Grew up in the 70s. Mister Magoo, checkered pant suits, and lime green everywhere.
I’m talking a lime green stove and matching refrigerator.
Parenting THEN had its challenges, but they can’t match up to parenting NOW.
Let’s start with the actual BIRTHING of Baby.
My mom was knocked out cold for three hours and woke to little baby me. My dad was out bowling. Probably in lime green bellbottom pants with a matching tweed jacket.
That was after nine months of my little fetus in her womb enjoying a package of Winstons and glass of wine a day. Nowadays we are aware of the risks. I spent my pregnancy eating wholesome natural products like rocks and sticks and the occasional white powdered donut.
My first cooked for 10 and a half months. I gained 60 plus pounds, a shoe size, and boobs. Good thing, too because I had been waiting for those since twelve years of age. My husband, too.
At two and a half weeks late, they supplied me with as much pitocin as humanly possible but it wasn’t until TWENTY SEVEN HOURS of HARD LABOR before they rushed me into emergency surgery.
Basically my mother looked like she had visited a spa and I had been through a tour of ground warfare. My mother walked out of that hospital feeling like a new woman. I, however, walked out feeling like a marsupial with my new zippered pouch and a thirty-five pound infant that could crawl.
In the 70s, moms didn’t even breastfeed. They didn’t know the “joys” of breastpumping or clogged ducts or your cleavage heading south for not only the winter but forever.
My mom used to pour WHOLE MILK in a glass bottle and I’d suck it down like a champ.
We new moms do as we are told. We buy bras with flaps so Baby will have easy access and you can feel like a Frederick’s of Hollywood girl but you’re not. Even with your new boobs.
We nurse our babies for like a year and some moms even overdo and finish off when Baby receives their eighth grade diploma. Whichever. At least our babies don’t have to have their tonsils out and have less ear infections.
We new moms even go back to work with our breastpumps in tote. We sit there in a broom closet and fill up two gallons by the next faculty meeting.
Then there’s diapers.
Mom used cloth diapers on me. Back in 1972. On account of me being allergic to the disposable ones. The first of their kind. She used to fold up those things on me like she was pitching a tent. Then she’d seal it up with a giant ass safety pin.
I think that’s why babies didn’t get into anything back then in 1972. We stayed the hell still to avoid being stabbed in the spleen.
Diapers in the millennium cost you an arm, a leg, and fourteen hours of your day.
First you get the diapers. They cost about a dollar each. Folks, that’s one dollar every time your baby takes a shit. She’ll do that one to four hundred and seventy times a day. Sometimes she might even punk you. Have you thinking she dropped you a little present, but then you open that there diaper she has on and it’s nothing but blanks. That’ll cost you a dollar still.
Then you need the wipes. These days they have wipes in every type from Unscented to Orange Marshmallow Dream.
Finally, the skin care. Between the anti-rash creams, the soothing aloes, and the non-toxic, environmental, space shuttle-ready, diaper only disposable trash bins it’ll cost you roughly $30 a week to wipe your child’s ass. All my mom had to do was a load of laundry.
Then there’s toddlerhood. Mom used to stick two year old me in a playpen. I used to play in there with a block and a wooden spoon.
I thought it a blessing when my newborn sister was born so I had someone else to look at through the bars.
There was no Baby Einstein or television for that matter. I don’t even know what I actually did the whole damn day but sit in that playpen and take naps. Lots of naps. And my mom was beautiful. Like Natalie beautiful. I think that is on account of all those long ass naps and my playpen.
Today, it’s quite different. Playpens are faux pas . A mother today assembles a jungle gym in her living room to keep Baby occupied and out of the cabinets. We have baby swings, baby jumpers, baby walkers,baby bouncers and jumpers, port-a-cribs… They come in every color and animation with musical sounds and funky rattles and horns. They even vibrate. They actually look more like a Dr.Suess concoction and have Baby feeling a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
See my Mom didn’t have to worry about autism, or ADHD or ADD or Tourette’s even. Here and now, we suffer panic attacks over that eye spasm our two and a half year old just suffered. It takes years off your life all this worry. I swear there is something linked to that. I don’t think our kids get all these SYNDROMES and DISORDERS from antibiotics. I think all these new things might be connected to this:
Our car seats are even over-stacked. We put up arches with little dangly things hanging from them and big ass mirrors. Our babies can learn Cantonese on the way to CVS.
My parents used to stick me in the front seat. Sometimes between them. If not, I could crawl around in the back there with my big ass safety pin diaper and look out the window. I didn’t have an ipod or a portable DVD player back there either. It was even more fun when we got this station wagon with a third seat in the back and we could look out at the other drivers and all their kids hanging from their antennas. It was fun times.
These days, parents have to strap their child in like they were on a space expedition to Mars. Baby in the back seat, facing back, strapped in sideways, frontways, and every which way that way you won’t be able to see Baby choking anything and you can concentrate on your driving.
Toddlers have to grow up though and once I was old enough to wipe my own ass and not eat Alpo doggie treats, my mom would boot me outside. That’s right. I’d be outside from the crack of dawn til the sun went down. And Mom and Dad weren’t outside with me.
You see, back in the 70s, parents could just let their spawn right out the door and even lock it. They didn’t know where the hell we went. My sisters and I would find other people’s kids out there, too. “Are you locked out, too?” and then they’d nod and you’d be instant best friends. You’d be best friends even if you were seven year old girl in pigtails and your friend was the twelve year old boy with the sideburns who set things on fire with a rock. You’d play with ANYBODY and go ANYWHERE.
I was in streams, rivers, barefoot up to my knees. Five, six, seven houses down the street in Mister Anybody’s backyard or making forts with boards with nails sticking out of them. Kickball, dodgeball, freeze tag,bike ramps, poison ivy, bee stings, random dog attacks. I tell you the 70s was fun for a kid!
This wasn’t because parents were neglectful. They just could. And when they needed you back for lunch or whatever, they would just shout your name. You could hear it down the end of your street even. And you ran for it. Not because you were starving but because of that device called the belt.
FYI: Dads in the 70s did not wear belts to keep their lime green bellbottoms on. They were a means of discipline. And you did the best you could in the 70s to keep that BELT closest to Dad’s ass than yours.
It’s different now. Not only do we have to worry about all these new allergies and syndromes and the cost of living and child endangerment laws, we have to worry about some psycho snatching up your kid from your own yard. So we parents today are very hands-on. Some parents even keep their children on a leash. Especially in a mall. Particularly the Food Court.
And let’s talk mall. You can’t go the mall with your children without three mechanical rides, a romp in a plastic barnyard or a visit with some holiday character that will cost you a day’s paycheck and change. My mom could just go in there, get a pair of nylons and her Oil of Olay and call it a day.
Nowadays they STACK the malls, like we do to our bouncy seats and car seats.
I just took both my kids for a mall visit. They have an amusement park ferris wheel in there, a train that takes you from one end of the mall to the other for seven bucks and floor mats with cyber-animated games! Those are free so I let my kids hang around there a lot. Sometimes you just get a kick watching the parents in the train knowing it’s not because they want to spoil their kids but because we are just plain flipping tired and it’s a chance to sit on our ass.
Back to letting your kids play outside.
I just started letting my ten year old out by herself. If they played outside, I had to either play house or Barbies or find some chore out there to keep me occupied and my kids breathing. It’s no wonder everyone’s yard is so immaculate. It’s not because we modern parents are all that pristine, but because there’s only so much sidewalk chalk one can take.
And there’s no locking the door on your kids either. If you want your kids to play with other kids you have to do this thing called PLAYDATES. It’s not about how popular your kid is either. It’s about how popular YOU are. You see, you were mistaken. Popularity didn’t end in junior high. It’s here and very much alive. It doesn’t even matter if two moms’ kids aren’t instant BFFs. If the moms like each other, you have an automatic playdate every Wednesday afternoon. And forget it if you are a working mom. You will never be popular. Not because you are not cool. But because you wear elastic waist pants when you go to the park.
Moms back THEN never had to set up a PLAYDATE. They didn’t set up PLAY or a DATE. They just gave you the old heave-ho out the door. If you bumped into another kid, that was your playdate.
This blog could be a few dozen more pages, but I think I’ve made myself the least bit clear. If not, here’s a list other parenting activities we contemporary moms have to endure that parents back THEN didn’t suffer:
1. 1. Daytrips
2. 2. Music with lyrics like “you spin me round when you go down” and “cold hard bitches better bend over.”
3. 3. Skinny jeans
4. 4. Iphones, Ipads, and Ipods
5. 5. Cyberspace
6. 6. Signing any type of liability form that states “if your child was to DIE at our facility, we will not be held responsible.”
7. 7. One hundred and two concerts,plays,festivals, and curriculum fairs to attend
8. 8. Hand sanitizer
9. 9. Car seats and their forty-five safety straps
10. And finally peanut,gluten, lactose, perfume, dust, pet and no shit, COLD WATER allergies. I know because my youngest is allergic to all of the above and even AIR.
So there you have it. Parenting is different now then it was back then. I’m watching my parents now and they are enjoying what you call, “The Golden Years.” I am certain that this generation will not have such a luxury.
We will most certainly be checking into the nearest rest homes suffering from “The Crippled Years.” I should have had me some Winstons.
Half-a-Mom
Half-a-Mom
