For my book club last month, we read a wonderful book called A Girl Named Zippy (Haven Kimmel). This book is a true story collection of tales from the author about her childhood and growing up in a small town in Indiana in the 1960's-70's. Her stories are hilarious and moving, all at once. But besides making me laugh, it brought me back to those good ol' days of being a kid.
While reading the book, I literally wished I could go back to my childhood days. You know, those days when you were out riding a bike until dark? When you hopped from friends house to friends house, and it didn't really matter? The days when there was no cell phone for anyone to keep in touch with you. Yeah, those were the days.
I remember being like that. My siblings and I would spend hours and hours on our bikes, riding around town. Miles away from home we would be, and we were free as birds. One of our favorite things to do was collect old soda cans and bottles, take them to the local grocery store and turn them in for cash. They used to have these machines that would just count how many you put in, what they were worth, and spit out the money to you. After collecting, we promptly spent it on something, usually pizza from the local pizza hut.
(One time, we found a whole grocery cart full of cans. Thinking it was just our lucky day, we took it and cashed it all in! Looking back, I'm positive it belonged to someone else, probably a homeless person...) Oh, I've got some good stories from back then...
(3 of my 4 siblings, and me- we were the gang that rode around town)
(Bethany, me, Kenny and Eric)
Our house in California sat on the end of a long cul-d-sac. We spent our days skateboarding down the hill until we would crash onto our lawn at the bottom of the hill. Oh, what fun we had. Bikes, skateboards, roller skates, our garage door for playing handball, and our basketball hoop provided us the most fun as kids.
So what has changed? I think about this a lot, especially since reading that book, and reminiscing through my own memories of freedom and being carefree as a child. Things are just not like that anymore. There is no way I would EVER let my kids roam free the way I did. Am I more paranoid? Overprotective? Is the world really worse today, or are we just reading about things more freely with internet and endless media now?
I don't know the answer, but I wish my kids could have more freedom. I wish I didn't feel like I had to watch them like a hawk. But I do. They will never be "unreachable" with cell phones nowadays. It makes me feel better to know where they are at all times. Maybe one day I'll relax a little, but for now, I'm keeping an eye on them.
But, I still wish I could go back to my good ol' days. :)
(Just a random picture of me as a kid. Oh, I miss the beach, too!)
3 comments:
I sooooo miss being a kid. I wonder all those things too. Maybe when Cam is 8 or 9 will I let him roam the neighborhood? Maybe not this neighborhood? Who knows. It's incredibly hard not to have an accessible big backyard to let our kids play. Instead, we have to get ready, gather everyone up, and all go outside. I want to raise my kids on a ranch! lol
My parents were a lot stricter than most, but we had way more freedom than my kids will ever have.
In that Halloween picture, I could have sworn that was Tyler!
Awesome post Carolyn. I totally agree. Man, the good old days of being a kid. I don't remembering wandering that far from home, but I do remember playing outside in the woods behind our house for hours on end, mud pies, chalk, bikes, etc, etc, etc. Loved it!
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