Then And Now ...

I feel it behooves me to state some comparisons here about what it was like when I was a kid and what it is like now. 

Societal norms have changed a lot.  Government "interference" in daily life has changed a lot.   How parents rear their children has changed.  And how kids interact with the world at large has changed IMMENSELY.  And I got examples!

When I was a kid in the 70s, corporal punishment by a teacher or principal was legally and ethically fine.  I know this because on one occasion in the 2nd grade I had been punished by the principal with a paddle.  Not fun at all.  Kids were raised to respect their elders and many parents used corporal punishment at home.  Mine sure did. 

Today's youth seem to be allowed to bully their peers, their parents, their teachers, and there are a lot of stories of kids calling the authorities on their parents if they touched them.   What was once acceptable discipline, is now possibly against the law in some counties.   Striking a child with a paddle isn't, at it's heart, a very fun thing to do.  And I mean one good whack on the tush, not a repeated thing intent on injury.  

We were given a choice of paddling or standing in the corner.  I always chose the least painful option, and stood in the corner.  This was at home mind you.  When I got older, no choices, it always was "go to your room."  I was a sassy teenager.  I admit it.  If I heard my Dad raise his voice, it was cringe time, and time to shut the heck up!   Kids nowadays don't even care about all that.  They just talk louder right back.  Some parents have become their children's friends, and opt to do no spanking and let their children seemingly do whatever they want in public.  This always disturbs me, cause it seems like some parents have let the child take over the household.  That never would have happened in my parent's home.  NEVER!

After I graduated high school things seemed to change quickly, and now you see and hear more kids being verbally belligerent, ignoring authorities, and more bullying and unfortunately criminal behavior with guns and mass shootings in schools.  My has the world changed so much in 30 years. 

Of course technology has changed immensely since the 70s.  TVs only brought in local channels.  Most were huge boxes with vacuum tubes and giant monitors.  And, oh dear, you had to get up and turn a dial or touch some buttons to change the channel!  Most families only had 1 or 2 TVs and most kids didn't have their own TVs in their bedrooms. 

Computers in business, computers in schools, computers in the homes....this phenomenon didn't occur until the 80s.  We never had a computer in the home until after my brother graduated high school.  I first learned how to write a simple computer program in my senior year.  It was on a Radio Shack TSR80 computer.  The monitor only displayed 2 colors, black and white.  No pretty dance of the spectrum of the rainbow.  That came a few years later. 

When I was a kid, art was my world... common mediums were markers, pencil, wood, glue, and paper of all kinds.  Now things are created on computer screens with many different programming tools.  2D is common, 3D is the rage now.  And kids can create many things I never even dreamed of when I was in elementary school.   They pick up any computerized gizmo and suddenly are like Rembrandt to a canvas, they design things as if it is no big deal! 

Now I like the changes in technology, don't get me wrong. I'm a sucker for my IPhone, IPad and computer.  I can communicate with more people in a click of a button than the number of people I ever knew in my 13 years of schooling (before college).  What I realized over the past several years, is they can become your life, become addicting, and change your moods.  Not good if you cannot control what you do with them and how long you spend on them or in front of them.  

Society has not been able to KEEP OUT the unwanted things though with this rampant technological age of changes.  Spam hits our emails, graphic sexual displays are clicks away for youth to see, hackers get into every kind of business' computer system and steal names, numbers, and destroy people's financial lives and sense of security.  

I never ever thought of the number of ways technology could be used to harm others while I was learning about computers.  I was always amazed and engrossed in the ways text could be manipulated on the screen, the background colors could be arranged, the way you can click on a word on the screen and something happens.  THAT was amazing to me.  Knowing how to ruin someone else's life was not in my heart.   That part has always stumped me, but I guess some people get a kick of out the evil they can partake in, at the expense of others lives and well-being. 

Parents have to be diligent to monitor their children in new and inventive ways.  Parents are busy with their work and careers, now they must be cognizant with what their kids are doing on computers and who they interact with.  I don't recall being concerned with so much when I was a youth.  And since I don't have children, I have not had the same worries as those peers of mine that do. 

Life has gotten crazier in many respects.   And I believe some of it has to be from disengaging in personal one-on-one interaction and caring about others.  I love my computerized gizmos, and I love "talking" with others on them; but they do not make up for the human connection through personal touch, hugs, and kisses, and companionship while sitting in the same room as another.  The art of everyday conversation has turned into the art of texting while driving and hoping to avoid the next accident.

    ....  in some ways life brings new exciting things, in other ways it loses its sense of meaning.  Hold on, we'll be back to my life's journey next time. 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Exactly Mr. Roger's Neighborhood...

There were tons of girls in the neighborhood I grew up in.  Some boys, though most of the girls didn't hang with them too much.  I hung with whoever would have me.   And I mean that literally.

I had the hardest time making friends.  Thankfully some of the families were quite friendly to everyone and the parents didn't mind who hung with who, as long as the parents knew where their own children were.  

I'd have to say there were 3 places we hung at the most when we all got together.  I think our place was probably the most frequented.  Not sure exactly why, but my thought is that because my sister was very popular among any group she was in, everyone liked to be at our house. 

Our neighbor's down the street, that's where I loved to spend most of my time.  They had 3 girls and 1 boy, he was the youngest.  Their oldest, Tricia was in my grade, although after a couple years at my elementary school her parents sent her onto the Catholic grade school downtown. 

Tricia taught me how to play the piano, at least the basics of it.  I loved to learn to play!  Her mom let me come down just about any time and practice.   I loved playing "When The Saints Come Marchin' In."  I was pretty good at it, made few mistakes and learned to play it by heart.  This was really cool, because later on in the 6th grade my Music Teacher put us in groups and we had to come up with our own musical presentation, and I chose that song and played the piano while my partners played other instruments for accompaniment.  We did rather well for 12 year olds!!! 

Later on I hung with Tricia's younger sister, Sharon Ann.  She went by the nickname of Shan.  She and I and one other, Melissa, were nearly inseparable most weekends.  We'd end up at Melissa's Grandmother's house and like clockwork, we'd hit the ice cream and stay up all night goofing around and then having our own little slumber party.  I loved those.  Didn't always sleep well away from home, but there I sure did. 

There were other girls in the neighborhood I hung with and one was ostracized for being kind of a bully.  I still hung with her until some not so cool things went down.  She wasn't always nice to me, and she had this air of superiority of intelligence over me, that drove me to be more shy around some people than I normally would have been.  We stopped hanging together in high school.  I had to move onto to other friends who treated me better.  I believe now I know why she was so off the wall nasty.   Her parents had divorced, her mother remarried and I believe she didn't like her stepfather at all.  He was pretty bossy to his stepkids.  Out of respect for her, I choose not to mention her name.  I forgive her for all the rotten things she did to me and said to me.  Although some of these things profoundly affected my self-worth, I know now she was really having a hard time with life back then and I was the one she took it out on, well, me and her sister.  Sometimes she wasn't that bad to me, she always called to want me to hang with her, and in that respect maybe she liked me.  I just choose to forgive her because it was so long ago, and that recent act of forgiveness has helped me move on and be a better person, and heal a 3 decade old wounded heart. 

The boys in the neighborhood also were a sore spot for me back in the day.  They were honestly just out to make fun of me ever which way they could.  3 of them were brothers, and the middle son was the meanest to me.  I don't know why.  He was a bit older than me, I didn't have classes with him ... I don't even think he went to any schools I attended.  He was just one onery cuss to me.  He had a knack of making fun of my attention problem and loved to call me "wooden ears" in front of all the kids that happened to be in the neighbor's yard.  They always laughed at that, and that hurt a lot.  Even my own siblings made fun of me and honestly, I didn't feel comfortable hanging outside when this nasty boy was out there. 

Often times I would be by myself, in my room, drawing, painting, listening to music....hours on end.  It was respite from the kids that liked to make fun of me...and liked to belittle everything I said or did.  I really never told my Mom about all this stuff.  I don't know that she was home most of the time it was going on.  I just learned to avoid mean people.  I really needed to learn how to stick up for myself, but I didn't.     This would prove to be a very hard thing to outgrow or unlearn during my life. 

             ......  things get bumpy when we interact with others, keep on reading.