I Raised My Children Without Helmets

I raised  my children without helmets, which I now understand is not acceptable. According to today's standards of parenting I fall short. I did it with very little equipment and without government safety standards. There was no Barnes and Noble with shelves full of early childhood development books and psychologist had not yet termed the catch phrase 'Good Job.'

I did know that you needed a crib, stroller and high chair. If we'd had more money I might have added a playpen to the list. We were living on. a tight budget while Nolan finished his last two years of college. We were both working and paying for school without taking out loans.  It never occurred to us that we couldn't afford a baby. I don't know if that was due to stupidity or lack the of seeing reality..

When our first born arrived we brought him home to a one bed room basement apartment and a crib purchased at a garage sale. He didn't know the difference and was put to bed on his stomach each nigh because that was how babies slept best and woke happy in the morning. His playpen was a plastic clothes basket.  He had no idea what a real play pen was so he was content to sit in the basket while I folded laundry or washed the dishes.

As he was almost ready to go out of diapers another boy arrived to take over the used crib.  Both babies had to survive cloth diapers and bouts of diaper rash, which babies today have never experienced. Vaseline and corn starch were the remedies for sore little bottoms. Pampers was a new frontier just being explored and development. When the last two babies arrived we were rich and Nolan had a real job.  Cloth diapers were on their way out by then. I would have crawled across a desert without water to buy disposable diapers to avoid never have to smell another diaper pail. The last two also had a new crib, but sadly no playpen--not that rich.

Looking back I felt my kids were safe and I was doing a pretty good job of giving them rich experiences. The two oldest spent hours in the field behind our house exploring, utilizing their army gear they bought at the Army Surplus store and cooking hot dogs on a shortening can with sterno. Never once did they star a fire in the dry weeds.

All four were tough and had to walk to school through deep snow during the Idaho winters. They crossed a street without a crossing guard and cut through the junior high school grounds to get to the grade school. They had good warm coats, moon boots to keep their feet dry and hand knit hats to fight against frost bite. They had to complete homework assignments and hand them in. I naively assumed teachers had the welfare of their students as their top priority. It never once entered my mind that a missed assignment or bad test score was the fault of the teacher. I in my ignorance, put the blame on the child and there was a heart to heart talk where their Dad and I both came together as enforcers. Undoubtedly their spirits were broken and deep wounds probably remain today.

When it came time to learn to ride a two wheeler there was little concern about safety and injures.  It was assumed that knees would be blooded and the body bruised.  It was just part of life and being a kid. Running behind the bike and holding on to the seat became wearisome after several trips up and down the sidewalk. It was just best to let them go and figure it out on their own.  One was very ingenious and rode his bike down a construction pit and stopped when he hit the concrete chunks at the bottom. He could ride by the end of the day. No one had yet thought of a bike helmet.  Soldiers wore helmets when going into battle where they encountered dangerous situations.  Bicycling at that point was still considered to be a safe. activity

Some many things we did as parents were wrong.  We allowed the kids to ride in the back of a subaru station wagon with blankets and pillows on long trips and gave them even more room to roam when we bought a volkswagon van. They were happy and we were happy. Ignorance is bliss.

Seeds of Spring

I remember my mother's sweet peas.  She planted them each spring on the fence facing the driveway.  She soaked the seeds in a bowl of water which she left on the kitchen counter over night.  The seeds were hard and had to be soften in order to sprout.  By mid July the fence was a riot of color and covered with sweet pea vines.  Their fragrance hung heavy in the air. The more you picked the blooms the more the plants produced.   Mom had an old pair of scissors she used as flower shears.  It was my job or rather my pleasure to clip the sweet peas.  The stems had to be clipped to the very bottom to encourage longer stem growth.  There was always a bouquet on the end table or kitchen table filling the house with a heady perfume.


 Never have I been able to duplicate the sweet peas my mother grew.  Perhaps I don't have that magic touch just meant for sweet peas.  But when spring comes the flower fever always grabs me and makes me think I can perform miracles in the yard.  Pots I swear I will never fill again are drug out and bags of dirt purchased to refresh last years over worked dirt.  I buy annuals to fill in the empty spots between the perennials.  This year, In a moment of weakness, I planted seeds.  I know our growing season is short and the seeds with struggle to  reach maturity.  In spite of all my negativity, I have been rewarded with small green sprouts pushing up through the dirt.



The pots are hosting a variety of flowers and eating up the sunshine and copious amounts of fertilizer.  There are no sweet peas, but hopefully I will have asters, zinnias, marigolds, black eyed Susan's and other surprises in the mixture to pick for my table.  Whatever I reap is a gift and meant to be enjoyed.  Big harvest or small I'll be ready to do it all over again next spring.