When I was eight, in the summertime my mother had to call me in from playing outdoors at least twice before I even acknowledged I’d heard her voice. Then I’d beg her to let me stay outside for a while longer, until she issued dire threats if I didn’t “come in right this minute.” It was only at that point that I would petulantly stomp back into the house.
Once inside, she’d grab onto me and try to hold me still as she “pre-cleaned” me before setting up my bath. She knew if she didn’t, my bathwater would turn muddy within minutes of my being placed in it. That was because when I was eight, I played in dirt ─ sat right down in it, made mud with it, dug up some very fine rocks and wiggling earthworms hiding beneath it. And so, my mother would put my hands and arms in the bathroom sink and attempt to shake off some of that dirt which had caked onto my arms, into the crevices and lines on the palms of my hands, around my cuticles and under my fingernails. After that, she’d lean down and attack the skin on my knees with a washcloth. My knees were literally black with grime, sweat, and tan. In fact, my skin was so dark from my playing out in the sun so long that she could never tell when she’d rubbed hard enough to get down past the dirt and just onto bare flesh, so I’d end up with raw skin from her efforts. I’d never even heard the word “sunscreen” back then, and when I was eight, I wouldn’t have cared if I had.
When I was eight, I wore my hair to my shoulders the same as I do now, except back then I was too busy being a kid to keep it neat. It stuck out and up in the way only coarse, thick hair can, and I was forever pushing my dirty hands through it to keep it out of my eyes. That’s why my mother also had the nightly task of pulling bits of branches out of my hair that I’d picked up from climbing trees or crawling through the woods in the “forts” we made. My hair was so wiry and tangled that once, a brush my mother was trying to force through it snapped right in half at the handle. In frustration, she had my hair cut pixie short. It did not look trendy, but it was convenient, and instead of being traumatized, I loved how my shadow now looked on the cement patio when I moved my head back and forth and wiggled my arms out to my sides ─ sort of like one of the dancing skeletons in my favorite cartoons. I looked like a shadow skeleton somewhat, because even though I ate three healthy meals a day and all the sugary candy I could buy with 25 cents a week, (which was a lot) I was downright skinny from moving so much, using my body so much for the things it was meant to do.
When I was eight, boys were just more people with whom to climb trees and have racing contests or rock-throwing contests. They were sometimes annoying because they were stronger and could beat me more often than not, and of course, I wanted to win. Some of them seemed to like bugs more than I did, too, and most certainly they often smelled bad. So, why would I care if creatures like that thought I was pretty or not? Why, with so much fun to be had, like running and climbing and sticking my hands in dirt, finding baby birds that had fallen out of trees and nursing them back to health, would I care myself, if I were pretty or not?
When I was eight and if for some reason we couldn’t play outside, my sister, cousins, and I made up games like “Spy” or sang songs out loud in the basement so we wouldn’t bother our parents who were upstairs, smoking, drinking coffee, and talking about stupid, boring stuff we had no interest in knowing about whatsoever. We held plays, and sometimes we could get our parents away from their stupid, boring stuff to come downstairs to watch them. My cousins, sister and I were all bossy, and we all argued about who was going to play what part. Our mothers would tell us to behave. We didn’t listen.
We didn’t meekly submit. Not to our mothers, not to our friends, not to anybody else’s idea of what we were worth. In that world it would have been unfathomable to know of another eight-year-old girl who would hold in her tears while her mother put needles filled with poison in her face, just so she could “be beautiful.” In that world it would be unfathomable to want “boob jobs and nose jobs”, because we felt we were perfect the way we were.
We were real. Life was real.
Beautifully put Dr Pat.
Ah, the days when a broken arm meant you had overstepped the mark wile playing rather than an indication your parents should be carefully watched by the Authorities.
Are Billy carts even legal these days?
Too bad these kids are stuck living the lives their parents aspired(?) to.
“Too bad these kids are stuck living the lives their parents aspired to.” Yep. It’s criminal. It’s a stolen life, for sure…..Thanks for posting Dr. Pete.
My heart aches for these little ones. I think the two driving forces are the vicarious life, and also hoping their kids will make them multi-millionaires. The worst part is – they have no idea of the long term repercussions of such forced narcissism. I’ve never seen such a display of selfishness. I wonder if there are any pics of the children with an expression of joy?
I don’t think they care about the long term repercussions. It’s not about the unselfish love a parent should have for a child. It’s producing a human being to do your bidding. No different than any other slave and master relationship.
Thanks for posting, Sharon. For some reason I suspect this issue is as close to your heart as it is to mine.
Beautifully put Patricia! Your 8 year old life sounds exactly the same as mine, proving that for the lucky kids whose parents let them be the kids they are, some things never change. My best friend Lou and me loved dirt, mixed it into mud, dug in it, covered each other in it. We’d wrestle with our parents as they desperately tried to get us out of jogging trousers into a party dress and brush our hair for some occasion that required ‘dressing up’. To us, makeup was on my mum’s dressing table and if we were lucky she’d let us have the stuff she’d done with and we’d paint big smily clown faces onto each other with lipstick. Fake tan was an alien concept, my mother was as likely to spray us with sheep dip as hairspray and our spare time was spent playing tag in the street, not having fake nails applied and horrific chemicals injected into our faces.
Children are beautiful without cosmetic addition. They are beautiful because you can see their innocence, their joy at the world, their natural curiosity and their mischief. If you plaster them with cosmetics then all you’re doing is painting adult insecurities onto a face that shouldn’t be wearing them and covering up everything that makes you smile when you watch a child. They have no place strutting about in mini high heels and pretending to be a sexualised adult. There’s so many years ahead for them to worry that their natural looks aren’t enough to win approval and acceptance, let them have these mischievious, joyful and innocent years, lord knows they’re brief enough.
Actually, Vicola, you put it much better than I did! I so totally agree. Sometimes, when I’m in my garden, I smell that dirt and can’t figure out why it gives me such a good feeling. Then I go back to what it was like to be playing in it when I was little. So incredibly free….
Dang it, where is the “share” on FB link 😉
another good one Patricia
PS @Petermcc, unfortunately, a broken arm also can mean unwarranted litigation today when back then it was what we called an accident.
Never thought of a share on FB link! Thanks! Yep- a broken arm can also mean unwarranted litigation. (Sigh) I know I sound like an old fogey, but I do miss childhood pre-lawyer days. BTW- Did you hear that this hole thing was a HOAX? the mother got paid to go on Good Morning American (supposedly) to pretend she was giving her daughter BOTOX. Lord have mercy!
BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO! So glad that you did this!
Thank you, Kim. It had to be said. Enough is enough, you know?
I was even a bit of an entrepreneur of my time–way ahead of my generation–a regular Mrs. Fields–I made mud cookies. I sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon and baked them in the sun. Sold them for a penny a cookie with only one admonition: “Lick em, don’t eat em.” I was shut down by the neighborhood MOM Squad who learned of my business and questioned my business practices. Sigh… So ended my future fabulous career in the food industry.
You brought back a tidal wave of memories of my summer days that had really very little to do with any adult supervision or involvement. I doubt my cookie empire could have had a chance to experience any moment in the sun if my parents were brought in on the ground level. And supervision meant I was somewhere within a mile radius of the house…you know, playing somewhere… It was lovely.
I agree, Shelly. I loved those days and I loved the freedom! This was so well written and brought back some fun memories. I can smell those delicious home baked mud pies! I even rembmer how much it was squishing my hands in the ingredients! ; )