Happy, Slow Days

I see my childhood through sunny, sepia-tinted eyes. When I'm tempted to think my rose-colored glasses are delusional, I only have to remember how, at my thirteenth birthday, I cried because I didn't want to grow up. With a Daddy who was a fun, giant kid and a Mama who kept the home fires burning, my siblings and I had a secure and sweet place to rest and work in. And we did work, always, but also were allowed much freedom to play and simply be. My sister reminded me of our blissful summers recently. When school let out, there was no feeling like the sun-filled happiness that filled our days. Daddy was our softball coach. He worked our team hard, like we weren't little kids...but everyone loved him to pieces, because he loved all of us. He expected Melanie and I to work harder than our peers, never allowing us special favor because we were the coach's kids. I learned to love the joy of plowing through, gaining skills and overcoming my weaknesses. Then the thrill of winning... they don't let kids win or lose these days. "Everybody's a winner" -- so winning means nothing. Losing, disappointment and the word "No" have been verboten in the raising of too many modern children's lives. The thrill of victory is sweet, when you've known the trials of defeat. Let your kids know the highs and lows of life early. They will learn to appreciate pride of ownership.

We also had to help out around the house...to weed the garden, scrub bathrooms, wash dishes, join in with whatever our folks were doing. Ours was not a Disney childhood. We did get to go to Six Flags once, when our uncle from Illinois came down and paid our way. We savored every second of it, because we were unused to those kinds of things. We weren't destitute...we had enough to eat and clean clothes to wear, but in today's economy we would have been considered poor. When people say, "You just can't afford to raise kids with one income these days." That's not our problem. It's that most of us have gotten accustomed to our toys and our luxuries. Of that, I am guilty too. It is easy to get used to all the goodies and our perspective has changed on what is considered "poor."         Harking back, however, I believe that what made those times sweet, besides the mercies of God, was the way we were unplugged. 

I remember childish afternoons, after lunch, when we laid in the grass and ended up taking a nap with a kitten curled up next to us. Long hours of hiking through woods, picking blackberries, biting into bittersweet wild muscadines. Climbing trees, languishing on branches and staring into azure skies for what seemed days. Watching the slow, dizzy march of a praying mantis as he makes his way across a leaf. Fireflies lighting up the yard, steamy, thick air rising like a cloud. The ice cream truck chiming and Daddy handing out quarters. Neighborhood kids all piling into a ditch full of mud after a summer rain. No one's face was in a phone or device. Children lived outside (it was too hot to stay inside, with no air conditioning), wasting time yet taking time to contemplate all the spaces between the moments. It was slow, simple, timeless. Not everyone gets to experience a happy childhood, and I think these days it takes a lot of intentionality and resolve to raise your children differently than how everybody else is doing it. But oh, how priceless the payoff.