Soldier On
Greg likes a Facebook page called Forgotten Chicago that shows a lot of scenes of old Chicago, many of them from the time we grew up there. I imagine the Chicago I knew is long gone. But he shared one picture that reminded me of the old apartment building I grew up in. (Only mine was in worse shape!)
My apartment building had old gray back porches. They were rickety wood structures with loose boards, missing steps, and a long drop if you happened to live on the top floor like we did. Back then we used to balance on the railings and jump over the missing steps to get to the next landing.
Of course, my mother didn't know this. Any intelligent kid knew not to tell his mother about our death-defying stunts. None of us wanted to be grounded for eternity.
We had another apartment building kiddie-corner to us. We could jump on a lower flat roof of a connecting building and then onto the railings of the next building. This was our playground.
No one thought to complain to the super if we scraped our knees on the tarred roofs or stabbed ourselves with rusty nails. No one sued if a kid got hurt. If anything, we chided the kid for being clumsy.
Another strange phenomenon about our group is that no one got bullied either. Oh, occasionally a new kid would join us and try to take over the show, but it's hard to be a bully if no one pays attention to you. They either buckled down or took their bully business elsewhere.
There were leaders in our group and there were followers. The leaders (aka: the older kids) made sure no bully ever got a foothold in our group.
I'll be the first to tell you that MANY of the things we did as kids were stupid, reckless, and dangerous. And yet, I feel like I was safer then than any kid is now with all the laws, cameras, counselors, and social media watching him.
Why? I think there are two reasons.
1. Our friends. We looked after each other. One time a friend got hit by a car. He seemed fine at first but within three days he was dead. No one knew it at the time, but the accident had left him with a punctured appendix.
Patrick was one of our "leaders" so his loss was keenly felt. Yet we didn't need counselors to talk things out and understand our feelings. Even the youngest among us understood loss. We grieved and then we moved on.
2. Our selves: I have to tell you, we were a heck of a lot more self-reliant than kids today. It scares me that so many are dependent on technology and adults. I used to think I led a sheltered life (compared to my rowdier friends), but it's nothing like how today's kids are sheltered.
We learn from experience. Buffer that experience even with the best intentions and you lessen that kid's ability to solve the problem. It's a fine line to protect your child yet give him enough freedom to figure things out for himself.
A dear friend who was a generation older than me used to tell me stories of when she was a kid. She lived in the UK during WWII. One of the stories that fascinated me was when she had to go to school the next day after an overnight bombing. She and her brother would walk around the dead bodies and rubble.
Dead bodies? I asked her. Of course, she said. We had to soldier on, didn't we?
That generation was even tougher than mine. I admired their resolve.
Do you think kids are more sheltered than when you were a kid? Is being a kid today better or worse?
My apartment building had old gray back porches. They were rickety wood structures with loose boards, missing steps, and a long drop if you happened to live on the top floor like we did. Back then we used to balance on the railings and jump over the missing steps to get to the next landing.
Of course, my mother didn't know this. Any intelligent kid knew not to tell his mother about our death-defying stunts. None of us wanted to be grounded for eternity.
We had another apartment building kiddie-corner to us. We could jump on a lower flat roof of a connecting building and then onto the railings of the next building. This was our playground.
No one thought to complain to the super if we scraped our knees on the tarred roofs or stabbed ourselves with rusty nails. No one sued if a kid got hurt. If anything, we chided the kid for being clumsy.
Another strange phenomenon about our group is that no one got bullied either. Oh, occasionally a new kid would join us and try to take over the show, but it's hard to be a bully if no one pays attention to you. They either buckled down or took their bully business elsewhere.
There were leaders in our group and there were followers. The leaders (aka: the older kids) made sure no bully ever got a foothold in our group.
I'll be the first to tell you that MANY of the things we did as kids were stupid, reckless, and dangerous. And yet, I feel like I was safer then than any kid is now with all the laws, cameras, counselors, and social media watching him.
Why? I think there are two reasons.
1. Our friends. We looked after each other. One time a friend got hit by a car. He seemed fine at first but within three days he was dead. No one knew it at the time, but the accident had left him with a punctured appendix.
Patrick was one of our "leaders" so his loss was keenly felt. Yet we didn't need counselors to talk things out and understand our feelings. Even the youngest among us understood loss. We grieved and then we moved on.
2. Our selves: I have to tell you, we were a heck of a lot more self-reliant than kids today. It scares me that so many are dependent on technology and adults. I used to think I led a sheltered life (compared to my rowdier friends), but it's nothing like how today's kids are sheltered.
We learn from experience. Buffer that experience even with the best intentions and you lessen that kid's ability to solve the problem. It's a fine line to protect your child yet give him enough freedom to figure things out for himself.
A dear friend who was a generation older than me used to tell me stories of when she was a kid. She lived in the UK during WWII. One of the stories that fascinated me was when she had to go to school the next day after an overnight bombing. She and her brother would walk around the dead bodies and rubble.
Dead bodies? I asked her. Of course, she said. We had to soldier on, didn't we?
That generation was even tougher than mine. I admired their resolve.
Do you think kids are more sheltered than when you were a kid? Is being a kid today better or worse?
Comments
Yeah, kids in my generation watched too much TV, but I do remember getting outside and playing. My friend and I rode our bikes trying to get lost ON PURPOSE! I hardly see any kids riding bikes outside nowadays. They certainly don't ride them to school.
It's when we were too quiet that she'd come looking for us. :)
Re: bullies
It amazes me that kids would make fun of someone with glasses. I mean...glasses. :shakes head:
I've worn glasses since I was 6 years old. I can't recall anyone mentioning my glasses and those pink harlequins were beyond ugly. :)
I was the youngest of five kids who hung out together. They were all two years older, but treated me like someone their age. We did reckless things; throwing snowballs at taxi's (not a good idea. they chase you till you drop), and kick golf balls up the local golf course(until the attendants shot salt pellets at you with a shot gun). One winter there was a really bad storm and the school closed early. All the kids from the 'courts' were gathered together and sent home. Myself and the five older ones were in charge of making sure the younger ones stayed together and got home safely. You wouldn't see that now.
There was never any bullies. We were all friends. It was the best two years of my life.
I agree that kids don't get out to play that much, mine included. My fear, someone will kidnap him. You hear about it so much in the news; kids kidnapped at parks or playing by their house. The only safe place for them to play is at school where they're supervised, but even schools can be dangerous now.
I really wonder if there's any place kids are safe any more outside their home. :(
And kidnapping is indeed a good reason to keep an eye on kids now. I'm stymied as to why it seems more prevalent now. Is it because there's more news coverage? Or do we have more people? We did add another billion in the past few decades.
Not that we didn't have kidnappings when I was a kid, but I think we (as a community) were more vigilant. The neighbors were all nosy. They always knew what was going on in their neighborhoods.
Your comment on children self-policing to squash bullying attempts reminded me of that.
There's also a strand of thought that says we require a certain level of risk in our lives (different levels for different people) and that the more safety is imposed on us, the riskier the behaviours as people "balance" it out.
Not sure I agree completely with either idea, but some interesting possibilities.
These days kids seem to have everything done for them. They're driven everywhere. Walking to school seems like a thing of the past.
Ref the general message we were awash with danger as children, playing on old bomb-sites, wearing discarded gasmasks, helmets, and sometimes live ammunition, catapults, bows and arrows, rope swings from railway embankments, swimming in canals, old quarry pits, and climbing buildings we shouldn't. As I said, in one of my blog posts, parents who'd experienced World War 11 and the Blitz were not overworried over relatively petty dangers. Unlike some here, I was bullied, but that has it's uses too. My childhood, adventurous and stoic. And stoicism is an under-rated virtue
I used to remember scores of obscure tidbits of information, now all I have to do is Google it. Wouldn't my brain be more exercised if I didn't have to depend on Google?
Personally, I feel no kid should get a free ride. But that's just me. :)
That's a good point about kids being driven everywhere. I hear parents complain about being chauffeurs all the time. I can see the necessity where I live, the closest school is 30 miles away. But people who live in the city shouldn't have that problem what with public transportation.
Re: bully/stoicism
Greg would agree with you. He used to tell me that every kid should get beat up once. It teaches you to learn how to lose and how to pick yourself back up. I never looked at it that way, but it's true.
And i see kids outside playing ALL THE TIME. I live down the block from a middle school and next door to a park. I see kids on bikes, or on foot constantly. So they're there. You may just not be looking in the right place
As for kids these days, it's easy to blame parents, but media and advertising are constantly barraging parents with fear. Be afraid of people who want to do unspeakable things to your children, which leads to fear of the outdoors, fear of public transportation, and even fear of other children. Ads on television and in magazines are constantly telling parents that if they're not securing their home, or vetting every piece of media their child consumes, or looking up their child's friends on Facebook, or buying the right peanut butter, they are ruining their child's entire life.
And it's not just media. I've got a lot of friends with kids who say that some other parents can be the most judgmental people you'll ever come across, giving you the stink eye if you even so much as mention that you once left your six-year old briefly unsupervised.
Peddling fear to parents is now big business, and it's sad that some of them have bought into it so much, but I can't say I blame them. Societal pressure can have a huge impact on someone's life.
As you can imagine, I always wanted to grow up on a farm. I got here as soon as I could. :)
One of my older friends used to tell me how he used to ride his mule to school. I even saw a picture of him back in the early 40s. Can you imagine anyone doing that today?
As a parent, I know I worry more about my kids than my parents had to worry about me. Growing up we lived a few blocks from a major freeway. For us kids to ride our bikes down to the gas station for candy was a regular occurrence. Did anyone worry about one of us getting snatched? No. Was it because we usually traveled in a pack? Perhaps. Was it because it was a more innocent time? Maybe. I do know that wouldn't happen today.
It's a fine line. I want to allow my kids the freedoms I had at their age. And if they have their cell with them, let me know where they're going and who with, I try to do that. But the fact of the matter is, there is too much info out there. I'm not under any kind of illusion if someone wanted to find my kids, they could. Just that happened here, the very first week of school.
My parents lived through the Great Depression, my step-grandmother lived through the Blitz in London, and I grow up on "deal with it" and "solder on." I just hope I'm conveying that to the wee beasties.
All of a sudden someone would fall and by the look on the kid's face you could tell he was about to let loose a scream. She calmly called him over. He'd limp over and let her examine the scrape. But what surprised me is that she'd take a wet nap and clean off the scrape and then tell him, "It's nothing. Go on."
I was shocked! It looked pretty bad to me. LOL.
She told me she deliberately makes light of minor injuries so they'd stay tough. Only broken bones or gushing blood required immediate attention. When we got home she cleaned him up and bandaged him. Not a peep out of him.
She really taught me something that day.
Kids adapt so easily to new technologies, it's amazing and a little frightening. But that's the world they live in, so they have to be on board.
I bet the pioneers of America would've made fun of us for not knowing how to navigate by the stars, lol. But they wouldn't have had the skill as a kid to whip out a cell phone, snap a shot of a would-be abductor that resulted in his capture. I'd say it's a trade-off. In some ways, kids are way better off, but I personally wouldn't give up the childhood I had to relive it today.
On the other hand, technology has made things a lot easier for us all but I still feel that children should also know how to do things should the technology fail.