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Nostalgia July 2013

Cause I Said So!!!

By Jim Cotsana

I think the worst things we did was try and make a cigarette out of dried corn silk, and once a friend “borrowed” a cigar from his father and three of us took turns puffing away. Two of us got sick rather quickly, me included, and the other finally admitted getting sick soon after getting home.

For the past six months or so I’ve been receiving a monthly magazine called “Parenting.” The address is correct but the name on the label is not me so I finally contacted the publication to stop delivery. In any event, I decided to keep the May and June issues instead of tossing them in my recycle bin so I could go through them to see what parenting is all about these days. You see, my wife and I never had children and it was a personal choice we both made. Now at 65, I’m not about to start and besides, I got “fixed” in 1976 with no absolutely no desire to reverse the procedure.

Glancing at the table of contents, I see titles such as “What Is the Best Way to Raise Kids These Days?” “Should I Put My Kid on a Diet?” “Peek into Your Kids Budding Social Life,” and “How to Raise a Man.” I didn’t know there was a formula for this.

I guess parenting was “on-the-job-training” back in the late ‘40s and ‘50s. My family was small and I only had a younger sister. My neighborhood was what you would call blue collar where the majority of fathers worked at the local printing factory or were gas station attendants.

My father sort of stood out as a barber who owned and ran a two-chair barber shop. As far as I recall, all the mothers stayed at home and were there when we all got home from school. Remember, in those days there were no video games and only three TV stations and we all played outside year round. On rainy days, we would go to someone’s home and play board games such as Monopoly or trade the ubiquitous baseball cards. Depending on the time of day, we might get a cookie if we all behaved well.

Our social lives revolved around sports or games like hide and seek or kick the can. I think the worst things we did was try and make a cigarette out of dried corn silk, and once a friend “borrowed” a cigar from his father and three of us took turns puffing away. Two of us got sick rather quickly, me included, and the other finally admitted getting sick soon after getting home.

I have to admit, today is quite different. I have a number of young nieces and nephews who play stacks of computer games, seem to text continually, have Facebook, and other social media accounts. I certainly hope they aren’t getting involved in these notorious chat rooms we hear about. In addition, with the advent of cable TV, we now have more channels than we can view that offer a variety of programming; many of which are extremely violent, graphic, and explicit in nature. I remember watching the old shows such as “Ozzie and Harriet” and the “Lucille Ball Show.” The very rare times there was a bedroom scene, Ozzie and Harriet, and Lucy and Desi were in single beds with a night stand firmly between them. I suspect TV censors played a role but the opposite now is the norm even with commercials. So, parents today do indeed need to pay closer attention to what their kids are up to. In many cases, both parents have to work and can’t closely monitor their children’s activities – and a single parent has it harder.

During my public school years, one or both of my parents would make it a point to attend the periodic PTO or PTA meetings to meet with teachers, and took a great deal of interest on how my sister and I were doing. Because of this, we tended to watch how we did in school and how we behaved. From what I understand, these meeting are not that well attended these days even in my small community which is very unfortunate.

There are a couple of other things these days that rather amuse me. Young parents arrange “play dates” with their kids with other like-minded parents. Kids now have their own social calendar. The other thing that really gets me is the “time out.” Apparently, when a child misbehaves, he or she must, for example, go to the corner, sit, and be alone for a certain amount of time. Things were quite a bit different when I misbehaved and I’ll leave it at that.

As I glance through the magazine I keep reflecting on my upbringing and I suppose advice in current child rearing is not a bad idea. There is heck of a lot going on now than there was 50-60 years ago. However, as children, when we asked if we could do such and such, the answer was either yes or no. If we asked why not, the response was “Cause I said so.” End of discussion and we got the message. In my opinion, there is still nothing wrong with this!

 

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