We grew up poorish but I didn't realize that until I was an adult. We were always slightly better off than many of the other people in our trailer court or housing complex. We weren't on welfare and drank frozen juice from concentrate, never Kool-Aid.
Mom left Dad when I was young and worked at least one job and often two. I don't remember her much, but I do remember roving outside with other feral children.
From the age of six, I had my own key and returned to an empty home after school each day. Latchkey kids were common then. I learned later that my generation (Gen X) was the least parented one. It was the first generation where both parents worked and had high rates of divorce.
And my generation was, statistically, the worst for it. Teenagers of the 90s had the highest rates of crime, drug use, and pregnancy. But we were fortunate in that we were the last generation to have free time to explore the world with our friends—the essence of childhood.
We crashed our bikes, raided gardens, played with fire, and worse, but beyond getting into more trouble than previous generations, we had relatively normal childhoods. We created endless games together. Some games, like building forts, gave us confidence to try building other things as we grew up. Other games, like bike tag, gave us a buckshot scattering of scars on our knees and palms...
No comments:
Post a Comment