HURRICANE BETSY WRITES:

I just had to write to tell you how “deep” that photo you posted the other day is for me!  I wasn’t even born in 1940 – heck, my parents hadn’t even met yet – but  I could have been one of those sleeping children.  The room – poorish looking – the sagging bed. The walls. The bedspread.    But the picture produced a happy mood in me.  We lived on a small farm back in the 50s and even before there were telephones in our area, even when a few people still used horse & wagon for transport, even though poverty was rampant and we rarely had new clothes, there was much visiting back and forth with neighbours and much fun for us children.  Real fun.

On special occasions, holidays, meetings at our house, or just gatherings – and there were so many of these –  children were not usually excluded, as they sometimes are now. After our fill of running about, good food, and playing, we were, well, played out, and fell asleep wherever we were and then carried on to the kind of bed pictured in the photo of children in Oklahoma.  And in the winter, the bed was piled high with coats.

How did we do it back then? No car, only an old truck, no phone, no teevee, no e-mail, running water, refrigerator. The closest neighbour was some distance away, on the other side of the bush.  Yet getting together was common.  I daren’t tell a soul about these feelings because I will be warned (and it does happen) about what a terrible time it was, what with “prejudice,” inequality, no rights for women.  Am I embellishing things?  Was it in reality a horrible time in spite of happy children playing in poor homes and imperfect homes?  Am I in denial or what?

Laura writes:

No, you’re not in denial and your memories say something that will always be true. No computer screen or video game, no vast and empty playroom or trip to Disney World, can replace the joy and fun for children of being with large numbers of other children, under the watchful eye of parents; of partying with familiar adults in simple ways; and of collapsing onto beds in exhaustion while the fun continues in the next room. I love the way these children look as if they’ve been tossed on the bed.

Children are more spoiled today, but they’re also more neglected. It’s a strange paradox, but it’s true.

                                                     — Comments —

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Your latest post on children in rural communities (and that last word is important) playing until they’re flat pooped reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day.  Phil Conner, a spiteful, self-adoring city reporter is sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration in a small Wisconsin town.  His new producer Rita, charmed by the people of the little American hamlet, greets him excitedly in the town square, with the following exchange: 

Rita: You’re missing all the fun!  These people are great!  Some of them have been partying all night long—they sing songs till they get to cold, then they go sit by the fire and they get warm, then they come back and sing some more! 

Phil: Well yeah–they’re hicks, Rita. 

It’s a very funny line.  And in my experience most modern people, when confronted with the obvious spiritual advantages of a simple, well-ordered community of neighbors, can muster no more sophisticated response than Phil’s ugly disdain.

Laura writes:

Ha!

But this photo wasn’t only about rural life. Children have lived this way in cities and suburbs too. My husband, for instance, grew up in a city neighborhood where children were outside playing all the time and simple socializing that included both children and adults was common. Every year, his family would pack up with relatives to go to the seashore for two weeks. The children would pile into the car that would hold them all (without seat belts) and the adults – parents, aunts, uncles, friends – would be laughing and talking in the kitchen. The kids would wait and wait in the car. They were like those children tossed onto the bed.

I do think it is a portrait of life in a less prosperous and less transient world where people had the time to socialize and form simple communal bonds. This still goes on and will never die, but there aren’t as many children to toss onto beds anymore. And, you need family stability to create this atmosphere of casual and benign indifference – you know, just throw them on the bed – to children’s comfort.

 A. writes:

What is really funny is that that scene is played out currently at my kid’s and their friend’s houses. Traditional Mexicans dance until they die and they party at every excuse. 

The kids dance with the adults and the adults teach the kids the dances. There are no left foot Mexicans in these traditional Mexican families.

Laura writes:

I’m not sure that is “really funny,” but it’s interesting.

John E. writes:

Sage McLaughlin said: 

“Phil Connor, a spiteful, self-adoring city reporter is sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration in a small Wisconsin town.” 

Since I’m originally from Wisconsin, this caught my eye. Phil Connor was assigned to cover the Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania, not Wisconsin. I fancy that Mr. McLaughlin has a vague and general notion of the purity and wholesomeness of Wisconsin hamlets, and so I took his mistake as a compliment, but I suspect at least some Pennsylvanians will be wanting their due.

A. writes:

You are correct that interesting is better than funny. What I was trying to convey is that the tradition of family fun is not lost. I grew up like that myself. In Arizona it was not unusual for people to drive a hundred miles ( or take buggies shorter distances} to a family gathering where they danced and played Poker or Black Jack all night and the kids always participated. My Catholic grandmother played a good game of Poker, which was the only time she put her Rosary away. My siblings and I all learned those “skills” at family gatherings which included all generations. We still laugh about those days and maybe that is where funny came from. 

These days, Thanks be to God, it still survives. No babysitters. Lots of socializing. Lots of identity building.

We live differently, we fourth, fifth and sixth and, coming soon, seventh generation border dwellers. May God preserve our ways from the mighty destroyers of family life.

Robin writes:

This past month, my husband and I regretfully declined a wedding invitation from a member of his family because the invitation clearly stated that this was an “adult” event (further clarified as those aged sixteen years and older, which absolutely confounds me) and we have a one-year-old daughter who is still nursing happily. The portrait that you have shared reminds me that, long ago in a kingdom far, far away, a bride and groom would ne’er have dreamed of excluding children from the wedding feast! Can you imagine Christ’s utter disdain for something like this? He who will usher in His coming with THE wedding feast; He who bid the little children to come unto Him? This couple in our family clearly does not have the remotest understanding of what they are doing at their wedding; sadly, I think they have fallen into the trap I have seen you write of before: “It’s all about ME”, says the bride. This just grieves my heart to no end. We live in a quiet, Midwestern town, too…not some progressive NYC venue. Yet, children have become little irritants. Burdens. Noisy, sticky, needy – but not needed at our “adult” functions. I should have been born in a different century, I believe. Alas, I will not argue with my Creator, but my heart yearns for what I see in this photograph to be restored to American culture. Not just American weddings, but beyond.

Laura writes:

There is a way for couples to deal with children at weddings that is a compromise. When I was a child, it was impractical for children in my extended family to be invited to weddings. I have more than 30 first cousins on my mother’s side and that gets expensive and can change the atmosphere of an event. When my parents attended a family wedding, provisions were made for all the cousins to be in one place with a babysitter or older sibling. We loved it. The best thing was waiting for the adults to return with little boxes of wedding cake. I will never forget that. 

Please follow and like us: