A little girl dressed in her girl scout uniform came to my door last week selling cookies. Her parents were with her.They introduced themselves and it seems they lived across the street and two doors north. I had no clue there were children in that house. There must be other children in the neighborhood but they are never outside playing, if they exist at all. The one exception is the family directly across from us. Their children will be outside playing, biking, rollerblading or generally just goofing around most days when they weather is good. Often one of the parents will be out there playing with them. I am very impressed with those parents. When I was a kid being outdoors was the norm.
When we came home from school, a snack and then homework and then we went out. Kids rarely rang the doorbell in our Chicago neighborhood either. I guess moms were too busy to "wait on" a kid by answering the doorbell. My friends stood on the sidewalk in front and hollered "Yo ooo Ranae" and you went out to play.
I made a list of some of differences I remember. The differences between then and now.
Not in any particular order (except that which comes to my mind)
1. We had very little one on one adult supervision. At 5 or 6 years old you played outside on your own. You understood your own family rules. Only around the block, don't talk to strangers, treat the neighbors nicely, respect their stuff, no fighting or swearing, watch out for the younger kids, come home when I call you for dinner and everyone comes home when the street lights come on. Today that sounds like neglectful parenting and not the "helicopter parenting" you see today.
2. Most all of the moms were at home and they were busy with lots of kids, housework etc. but also all the moms watched all the kids. If you swore at the end of the block and Mrs. Walsh heard you she felt free to yell at you and then told your mom who yelled at you again. Mrs. Walsh, Mrs. Andersen, Mrs. Grossinger, Mrs. Jensen or any of the Mrs. on the block (you see we NEVER called an adult by their first name) also would not let anyone hurt any of the kids and watched out for us all.
3. No room and no fun to play inside. Houses were small and most had just 2 or 3 bedrooms even though, in the baby boom years, families had 3,4,5,6 sometimes even 12 kids although that many was rare and it sort of went with being Irish and Catholic if I remember correctly. Maybe grandma lived there also. No one ever thought they needed a larger home either. If you had a large brood and had a basement or an attic, there was your answer. More buys than girls? Have a makeshift bedroom in the attic. I saw baby beds put in the pantry for a temporary 4' x8' bedroom. If you had your own bedroom and only 1 other sibling? We all figured you were adopted.
4. No one had as much "stuff" as they have now, yet I don't ever remember feeling poor. Without a load of toys, you shared. Maybe a ball that a group of us used to play a game. Or we took turns riding someones bike. Hide and Seek, Red Rover and jumping rope were favorites I remember. For better or worse no safety equipment either. Never a helmet or knee pads. The school playground had high high metal slides (burned your butt in summer), merry go rounds that could spin at enormous speeds (sometimes you flew off if you didn't hang on), monkey bars and jungle gyms built on gravel or concrete.
5. No internet or electronic games etc. You interacted with real people. Your "friends" were real flesh and blood kids just like you, not just a faceless icon on your screen. You HAD to get along with the others on the block, you couldn't "unfriend" them.
6. Getting a little banged up was what happened when you were a kid. Don't go home crying to mama unless you saw blood, a lot of blood. Every kid had scrapped knees, mosquito bites, bruises from doing something stupid "you should have known better" than to do. Sure, stuff happened but not really very often. No one died. I know one guy whose brother stuck a fork in his eye and another guy who fell out of the jungle gym and broke both arms at once....gross.
7. Unlike now, you rarely saw a fat kid. And we ate bologna sandwiches with real butter, twinkies etc. We never even heard of diet food. I remember when my Mom started buying the new Diet Rite Cola, but I don't remember her getting any skinnier! We were outside getting exercise and too busy to think about snacking. We ate our three meals and had a small afterschool snack, typically milk and a cookie. When you were called in for lunch or dinner you better show up. "I called you, you didn't come so I figured you weren't hungry, so I gave your pork chop to your brother, make sure you get up in time for breakfast, I guess."
I'm not saying things were better or superior to now. Lots of great innovative things we take for granted now I never knew as a child. Everyone from a good family just remembers their childhood as being the best that childhood could be.
Like I do.
