The Tender Bar

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2005

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Themes

Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma and Violence

A constant theme in Moehringer’s work is the intergenerational trauma that informed his family life and his personal development. This trauma was borne of generations of poverty and domestic violence. Moehringer’s family stories and personal memories clarify that by becoming a man who did not physically or psychologically harm his partner, he was breaking a painful, generations-long cycle of abuse.

The author describes how his maternal great-grandmother, Maggie O’Keefe, grew up poor in Ireland. As the eldest of 13 children, she had a great deal of responsibility in her family, and though she took her younger siblings to school could not attend herself. No one in the family knew why Maggie left Ireland, only that her American husband resented her for her illiteracy and lack of education. Their marriage deteriorated, and her husband drank heavily and beat her. Her daughter, Moehringer’s grandmother, often told him about an incident in which her brothers saved their mother from their father’s violence. Moehringer recounts how she used her family stories to create male heroes for him, inspiring him to emulate these heroes as he grew into a man himself. Even when he was very young, he understood that his grandmother was trying her best to fill the void of a real father figure in his life with the characters in her stories.

Furthermore, her husband, the author’s grandfather, was also abusive towards her. He referred to her only as “Stupid Woman” and “belittled her, bullied her, tormented her” (47). Living with them as a child, Moehringer witnessed this behavior regularly, writing, “I didn’t understand why Grandma allowed Grandpa to mistreat her, because I didn’t understand the depth of her dependence on him, emotional and financial” (47-48). His grandfather also had a sexist and authoritarian attitude towards his daughters and banned them from attending college. He justified his decision by telling them they would be wives and mothers and therefore did not need higher education. His mother then married his father young and endured an abusive marriage for two years before escaping to her parents’ house when the author was seven months old.

Even as a child, the author understood that his family’s painful past (and present) was due to the patterns of male violence and authoritarianism. He asked his grandmother, “Why are there so many bad men in our family?” (48). His grandmother explained that bad men were “everywhere” (48), and therefore it was important to her that Moehringer grew up to be a good man. Instead of seeing his father and grandfather as role models, Moehringer was encouraged by his grandmother and mother to view them as the kind of men he should not be. This was what prompted him to search for male role models elsewhere, such as Publicans.

Masculinity and Men’s Role in the Family

Due to his father’s, grandfather’s, and great-grandfather’s cruel and domineering treatment towards their wives and daughters, Moehringer had to find a different blueprint for his own masculinity and his role in the family. His father’s extreme neglect meant that the author felt, even as a child, that he had to shoulder traditionally masculine expectations of grown men. This burden informed his notion of his familial role and his dreams for the future. His grandmother encouraged this colossal sense of responsibility with her mantra, “Real men take care of their mothers” (232), which she often told Moehringer growing up.

Since his father was absent and never sent his mother any money, Moehringer became obsessed with the notion of financially supporting himself and his mother. Moehringer’s immense love for his mother meant that he could not let go of the injustices of her childhood. In his book, he repeatedly references his desire to earn enough money so his mother could fulfill her dream of going to college (123). Moehringer frequently recalls his anxious desire to help his mother, which did not wane from childhood to adulthood. When he did not get along with his mother’s boyfriend, Winston, he viewed their conflict through the lens of his masculine responsibility towards his mother. He remembered, “Somehow in the cold war with Winston I’d lost sight of my number one goal—taking care of my mother. Now I was just another man who made her life harder” (111).

Indeed, as he grew into a young man, he felt overwhelmingly guilty, fearing that he was not adequately supporting his mother. Rather than working towards career goals for his own benefit, he was most interested in finding a high-paying job so his mother could finally live well and without financial stress. The author’s inner monologue reveals the burden he felt to shoulder many “masculine” responsibilities as a child: correcting his grandfather’s parenting mistakes, filling his absent father’s shoes, and adopting his own brand of masculinity that would set him apart from the vicious men in his family.

The Challenge of Forging a New Identity

Another of Moehringer’s central themes is that of identity. Moehringer references key aspects of his life—his father’s absence, and his name—that caused anxiety and confusion about his identity. This compelled him to craft his own identity, very intentionally and self-consciously, throughout his childhood and young adulthood.

Moehringer recounts how his first name, J. R., always perplexed people since it didn’t stand for anything. Instead, it simply meant “Junior.” A psychiatrist even told his mother to give him a “real name” and that he was suffering an identity crisis causing him to have tantrums and anxiety. When Moehringer asked his mother about his full name, she admitted that it was the same as his father’s, John Joseph Moehringer J. R. The author was horrified to learn that he shared his whole name with his abusive father, and he made his mother promise to keep this fact a secret.

He later questioned his father about their name’s origins and why his father used an alias in his profession as a DJ. When his father told him that his Sicilian grandfather adopted a German name to find work in New York City, Moehringer only felt more disassociated from his name, incredulous that its origins were so peripheral: He was named after his grandfather’s German neighbor.

The author shares how important it was for him to change his name as a young adult before it was permanently printed on his Yale diploma. He felt that his name tied him too closely to his father’s legacy, and he wanted to “jettison J. R., and Junior, and Moehringer, to sweep aside those burdensome symbols and replace them with something normal, some name that didn’t come from the German neighbor of my father’s pseudonymous father” and, in doing so, “deny” his father and his name (212).

Although in the end, he did not alter his birth name, Moehringer shares his desire to understand his name, as well as his quest to change it, to help his readers understand how much he wished to separate himself from his father’s lineage and influence, even symbolically.

Moehringer also revisits how observing the men at Publicans informed his own identity. In the absence of a father figure to emulate, Moehringer acutely felt that he was missing a masculine presence in his life, and worried that he would not become manly enough as an adult. As a result, he looked to the men at Publicans for examples of good, manly men. He confesses that he would absorb “[a] lesson, a gesture, a story, a philosophy, an attitude—I took something from every man in Steve’s bar. I was a master of ‘identity theft’ when that crime was more benign” (9). Moehringer consciously collected these impressions and used them in his own behavior, convincing himself that they were an organic part of his identity, as he “believed himself authentic when imitating the men of the bar, using their language and gestures” (186).

He admits that his mimicry and adoration for the Publicans men created a kind of “dual personality” (219), half of which was influenced by his ambitious, resilient mother, while the other half took after the more reticent, bitter men who frequented Publicans. It was not until his father threatened him with a knife that he dispelled his need to imitate and idealize other men.