We moved from Philadelphia to New Hampshire when I was 10 years old. My parents bought a home in Hampton and I lived there until I got married.
When I was a kid we only had a few requirements regarding where we went or what we did for fun:
1. Be home at meal time.
2. Get to and from there on your own (no rides! can you imagine?).
3. Pay for everything with your own money (can I borrow was not in our vocab).
I rode my bike up and down the seacoast of NH and all around Hampton without anyone knowing where I was going or when I'd be back. We didn't have cell phones, pagers, GPS, or parents that would jump in the car to get us if we got tired. Most families had one car and the father used that to get to work.
Anyway, one section of the beach had a tall, concrete wall in place to keep the waves on the beach rather than the road. The wall was slightly concave and at the bottom was the soft, fluffy sand of the beach.
We would slide/jump down the wall and land in the soft sand, great fun! One time I jumped and my pants snagged a bit on the wall and threw off my landing. My face met my knee and the next thing I knew I was looking up at my friend and wondering where I was and how I got there.
Somehow, I got to my bike and drove the two miles or so to get home. By that time my face was swollen and I was told later that I looked like a chipmunk.
Did I get an ice-pack, or rushed to the hospital for x-rays? Nope! Instead, I got asked why I was jumping off the wall and hurt myself. Let that be a lesson to you mister!
Why do I remember this event, you may ask? Because each year I get a major sinus infection, and it always worse on the side of my face that met my knee.
Posted by bbarton at May 2, 2005 06:36 AMMy daughters were in 8th or 9th grade before I let them go to the mall with friends and nary a parent in attendance.
For us, our bikes were transportion. For kids nowadays, bikes are recreation. It is a pretty rare thing to see a kid riding their bike to get downtown unless they live within blocks of that location.
Posted by: Bob on May 2, 2005 12:05 PMOuch Bob....here's a nifty trick for sinus problems:
Walk into glass door and break nose. Have nose reset. Hey Presto! No more sinus problems. It worked for me last year.
It was long ago and far away then wasn't it? I had the same upbringing the other side of the world, and yes, if we hurt ourselves it was our fault.
Lu, my children aren't allowed out without a guard either. It's a different world now.
Somethings remian the same though, as you might see on my site ;-)
I think Lu's probably right: the world isn't any more dangerous now than it was before, we just keep hearing about the worst of it, over and over again. It FEELS dangerous because that's all the news ever tells us. Still, if I had kids I'd probably never let them out of my sight... LOL
I think maybe your parents should have shown you a bit more compassion, Bob. (It's not my place to say that, obviously, but is that stopping me? Why, no!) A knee to the head would hurt, regardless of whose fault it was. I know there were different expectations about parenting then, and parenting of boys in particular: "toughen them up", basically. Still. Every kid needs a hug when they're hurt, even if you only get it thirty years later.
Posted by: Deirdre on May 2, 2005 11:40 PMI'll have to bear that in mind, Caroline. I tend to walk into and trip over things so it could be a real possibility!
The stories I could tell you, Deirdre...I tend to remember mostly the good stuff that happened. My sister will go on about things and I swear I must have lived in another house because I don't remember them. The ones that I remember are doozies though. LOL
Posted by: Bob on May 3, 2005 07:27 AMHmm... don't like the sounds of that, Bob. My mother's parents were complete critters and she's still affected by it, all these many years later. They had a few good excuses (poverty, too many children, illnesses) but that didn't make their kids' lives one bit easier.
But what you say about living in a different house from your sister - I think that might be true for everybody. I remember completely different things from my sisters, and sometimes I swear they must be lying about the stuff they remember: I just have no recollection of it at all. (They're not lying, though; I've just got a hopeless memory, and we all noticed different things at the time.)
Posted by: Deirdre on May 4, 2005 04:46 AMIt is certainly true that one can reflect on the existence of the Big Bang to validate the notion of creation, and with that the notion of a higher power. But such a metaphysical speculation lies outside of the theory itself.
Posted by: Meridia on February 15, 2006 07:03 PM
OUCH! Jesus, Bob.
Isn't it amazing how different things are for our kids as opposed to the way they were for us. I would leave my house at the break of dawn and not return until dusk. No questions asked. I'm guessing there were just as many psycho pervs in the world at that time...just not as much sensationalism (read some report like every three minutes on the news)and so it seemed the world was a safer place.
I freak out if I get separated from my girls while shopping...forget about K's request to have me "drop her off at the mall with her friends"...uh, I don't think so. Yeah, I'm the meanest mother in the universe but these are my babies!!
Posted by: lu on May 2, 2005 11:38 AM