I don't have many regrets in my life, but one that I do have is the fact that I will never be able to replicate for my daughter the kind of childhood I had, and it makes me sad. It was a different, simpler time when I was growing up, and I occasionally wax nostalgic for it...
I grew up in a very middle-class neighborhood made up of rows of townhouses and duplexes. Right behind my row was a park and there was also a basketball court and tennis courts, not far from the park. There were a lot of families with kids, so there was never any lack of playmates. It was the kind of place where neighbors were like family, they borrowed tools, watched each other's kids and helped fix a flat tire or charge a dead car battery. I often spent more time at the neighbor's houses than my own, and that was okay. There were a few jerks in the neighborhood, but mostly everyone was nice.
As a kid, I walked or biked the half mile to grade school and was lucky enough to have a stay-at-home Mom, who would fix lunch for me and was there when I got home from school every day. Back then, a family could live pretty comfortably on one income and most of the families in my neighborhood did. My Dad even had a company car! We weren't rich, but I never felt I was lacking for anything.
Summers were the best though... The days seem to last forever... I could play with friends in our small, fenced-in backyards, ride around the neighborhood in my Schwinn bike, run around in the sprinkler on our tiny front lawn, hop on the free bus and spend the day at the local pool, or even hang out at the park, which was staffed with high school and college age park district counselors, who led a very loose version of "camp" for us local kids. And the ice cream man would always conveniently show up on my street right after dinner time, with his music sending us running for our allowance or Dad's wallet. There would also be movie nights out near the tennis courts, complete with a screen and a projector, so neighborhood residents would shlep out their lawn chairs, blankets, popcorn, drinks and bug spray, while being treated to classics like "Born Free" and "Mary Poppins".
The rule was that you could basically spend the ENTIRE day outside, come in when your Mom called you for dinner, then go back out to play until it got dark. This was back in the days before video games, cable TV, home computers, cell phones and "Amber Alerts". And if something did happen and you were going to be late getting home, you picked up a rotary dial phone and called home. I have NO idea how our parent's kept track of us, or if they worried about where we were, or whether we were going to be abducted or mangled on the metal playground equipment, but somehow we all survived!
Fast forward about 30-something years... The world has changed and people just don't do things like let their kids walk to school, or stay out all day unattended. Those that do, can easily stay in contact with their kids via up-to-the-minute texts on their super-speedy, internet connected cell phones. As for me, I live in a condo building, so there's no backyard or nearby park for my daughter to play in. No neighborhood kids to pal around with or who's houses she can hang out at. And most "playdates" need to be coordinated months in advance. Her school is across town, so she gets driven or rides the bus.
The only thing I can really give her are stories about how it used to be back in the "old-days" of the 70's and 80's and hope that maybe someday she'll aspire to giving her own kids an idyllic childhood they'll remember.
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