My aunt Marge, who was born in 1921, told me a story last weekend. She said that she was about Lee's age, so about four or so, and she was with her younger sister Lizzie, who was about Clara's age, so around a year and a half. They were outside the house the family rented at the time, and they were down by the edge of the pond. They both had sticks and were poking in the water. All of a sudden Lizzie flipped over into the pond. Marge didn't know what to do, so she screamed and screamed until their older brother came out and pulled Lizzie from the water. He brought her inside and their mom and dad "worked on her," which I assume meant that they resuscitated her. When it was all over, Marge got spanked because she was the older one and was therefore responsible.
To back this up, my mom then told a story about when she was about eight and her younger sister Ethel was about six. They were running around inside their big barn, and they were following a circuit that involved jumping through an old window. The upper part of the window fell onto Ethel and cut her leg down to the bone, despite the fact that she was wearing heavy snow pants because it was the middle of winter. She has a terrible scar to this day. It was so bad that they took her to a doctor, a rare occurrence for my mother's family. My mother said that she was spanked afterwards because she was the older one.
Today, Lee was walking along the top of the stone wall in front of our house, something she does from time to time. The wall is set back almost fifteen feet from the road, and she stays right on top of it. She knows not to go near the road. I had walked back to the garage to get the garbage, and as I approached the road I saw that Lee was down near the other end of the wall. A car was driving by slowly, and he gave me a look and pointed to Lee accusingly as if I were the most negligent parent he'd ever seen. I couldn't believe it. Parents nowadays are afraid to leave their child unsupervised for even a minute. We leave in constant fear of our children hurting themselves or being hurt. Unfortunately I think the end result is that part of childhood has been lost.
1 comment:
You're right, there's a lot less tolerance for risk these days.
But when it comes to dealing with officious intermeddlers, maybe the best defense is a good offense.
In other words, how are your acting skills? Two scenarios come to mind:
Outraged Mother (how dare this strange man drive slowly by and express unwarranted interest in a child he imagined to be unwatched!)
Outraged Homeowner (how dare this mysterious child trespass uninvited on your wall!).
There may be other acting opportunities here, but I'm already way past my bedtime now.
Post a Comment