Childfree

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by bretonbanquet

Hard to imagine you being wronger about that. His aunt refused to allow a record player into the house. He saw his mother practically every day, she bought him his first guitar and taught him how to play it, bought him his first records and he used to go down the road to her house to play them while they danced around her kitchen. Shortly before she died, she was one of The Quarrymen's biggest fans, while Mimi disapproved of the whole music idea, like most people of her generation. Mimi Smith had nothing whatsoever to do with Lennon becoming a musician, and she never liked McCartney or Harrison. She and her husband put a roof over his head, fed him and sent him to school, and they were a decent, loving couple - but without his mother, John would've been an accountant or something.

And you're either adopted, or you're not. Either you do the legal process or you don't. Mimi and George Smith were guardians, not adoptive parents.

http://www.instantkarma.com/johnbio.html

Well, other accounts seem to consider "Mimi" to be the grounding influence in John's life. Besides, no matter how much he visited his mother, he was not raised by her. They were more like buddies... and he had a decidedly unhealthy preoccupation with her.

John moved in with his aunt at Mendips at 251 Menlove Avenue before he was five, so despite the fact that he made regular visits to his mother's house, John's major, grounding influence in his life was Mary Smith..lovingly referred to through the years as Aunt Mimi. One biographer noted that even though John could engage in outrageous behavior and be rude, when the occasion called for it, John, moreso than Paul, George or Ringo, knew how to behave with grace in social situations. These skills he learned from Aunt Mary and Uncle George, who were slightly up the scale economically and socially from the other Beatles' families.