not eat until the next morning when we woke up starving.”

And that was one of the milder stories in this book! I have no children and always wondered what kind of mother I would have been – not always answering the question so positively. But after reading this book (and others) I knew I would have been a better mother than some.

Many children raised as Thompson was raised would not have succeeded in the “real” world. But Thompson was bright and eventually became part of a family that helped him to succeed. He graduated from the University of San Diego with a major in Political Science and a minor in philosophy. According to his book, we went on to work at Apple, Google, Amazon, Nike and Docusign. These days, he is a life coach and an activist passing on what he has learned during his professional life.

Interestingly, on his website, he refers to the memoir as being a novel, so perhaps there was some dramatic license used in the telling of his story. In any case, his story is quite amazing and provides and entertaining read.