Reply #36: I was born in 1943 [View All]

[ninkasi]

and grew up in Houston. During the summers, since none of us had air conditioning, our mothers all took naps in the afternoon. They got up very, very early, in order to get things done before the heat set in. The main requirement for kids who had outgrown naps was to not disturb our mother's, and grandmother's, naps on summer afternoons.

Otherwise, we were pretty much left to ourselves, since any misbehavior would be punished by whichever neighborhood adult happened to catch us in the act. I can still remember my mother nagging at me to go outside and play in the fresh air, and not stay inside with my nose stuck in a book all of the time. Can you imagine a mother trying to stop her daughter from reading now?

I do remember that I caught mumps, measles, and chickenpox, and that some kids I knew survived whooping cough or scarlet fever. Some survived polio, and one had to wear leg braces, but escaped having to live in an iron lung. There are good times and bad in every era. I know, because my mother certainly told us often enough about the hardships of growing up during the depression.

All in all, though, I think that today's children have much more pressure to achieve being placed on them, and once they learn to read, and are aware enough to take in the news, they surely have much more serious problems facing them than we ever did. The ones I see the most, my grandchildren, and great-nephews, cope much better than I believe I could have. I agree that we had a lot to deal with, but compared to nuclear war and global warming, I think we had the better bargain.