I saw in ur tags that you have a lot of thoughts about macs childhood. Care to elaborate???
- mac’s dad was 59 in s10, which means he was 20 or 21 when mac was born (which was in 1977, according to the sunny wiki). mrs mac seems to be roughly the same age as him, so i’d guess she was anywhere between 19-22 when she had mac.
- they were rly young parents. that’s not a bad thing in itself - plenty of ppl have kids young and raise them super well!! but judging from mac’s attachment issues and emotional insecurities in adulthood, as well as how much they’re shown to resent him, i don’t think they were ready for a child or planning for one
- the fact that mac’s catholicism is so strong when neither of his parents seem to be remotely religious makes me wonder if he grew up in church programs??
- according to google the catholic church has a relatively big presence in philly, so it’s entirely plausible that mac ended up getting most of his clothes from church charity drives, most of his meals from the church daycare, he learnt to read at sunday school
- it would explain why he’s so defensive re: catholicism even tho ultimately it’s done him so much harm. bc despite everything… this has been the one (1) stable thing in his life. this is what ended up filling the void his parents left.
- when ur a kid who gets at best ignored and at worst neglected at home, the idea of an all-knowing father looking down on u absolutely has the potential to become smth comforting that u’d cling to
- also idk if this makes sense but mac’s idea of god?? someone distant and controlling and harsh who doesn’t rly show affection at all?? that sounds a lot like luther
- god is a father figure but luther is the only father mac had experience with - so it’s no wonder that mac’s interpretation of the bible is so violent and warped. luther was mac’s frame of reference
- most of his childhood memories seem to take place outside, and most of them involve charlie. mac remembers the two of them throwing rocks at trains, riding their bikes around philly, hanging out at the community pool during the summer, but we never hear mac talk abt what it was like at home which implies that he either doesn’t like remembering it, or he’s blocked the memories out entirely
- tbh i think it was the kind of situation that gradually got worse. his parents never gave much of a shit to begin with but as mac got older and more independent, they just……..let him go. and then luther went to prison and mrs mac shut down emotionally, and mac was left completely on his own
- so as an adult mac clings onto the vague memories he has of his early childhood, back when his parents didn’t 100% resent him and his dad wasn’t in jail, and idolises those memories and romanticises them, and insists that despite all the evidence to the contrary there’s a chance those days could come back
- the strongest example of this i can think of rn is mac’s rant at charlie in s3 - “this is about people meeting back up after many years, and sparks flying, and families getting back together and raising little boys so they can be happy again! okay? happy boys! this is about happy boys!”
- and this is arguably mac’s best quality and one of his worst flaws. he is so adamantly stubborn that none of the people he loves are lost causes and all of them have potential and all of them love him back - but at the same time he can’t tell when he crosses the line from hopefulness into full-on delusion, and that ends up hurting him and hurting them
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