YOUR CHILDHOOD

Did you enjoy being a child?

What did you like about it?

Would you want to redo it?
Just curious as usual.

What ages do you consider being a child.

Alice,
Phil's made a good point I think. I'm not sure what the dividing line is between child and adult anymore. The number of adults who behave like children... and the number of children that behave like adults... is quite incredible .

My answer would be yes to both your questions.

Phil wrote:

What ages do you consider being a child.

Great question!

How about earliest memory to 12 years?

Ahad,

Astute observation. Thanks for your answer.

I did not enjoy my childhood. We lived in a house or shack, I'm not quite sure which. No bathroom, fourteen miles from town. Little or no health care. No one to play with and I was put to work on the farm at age nine. I hated, hated, just hated, to be dirty. Gees, I could go on forever.

I liked Christmas. Each Christmas was like a fairy tale Christmas. They were just perfect!

I just read my post. Poor, poor, pitiful me...LOL

Phil,

Sounds like you missed childhood--better have one now.

Hey! Alice I'll have you know I'm still a big kid and it's great I plum refuse to grow up and you can't make me.

dmondeo wrote:

Hey! Alice I'll have you know I'm still a big kid and it's great I plum refuse to grow up and you can't make me.

Good keep on having fun--I am all for it.

Phil, I share your pain over living fourteen miles from town. I was luckier, always lived in the heart of various cities. Didn't have much except continuous excitement and fun. Would I want to live it again? Not for a million dollars.

Dick,

How about two million?

Two million and a pretty espanic dental assistant???

No thanks, although the dental assistant makes it tempting.

Alice I say let the inner child party on. Why should we grow up? Childhood is such fun.

I was an encumbrance as a child. Well, all children were, then. There was no way to prevent them, people just popped them out willy nilly and one day looked around and they had 13 of the little brats all crying at once and not one bit of food to be had.

As a child, I was solitary in mind and spirit. I think most children have to be. It does not matter what kind of parents you have, mean sons of bitches, or ones that really want you to be... president and decide they know the mold that will make you so, ...You are a lone creature in childhood just dealing with all the vibrations of your heart.

I do not think that lone-ness ever ends. But we learn to be social and to have conversations to connect to other minds and feel that we are part of the univeral man.

The truth is that we are each an island, complete unto our self.

Love,
Betty

9/3/2009


I remember at the age of 6 or 7 my father was alive
then and for my birthday he bought me a large square
birthday cake with a stagecoach, cowboys and indians. I
have never forgotten that cake, it made a little boys day
and you could see the light shine in his eyes knowing his
father loved him very much.....


Cheers....Joe

To everyone, I say.

Childhood was not your fault

You were not in charge--if you lived through it, good--now, do what you want to do.
If you want to work--work. If you can afford to play, play.

What you do now you are the boss of.
Have fun.

My childhood was ok but in balance my poor wife did not have a good one.
For her it was a painful time of abuse and molestation.

The reason why she enjoyed interacting with our children so much was that she could experience a childhood she never had.

Our childhood is so important and it's a shame so many kids are denied a happy one.

Childhood is a mixed bag.

Betty, when I read your post, I remembered a comment made by Audie Murphy: "Whenever my old man couldn't feed the kids he had, he got himself another one."

Sometimes my memories have a pristine quality to them. Sheer light and innocence. At other times, I remember dark clouds and fierce storms. My dad was prone to sad, dark periods of "quiet desperation," and my moms rages were like the severe thunderstorms that sometimes blew into my home town.

After my dad died, my mother once told me that he had said that my husband and I did not know how to grow children properly, that we grew them the same way we did our plants - we just put them into the ground and let them fend for themselves. The plants he was speaking of were azaleas. We chose them because they were hardy, and grew well under pine trees and we had a lot of those. The azaleas thrived and grew magnificently because they were in their natural environment. We were not permissive parents; we had limits and enforced them, but they were flexible enough to allow the children to make choices and grow into the people they came into this world to be.

My dad grew roses. He tended them and watered them and fed and mulched them and pruned their branches so that they would grow exactly as he intended them to grow. I was my father's rose. I have finally accepted that. I even keep red roses in my house today - as many as I can. Growing up, I longed to be an azalea.

Ann

As usual, Betty gets right to the heart of the matter. Ann too. Guess I was lucky in that my parents just turned me loose when I was four and usually fed me when I came home at mealtime. They rarely knew where I was and that was fine with me.

My childhood couldn't have been better. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here ya go.

http://www.southtownrinkydinks.com

As a child you tend to get on with things. Every crisis is the end but once its past you forget it till your old enough to get confused by it. Best just being like you were when you were younger and get on with it.

It sounds like Dick had the best childhood.


I like the idea of being turned loose.

Come on Dick, do it again. Do it for two million.

David, your wife is wise. I admire her philosophy.

Ann, You turned out so good.

Betty, You are a survivor.

E.Don, I couldn't find your childhood.

Joe, I am glad you had such a neat dad.

Hairy Mob--great advice.

Alice, visit the link, check out the entire site. My memoir, The Last of the South Town Rinky Dinks, is all about my childhood. I wouldn't trade with anyone I know, or have ever met, and that's saying something.

http://www.southtownrinkydinks.com