I have no idea why Generation X is trending, but here goes. “Dedicated” child care meant my mom made sure I had the apartment keys in my trouser pocket before I walked by myself to school, & that a Swanson TV dinner was thawing the oven, in case she had to work late.
By 3rd grade, I’d learned how to use my mom’s makeup so she wouldn’t (at least, immediately) notice a black eye or bruised cheek from a fight with a racist bully when she came home. How to treat swelling & bleeding.
By 8th grade, I’d learned how to do my own laundry, which came in handy when I needed to wash my football & baseball uniforms, to wear during games my parents didn’t attend.
My biggest & greatest escape from an only child’s loneliness was reading, still a daily habit 40 years later. A habit that, regrettably, my own kids have only picked up to a limited extent - but then, I didn’t have anything akin to an iPad or PlayStation in 1981.
As much as I hate that trope of “it was a simpler, more innocent time,” in this case, it happens to be true. Could I envision allowing my kids the freedom I had at their ages? Absofuckinglutely not.
I could only hope that my kids could know the carefree feeling of riding their bikes 1 mile to the pizzeria, buying a slice & a Coke for the princely sum of $1.50, then playing stick ball on a street where none of us lived, then running away of a fly ball broke a window. Alas.
I’m honestly okay, trading some of that freedom for adult supervision with respect to my kids. Like earlier, when I told the boys in Junior’s game chat that “gay” was an unacceptable pejorative.
I started cooking from scratch when I was 10, & would never think of entering the kitchen if my mom was home, until I was in my 30s. Conversely, both of my kids are hopefully growing up with warm memories of cooking with their old man.
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