Henry Winkler’s grandparents were sent to concentration camps, but he never met them, so he only knew about them from stories.
In the same way, when the performer was young, he heard his classmates talk about how their parents took them on trips and how much fun they had with their families. But this idea seemed impossible to him, and he was never able to see something like this happen.
Henry Winkler admired his parents because of one important choice they made: leaving Nazi Germany in 1939 to start over in the United States. He knows that their brave decision to leave made it possible for him to live the way he does now.
Even though he knows that his parents’ escape was good, he can’t forget the emotional pain he went through as a child. He thought that his parents were bad for his emotional health and that he was never really heard as a child.
The actor’s relationship with his mother was so distant that when his son Max asked him about her, he said that in his whole life, he had only seen her laugh twice, and those times were years apart.
Henry Winkler had a hard childhood, so he promised himself that he would be a better parent than his own had been. Even though his parents didn’t care about what he thought or felt, he made sure to listen to and meet the needs of his own children.
Henry Winkler used every chance to teach his children and their friends important lessons about life. He remembers times when the friends of his children came over and told him about their problems. Even though his kids might have wanted him to just say hello and leave, Henry Winkler would take the time to listen to them and ask what was bothering them.
If there was one thing he could teach his kids, it would be how important it is to listen. Henry Winkler noticed that adults often don’t listen to their children because they think that kids are too young to understand their problems. On the other hand, he was sure that this was not the case.
Henry Winkler did everything he could to give his kids a good life, like keeping them out of the public eye and making sure they had a stable, normal family life. He also tried hard not to make the same mistakes as his parents, especially when it came to how they were sometimes mean to him.
As a child, the actor went to sleep every night knowing that he wouldn’t turn out like his father. He kept his promise and never used physical punishment on his own child, even though he had been hit with things like hands and hairbrushes when he was younger.
Henry Winkler was deeply affected by a time as a child when he put his ear close to his bowl of cereal to hear the “snap, crackle, and pop” sounds. This made his mother lose her temper and chase him around the table. He has talked about this event in interviews and remembers it very well.
Even though Henry Winkler had a successful career in California, he went to New York to take care of his sick mother, who had been mean to him when he was younger. Regardless of how his mother criticized him and called him names, Winkler changed his schedule to help her when she was sick.
Even though he tried hard, the actor still felt bad when he couldn’t be with his mother. Even when he had no other choice, Winkler didn’t think it was right to help someone from far away.
During those times, he can remember seeing his mother lose the will to live. He and his sister kept hoping that their mother would get better, but she had a different view of her illness.
After his mother died in 1998, Winkler became very interested in raising awareness about strokes and helping people, especially in the area of upper limb spasticity, which his mother had. He wanted to do something good and help people who were going through the same things.
Henry Winkler thought it was important to spread the word that Botox is an approved treatment for upper limb spasticity because nearly a million people have a stroke every year, and 7% of them have upper limb spasticity. He wanted to make it easier for people who have had a stroke to get effective treatments.
Winkler has said many times that he thinks being a caregiver is a great and honorable job that requires many sacrifices and sleepless nights. When it comes to giving advice to caregivers in hard situations, he tells them to recognize and accept how hard things are for them.
Winkler thinks it’s important to be honest about how you feel because if you keep everything inside, it will eventually come out.
