I’m at my sister’s. She has a four year old and a one year old. She has all the sockets covered. I think she could do a lot more to child proof the house — enclose both children in a plastic bubble like in the movie — I’m totally neurotic and would do this if I had kids. That’s why I don’t have any — no that’s not why I don’t have any. I never wanted any because I just never cared to be a mother. Period. It’s too hard, with covering up sockets and what not.
In the 1960s we didn’t have all this awareness and consciousness about this and such. You’ve seen those funny little pieces about how the kids of yore didn’t have child seats in cars or bike helmets, etc. My mother was having a shindig in the living room back in the 60s and I waddled back into my room and plugged the socket with one of her huge black bobby pins. She happened to be walking down the hall and saw me as I just recovered from the shock of my life. What did she do? Probably just pat me on the head before lighting up a another cigarette and smoking up the entire apartment with her friends. Yep, she smoked, like a chimney when I was growing up. My brother and I didn’t have asthma either — I’m not saying this was okay. Just saying.
1800ukillme 
Auntie Sandee,
My guess is that if it would have been more severe, she would have rushed you in the car, no seatbelt, and drive you to the closest hospital, one hand holding the cigarette, listening to the bakelite radio.
Le Clown
This is exactly how it worked back then Le Clown. And the radio would have been playing some Burt Bacharach song for sure.
Yup, just sayin’. We thrived. I parented my daughter differently than I was parented. She thrived, and continues to thrive. I guess we just adjust. Nice one! 🙂
Thanks Margarita! Yeah and we did thrive without all this germophobia and what not.
hahahahahahahaha
you’re hilarious. And I probably did the same thing with the socket
And we both lived to tell about it! That’s what sockets are for right?
Exactly! 😉
Oh the good old days of neglect…it wasn’t boring.
I think it may be an age thing- I had my kids when I was relatively young…parented more in the benign neglect vein, I’m not sure if I was just young and dumb or if it just isn’t in me to get all excited about germs and baby-proofing and play dates and helicoptering schedule hysteria….maybe as you get older, you think you can control things more by trying to control things more….hahahaha. wrong.
‘helicoptering schedule’ — ahahahhaa! I overhear some of these parents and it’s kind of scary. They put them in school now when they’re fetuses.
Ah, things seem so much simpler back then. People get so paranoid about silly things now
I know — it makes some people who are already neurotic even more so — and they pass it on to their kids.
I think the less child proofing the tougher we became.. kids now are soft.. mine included. 🙂
Yeah you wonder how this effects children in the long run — we’ll see.
I truly love the way you write, Sandee—it’s so descriptive and funny. I had similar experiences as a kid, not that my parents weren’t concerned about my well-being but they were just different times. And both of my parents smoked like chimneys and I didn’t get asthma either.
Oh thank you so much Mme. Weebles! I’m glad that you appreciate my writing — and coming from such a pro, I find this to be the greatest compliment as I’ve said before. Maybe some of the parents who drive themselves crazy with all these protective measures should be reminded about the way people like us were raised.
I hear you. Kids these days are so overprotected and overscheduled that they don’t have the chance to find out who they are or learn not to depend on everyone else for everything. This is part of why they don’t have any imaginations anymore.
Your story reminded me of two childhood incidents. Once, while trying to unplug an alarm clock, my finger slipped into the socket. I got shocked pretty good; my finger glowed blue for a couple seconds after. Another was when I was younger: lying in bed between my parents with the ashtray on my chest. They were both smoking. My mother went to flick the ash off, missed, and it landed in the hollow of my throat. Burned like hell, too. I still survived.
PM, we need to get a bunch of us together who survived these incidents! I think there’s a little humor in them.
here here, Sandee…delightful and serious point made!
we have become soft and worrisome hoping to live without pain, but that’s not possible, eveh!
I never thought of it that way — ‘trying to live without pain’. But perhaps that’s it.
don’t know for sure, but that’s what I thought about with my litttle one who’s now an adult. I still want to shield her from life’s nasty blows…
Oh, how we grew up before the world went mental! I’m so happy I grew up then 🙂
I like that, ‘before the world went mental’ — 🙂
we used to be able to BUY my mother her cigs… at age 7!
Wow… I don’t think that could ever happen now.
nope…
Lol, I grew up in the 90s, but I remember a similar (yet different) experience. My brother turned on this gas heater or something . . . I’m not sure how to explain how it worked, but apparently it made gas come in the house. Then he got told about how he could’ve killed all of us in the house, ha. I remember feeling lucky because for some reason I’d always wanted to turn that on to see what would happen, lol.
Whew! A close call! Reminds me how fragile life is. I’ve heard such interesting stories in response to this piece.