Tonight I'm thinking about Summers past and childhood's end. I'm dwelling on joys experienced, and times passed. Will you join me in a poll in which we celebrate childhood ?
Further to the above (ran out of room a.p.u., but you are really helping me in my pursuit of succinctness!): I fondly recall one summer evening when, as dusk fell oh-so-gradually, my brother (5 years older) and family friend Michelle (perhaps a year or two older again) paddled on a tractor tyre inner-tube up the Donnelly River, with me in a car tyre inner tube tied behind them. We laid several gilgie or marron nets: well, they did, I didn't do much of anything really, except enjoy! After dark, we did the trip again to check them, and the catch was cooked in water over the campfire, enough to feed our families, although I remember not relishing the muddy taste.
The other thing I might have responded to more fully given the space was the question regarding what do I think kids don't have the opportunity to do as much as they did in my day... I used to walk, cycle and horse ride from one end of town to the other and beyond - far far beyond once I got my own horse!. I would never feel safe allowing my daughter the same amount of freedom, not just because the times have changed but also because I live in a different place. When I was walking with Emi on the waterfront Tuesday morning, I stopped to tell a council worker there was a shopping trolley off the end of the jetty, and in exchange he told me to take care as he'd picked up several syringes on the shoreline just then. Mind you, where I grew up wasn't a cloister: I stumbled across more than one drug crop before I was old enough to know what it was, and also discovered a stash of stolen goods. I think though, back then and back there, common sense was enough to keep you out of serious trouble for the most part, whereas here, the wrong sort of trouble can come looking for innocents to prey upon.
Another thing kids don't get enough of today is plain unadulterated downtime, where they have to make their own fun. Kids don't get enough time to be kids, and when they do get the opportunity, it's cluttered with brightly coloured plastic, technology and pop culture. (This is a generalisation, of course).
Thank you for the comment. I think a lot about the difference for kids today. An incident happened in California which reminded me of the differences. We lived in a "nice" neighborhood--not rich, quite, but certainly not a crime zone. Our last year there, my wife taught eighth grade. She had two kid in her class, an irritating class cut-up and a nice, if out of it, kid.
The summer that we were leaving LA, to move to Texas, these two teens were murdered in the local school playground. Apparently, one of them had transgressed in a drug-related tranaction, and they both had been beaten to death. In my young teen years, there were dangers, but this was not among them.
I think back that when I was a child, we were sternly instructed not to talk to strangers. But the definition of "stranger" was a different definition. We knew many, many of our neighbors. We could walk and ride and play all over town.
I realize now that in some ways, we have more safety nets than we did then. Child abuse and exploitation seem to me to have existed then as well as now, and yet virtually no intervention to prevent it ever seemed to happen then. Outside the home, though, our local authorities some years ago adopted the policy of de-institutionalization. For some people, this is the right approach, but for many people, we merely created an overlay of suffering, untreated desperate people, rejected by their community, posing a hazard to passersby. this was all because our local authorities (including particularly our national government) wishes to save money so that rich people pay less in taxes.
I am glad I was a kid when I was a kid. My parents left their car keys in their unlocked cars at night. But my nieces and nephews do have richness in their lives as well. I think they're smarter than I was, and they live perhaps more pragmatically than I did.
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gurdonark
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Date: 2003-06-12 09:51 pm (UTC)The other thing I might have responded to more fully given the space was the question regarding what do I think kids don't have the opportunity to do as much as they did in my day... I used to walk, cycle and horse ride from one end of town to the other and beyond - far far beyond once I got my own horse!. I would never feel safe allowing my daughter the same amount of freedom, not just because the times have changed but also because I live in a different place. When I was walking with Emi on the waterfront Tuesday morning, I stopped to tell a council worker there was a shopping trolley off the end of the jetty, and in exchange he told me to take care as he'd picked up several syringes on the shoreline just then. Mind you, where I grew up wasn't a cloister: I stumbled across more than one drug crop before I was old enough to know what it was, and also discovered a stash of stolen goods. I think though, back then and back there, common sense was enough to keep you out of serious trouble for the most part, whereas here, the wrong sort of trouble can come looking for innocents to prey upon.
Another thing kids don't get enough of today is plain unadulterated downtime, where they have to make their own fun. Kids don't get enough time to be kids, and when they do get the opportunity, it's cluttered with brightly coloured plastic, technology and pop culture. (This is a generalisation, of course).
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 03:47 am (UTC)Our last year there, my wife taught eighth grade. She had two kid in her class, an irritating class cut-up and a nice, if out of it, kid.
The summer that we were leaving LA, to move to Texas, these two teens were murdered in the local school playground. Apparently, one of them had transgressed in a drug-related tranaction, and they both had been beaten to death. In my young teen years, there were dangers, but this was not among them.
I think back that when I was a child, we were sternly instructed not to talk to strangers. But the definition of "stranger" was a different definition. We knew many, many of our neighbors.
We could walk and ride and play all over town.
I realize now that in some ways, we have more safety nets than we did then. Child abuse and exploitation seem to me to have existed then as well as now, and yet virtually no intervention to prevent it ever seemed to happen then. Outside the home, though, our local authorities some years ago adopted the policy of de-institutionalization. For some people, this is the right approach, but for many people, we merely created an overlay of suffering, untreated desperate people, rejected by their community, posing a hazard to passersby. this was all because our local authorities (including particularly our national government) wishes to save money so that rich people pay less in taxes.
I am glad I was a kid when I was a kid. My parents left their car keys in their unlocked cars at night. But my nieces and nephews do have richness in their lives as well. I think they're smarter than I was, and they live perhaps more pragmatically than I did.
Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing them.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 07:21 am (UTC)