TL;DR:
- John Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, was attached to his parents as a youngster.
- Sean didn’t seem to understand that his father existed outside of the family kitchen.
- Sean later discussed what he thought of his father as an icon and as a person.
John Lennon‘s son, Sean Ono Lennon, had a strong relationship with the former Beatle. During an interview, John discussed his son’s life. He revealed that a banal moment became traumatic for Sean.
John Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, preferred his parents to other kids
John died in December 1980, when Sean was five years old. During a 1980 interview from the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John discussed Sean’s social life. “I think Sean’s spirit is … he’s traveled a lot, he’s with adults a lot,” he said. “He goes wherever we go.
John discussed how Sean felt about him and Yoko Ono. “He gets plenty of child companionship as well, which everyone says is so important — ‘Well, doesn’t he need children?’” he said. “No, he’d sooner have his parents any day, as long as we’re around, though he doesn’t have to be on my knee all the time.”
John Lennon said Sean Ono Lennon got anxious at the idea of him leaving the room
John said Sean had a specific anxiety at the time. “Like all children, he likes to know that I’m in the house, even if he’s out,” he said. “One big trauma for him was when he realized that sometimes I go out of the house, and then I come back.
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“One day, I went out and came back in and he was kind of looking at me,” John recalled. “‘Well, where were you?’ he said. I said, ‘Well, I just went out round the coffee shop. You know how you go out sometimes? That’s what I did.’
“That was a big moment for him, to realize that I exist outside the kitchen,” John added. “It was amazing.” John said children in general have a hard time understanding that their parents can exist outside of their line of vision.
Sean Ono Lennon later discussed what it was like to be the son of a Beatle
Later, Sean discussed his father. During a 1998 interview with Rolling Stone, he said he missed John, the person, not John, the persona. Sean noted it was easy to deify John, but John still had his doubts, his flaws, and his bad days like anyone else. Sean said John would sometimes start screaming at him for no reason, causing him to cry.
Sean said he was a fan of The Beatles and their era, so he missed that music. More than that, he missed his father. He said he had some strong attachments to simple memories of John, like the time John carried him on his shoulders while they were on the beach or a time his father taught him proper hygiene.
John and Sean’s relationship wasn’t perfect, but Sean clearly had a close connection to his parents.
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