Oh my god that is 100% accurate. "Tap water and profound parental neglect" indeed. I remember once getting lost in the woods when I was very young and yelling out for my mom. Then, a few moments later, I heard her yell back from far away. So I headed in that direction and eventually found my way home. My mom was in the kitchen making dinner and never even batted an eye. These days there would have been a search party with helicopters and dogs out looking for me. What the hell has happened to the world?
I guess you could be considered part of my age cohort for this: Weren't we the first generation to whom the label "latchkey kids" was applied? When my mom started working to supplement income, I would come home from school to an empty house. In those days, Dad worked a late shift at Northwest Air Cargo, roughly 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.—home before 11. Mom wouldn't be home until sometime after 5 p.m. For me, school ended at around 2:30, so I basically had a couple hours of alone time, which usually meant watching TV or getting half-heartedly started on homework from beaten-up, reused textbooks that we'd covered with tough paper from grocery bags. I wouldn't call my alone time "profound parental neglect," but I do recall a lot of friends who also had alone time before the folks got home.
As for tap water and water from the hose, etc., yeah, that was something I grew up with for sure. Lots of time spent outdoors/in the backyard. I hated mowing the lawn, especially since our mower had only a small bag to collect grass clippings. When my little brothers got old enough to start sharing the labor, David remarked that grass clippings shouldn't be collected because birds could use them as nesting material. The few times I mowed the front and back without the collector bag, the mowing did indeed go faster.
These days, I kind of miss having a yard and having to mow it, but the truth is that our family utterly lacked a green thumb, and we had six or seven kinds of nasty, invasive grasses all over the yard, plus recurring poison ivy. Despite having an actual garden spot in back and a legitimate flower garden in another part of the yard, we were all awful at taking care of the flowers (although Mom did what she could for the wild cosmos flowers that found their way there), and several attempts at gardening proved we had no idea what we were doing. It was all pretty hopeless.
These days, I hear a lot about "helicopter parenting," i.e., parents who hover and are always ready to rush in to protect their kids from themselves. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum is the mother who left her toddler at home to go on a cruise, then came back to find her daughter dead of starvation (Kristel Candelario). Talk about "profound neglect." In the eyes of the law, that was (rightly) considered murder.
We're not that far apart in age, dude, unless you really want to insist on being on old man (and, if so, I will oblige you). Anyway, yeah, we were definitely latchkey kids (although, according to Wikipedia, the term goes back to WWII--and, in fairness, the term "latchkey" doesn't really sound like it should come from the 70s/80s). We had a huge yard, and I hated mowing it until we got the riding mower. Then--irony of ironies--in high school I ended up working summers at a local golf course.
Also, I think the "profound paternal neglect" was a bit of humor derived from trying to see what parenting back then might look like to a parent now. I never felt that my parents neglected me. I did feel that they allowed me to have my freedom, though, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Actual neglect is something else entirely.
Well, I'm the 60s variant, but it was spot-on that way for us as well. Mom worked nights and would leave some money on the counter for us boys to eat at Mickey D's.
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Oh my god that is 100% accurate. "Tap water and profound parental neglect" indeed. I remember once getting lost in the woods when I was very young and yelling out for my mom. Then, a few moments later, I heard her yell back from far away. So I headed in that direction and eventually found my way home. My mom was in the kitchen making dinner and never even batted an eye. These days there would have been a search party with helicopters and dogs out looking for me. What the hell has happened to the world?
ReplyDeleteI guess you could be considered part of my age cohort for this: Weren't we the first generation to whom the label "latchkey kids" was applied? When my mom started working to supplement income, I would come home from school to an empty house. In those days, Dad worked a late shift at Northwest Air Cargo, roughly 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.—home before 11. Mom wouldn't be home until sometime after 5 p.m. For me, school ended at around 2:30, so I basically had a couple hours of alone time, which usually meant watching TV or getting half-heartedly started on homework from beaten-up, reused textbooks that we'd covered with tough paper from grocery bags. I wouldn't call my alone time "profound parental neglect," but I do recall a lot of friends who also had alone time before the folks got home.
DeleteAs for tap water and water from the hose, etc., yeah, that was something I grew up with for sure. Lots of time spent outdoors/in the backyard. I hated mowing the lawn, especially since our mower had only a small bag to collect grass clippings. When my little brothers got old enough to start sharing the labor, David remarked that grass clippings shouldn't be collected because birds could use them as nesting material. The few times I mowed the front and back without the collector bag, the mowing did indeed go faster.
These days, I kind of miss having a yard and having to mow it, but the truth is that our family utterly lacked a green thumb, and we had six or seven kinds of nasty, invasive grasses all over the yard, plus recurring poison ivy. Despite having an actual garden spot in back and a legitimate flower garden in another part of the yard, we were all awful at taking care of the flowers (although Mom did what she could for the wild cosmos flowers that found their way there), and several attempts at gardening proved we had no idea what we were doing. It was all pretty hopeless.
These days, I hear a lot about "helicopter parenting," i.e., parents who hover and are always ready to rush in to protect their kids from themselves. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum is the mother who left her toddler at home to go on a cruise, then came back to find her daughter dead of starvation (Kristel Candelario). Talk about "profound neglect." In the eyes of the law, that was (rightly) considered murder.
We're not that far apart in age, dude, unless you really want to insist on being on old man (and, if so, I will oblige you). Anyway, yeah, we were definitely latchkey kids (although, according to Wikipedia, the term goes back to WWII--and, in fairness, the term "latchkey" doesn't really sound like it should come from the 70s/80s). We had a huge yard, and I hated mowing it until we got the riding mower. Then--irony of ironies--in high school I ended up working summers at a local golf course.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think the "profound paternal neglect" was a bit of humor derived from trying to see what parenting back then might look like to a parent now. I never felt that my parents neglected me. I did feel that they allowed me to have my freedom, though, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Actual neglect is something else entirely.
Well, I'm the 60s variant, but it was spot-on that way for us as well. Mom worked nights and would leave some money on the counter for us boys to eat at Mickey D's.
ReplyDelete