Growing Up a Boomer

There are lots of myths about growing up in the fifties. It is all sunshine and daffodils in our memory. Everyone was happy and everyone was loved. That is no more true then, than it is today. I think some of this idea is due to selective memory. Everyone knows that our parents walked to school up hill both ways with a potato in their pocket. After they did their chores and it was always snowing. I think that is about as true as the idea that the boomers had the most fun while they were growing up. Why should we dwell on unpleasant or painful memories? If you dig deeply, they are there, just as my mother had fun memories of swimming over the deep spot in a local creek. It wasn't all gloom and doom during the depression.

Expectations were different. When people married, it was for life. There were very few divorces. Couples stayed together and screwed up their children. Most women did not work so they had little option other than staying in a marriage, even if it was miserable. The stigma attached to a divorced woman was stupid, but it was there. She was "fast" or she couldn't "keep her man." The prevailing thought was it was bad for children to come from "broken homes." I think parents and families are more reasonable today as mixed up as they are.

As a child I grew up in what can only be called the rural suburbs. We didn't work as farmers, but grew a garden. Our dead end street was safe for bike riding. Our yard provided shady places to play and trees to climb. Our parents let us run free, pretty much with the understanding that we had to be home for supper and help with whatever we could do. To all appearances everything was safe and we sure had fun. But even then there were child molesters. The difference is that no one ever mentioned them. Our parents handled those things as well as they knew how. Today we are more aware and more careful of our children. Today's news actually covers those things which were unmentionable, which makes us safer.

I remember getting our first television, a small black and white set in the living room. Today televisions are everywhere. Ozzie and Harriett slept in twin beds as did most married couples - so where did those kids come from? Now actors are seemingly having intercourse in prime time. Little is left to the imagination. What you can't find out from a fictional show, you can find out from an educational program or worse from a reality show. Mothers no longer wear shirtwaist dresses, high heels and pearls. Somehow fathers are still shown as bumbling fools. Is there no compromise between "Father Knows Best" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show"- it was a lot like "Raymond". Why did these relatively smart women marry such idiots? Thank you but I liked Miss Kitty the way she was - independent and clean. Matt Dillon was never good enough for her. Why should she lower her standard of living to be a marshal's wife? Those coupling couples shown today will eventually have to deal with the compromises brought about by real life.

When I was a child everyone went to church. Every child attended Sunday School and in the summer we had bible school. We learned that we were supposed to love our brothers and sisters around the world. So why were our parents so surprised when we were opposed to the war in Viet Nam? They were the ones who drummed into our little brains that it was wrong to kill. Why were our parents surprised that we would demonstrate against armed National Guard Soldiers at Kent State? We knew that John Wayne could defeat a whole slew of bad guys or Indians, with only a six shooter and come out unharmed. He was in the right and so were we. You raised us this way. We were innocents. Jackson State didn't stop it, but when we shot at our own children, it was earth shaking. People were always going to remember that date. I do, can you? So when people said we would always remember September 11th, I wondered how many people remembered December 7th - the date that will live in infamy - or other dates that had significance for a generation. Lincoln's Birthday, Veterans Day Washington's Birthday, how many children in school today know when they are or why?

We were the first group of children who came to school and had class size become an issue. Today when they worry about having more than thirty children in a class, I remember that my classes were usually between 32 and 36 and there were three or four classes of the same grade. We stretched the school buildings and the teachers to the limit. We survived. We believed what we were told. The people who told us lies believed them to be true. - Go to college, you will always be employed and you will earn more money than your parents. People with accents are stupid. Doctors know everything. The policeman is always kind. It is wrong to wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day. Checks, plaids and polka dots should never be worn together, if you go outside with wet hair you will catch a cold. They go on and on. They are partly true and partly not true. They color our beliefs.

Growing up a boomer was fun at times. I read voraciously. I played outdoors with no adult supervision. In the summer we rode bikes, in the winter we slid down hill. I have wonderful memories. I grew up believing I could be anything. But I am not so blind that I can't remember that it wasn't all rainbows and lollipops. Don't be fooled into thinking that the Eisenhower years were wonderful. They were just like today - Some parts good, some parts bad. We had the best president ever in JFK. He challenged us to do better. He was not a saint. We are more jaded now, and more realistic, but it was a glorious dream. How do you know a boomer? Easy - find out who they think of when you say Kennedy and who they think of when you say Dylan.