Seniors, remember when we all knew who our fathers were, the word, "pregnant" was not said in our house

Question

without getting the "look". Divorces were whispered about, got back-handed in church for giggling and running in the store (if you got to go). If you got biffed in public people looked at your folks with a sign of approval (no calling welfare), a shame to be on welfare and take commidities. Had to bring your date home for approval (no honking and you running out) came straight in when the porch light flashed! Child predators were taken care of by the men and never talked about. We burned our trash because we didn't know about the ozone but we took good care of it and didn't know it Picked blackberries with 3 layers of clothes on in the heat and bathed in clorox! We didn't even think about talking back or calling our parents if we got caught doing wrong (tried to hide it)?

Danelady, you must have bad memories. I think you confused the word "hidden" with "pride" and not airing our dirty laundry to the public!!

Danelady, did you ever think what he went through made him the man he is today!! How can you speak for your husband?

I didn't mean to offend anybody, my gosh, can't we enjoy a few good laughs among the positive people?? Why do people have to be so negative. If I see a question that I can RELATE to I join in!! If I want to get depressed I'll watch the news!!! SORRY!

Why the cheap shot at my heritage!! I'm going to counseling because I had a GOOD childhood!! LOL!!

Answer 1

I can remember picking cotton for a dime a day.
I can remember taking a bath in a #3 tub.
and i can remember walking every where I went.
and I can remember being able to stay out and play with my friend without worrying about perverts.
and I can remember my parents divorce when I was 3.

Answer 2

Yes. I remember when being pregnant and single was a no no, but we did not ostracize. Divorce was pretty open as my mom was divorced.

We were never hit in church, just given a look or told to be quiet.

I don't think I knew anyone on welfare, most people had a job or were stay-at-home moms.

I remember that we were taught not to talk back or we would get spanked or punished. Other than the things written above, I can't share the other memories with you. We were very "green."

Answer 3

Oh, sweetie...you are a YOUNG soul. I don't care if your heritage is one of the oldest ones on the planet...you personally have a LOT of maturing to do!

I suspect I am much older than you. And I can tell you unequivocally that child predators were not "taken care of" by the men in the community. They more often then not JOINED IN! Yes, I am talking "responsible" adult men, fathers all -- police men, pastors, doctors. Those men who will take the opportunity to partake of underaged flesh are a lot more prevalent in "normal" society that you will ever acknowledge or realise!!

And responsible parenting is responsible parenting no matter what age it is/was practised in. I too, required my daughters to bring their dates in to meet me, and I mean truly sit down and have a conversation so I could begin to judge just what sort of person this guy was. And THAT was only 10 to 15 years ago.

You had an ideal childhood for you. Be thankful of it. And realise that not all people's childhoods were as nice to look back on as your own. But it doesn't make them any LESS valid than your own, either.

Edited 072907 1730 hrs...
Sweetie, that was NO SORT of a cheap shot. At your heritage or otherwise. But you have proven my point exactly with the way you reacted. Despite your age, you have a lot of maturing to do.

I got upset because you were attacking another answerer on here, who didn't deserve it. She made a valid point that was different from yours. Just accept the fact that she has the right to feel differently from you. There is no need for any sort of negative emotion to be expressed when we here only superficially know the others.

I wish I could have undergone a childhood that was as innocent as yours. I didn't. And that is that. You have good memories of your childhood. You need to treasure them. Despite everything I also have some good memories of my childhood. And I treasure THEM.

We need to allow for the fact that other people often have negative emotions about those events that we may have only positive memories of. A person's emotions are specific to them, not to be judged right or wrong, or denigrated because they are different from ours.

I wish you peace.

Answer 4

I do remember. Dad in charge of the decisions of the household and Mom running a very close second. We did as we were told. If we got in trouble at school, there was a price to pay at home. Anything that went on inside our homes, stayed there. Dad didn't flash the porch light, but we knew to go inside before the curfew.

Answer 5

Oh, spare me the 50's....so prime, so proper, so hypocritical...no one actually acted differently, they just didn't talk about it. Scandals were a dime a dozen, I, for one, could never figure out what was so scandalous. Of course, my generation was the forefront of the sexual revolution...oh, we were just too cool for words!
What I really want to know is: Did ANY of you actually have a mother who did house work and cooked in a starched shirtwaist dress, wearing pearls and heels??? Did any or your fathers dress in suits EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK...Let's face reality...the 50's were such a load of crap...fun..yes, but phoney....to the max! By "then" standards, my mom was a dirty old broad who used regular language, was certainly not above cussing us out, occasionally called us little ba s t a r d s (would always follow that one with, "if a mother calls you a b a s t a r d , take her word for it" and then laugh! And as far as child preditors, did anyone actually admit there was such a thing? (I certainly wish I had known about the cholox bath....I had terminal cases of chiggers during blackberry season.! And I have to agree, when caught doing something wrong, I lived it terror that my parents were going to find out...and they always did, didn't they?

Answer 6

Why is this in the Seniors section? I'm 37 and I remember all of that quite well! I think my generation (gen x 1965-1981) will be the last group to show any signs of respect.

Although I didn't get back handed in church, I got "the look" (it was worse than a back hand!), I did get plenty of biffs in public, especially because I was hyper and liked to run, my mom or dad would yoke me up quick! The first girl I ever went out with, back in about 1981, her father had to meet me and approve of me (I think I was about 14). And did you say talk back to my parents? hell you say... I'm 37 and STILL don't!

Answer 7

Yes I do remember and I do long for those times. Everyone went to church. You could leave your home or car unlocked. I didn't know any divorced people. We loved sitting on the porch talking to our neighbors. If I was bad my mom would make me cut my own switch. My dad would take me and my brother down town for a haircut and be so proud to introduce us to his friends on the street. I loved crawling in bed with my dad and just talking and feeling so safe so good.
That's the way it is supposed to be. I feel so sorry for single parent families today.

Answer 8

Ah, those were the days! ha ha. Mind you the man I thought was my father turned out not to be! I think I'm still the last one to shed the extra layers of clothing when summer arrives. And weren't furniture legs covered up as well, or is that going back too far - I was brought up by very strict 'Victorian' grandparents. Children were seen but not heard, and in my case preferably not seen either, and girls were never meant to be educated.

PS - If any of that sounds bitter, I'm not.

Answer 9

That pretty well describes the BAD ol' days. Except for the predator part, most aspects have improved exponentially since then.

ALSO -- back in the '50s, dozens of states had **absurd** laws against many sex acts, and against interracial marriage. And it was 1973 before the US Supreme Court EMANCIPATED America's girls and women with Roe vs. Wade. After which they no longer have been denied access to the hugely-beneficial REMEDY of abortion.

At 65, I **love** the 21st century! And I'll love it even *more* in 2008 if we can get RID of our current abjectly-corrupt neocon-Republican administration. And put an intelligent and qualified President in the White House. Like Hillary.

To "8 - ßăļļ" -- I first dated at 14 in the mid-1950s. About 25 years before you did... and neither of our sets of parents restricted us in any way. Boy, did WE have FUN over the 5 years that we dated!! We TYPICALLY got home at 4 o'clock in the morning, and no one minded, or thought anything of it. So you just happened to get VERY unlucky. It wasn't the "times" -- it was your unlucky *circumstance*!

Answer 10

Quote: "Did ANY of you actually have a mother who did house work and cooked in a starched shirtwaist dress, wearing pearls and heels End Quote

No pearls, and sometime peasant blouses with full cotton skirts instead of the shirtwaist, definitely a starched frilly apron.

My mother spent her entire life trying to live up to the Womens Home Journal and ragging at my dad for being in business with his brother and not being as rich as her brothers and sister's husabnd were.

She was miserable as hell, deeply dissapointed in her life, and totally dysfunctional. Underneath it all she was intelligent and would have been much much happier having a career.

All she cared about was what the neighbours thought. And she was abusive, swinging that old wooden spoon if you looked at her the wrong way, or God forbid spilled a glass of water on her clean, starched, white with embroidery table cloth.

As I said before one of the neighbours daughters was physically and sexually abused, starved and beaten, my mother caught her sneaking around outside our house eating cat food at 3 AM - she slept in the woodshed on a pile of rags, Karen was her name, and NO ONE reported this family. Everyone smiled and said hello and made nice when they ran into the parents and their three sons anywhere.

People didnt talk about things like that.

It was all about some phoney baloney image dreamed up by Womens Home Journal, and Hollywood.

Does anyone remember those god awful articles about what a good wife was like? She never bothered her poor tired working husband with "bad news" or talked to him about the kids when the poor dear came home from work. She brought him a drink, the newspaper, rubbed his feet - and oh yah she was admonished to be SURE and freshen her makeup and dress pretty for him so he wouldnt stray from hearth and home. She had to keep it a nice place, for him, sparkling clean and filled with praise, for him of course.

A good wife doesnt expect to be thanked for doing the work God intended for her to do. It's a woman's place after all.

Women were oppressed. The job ads read "men wanted" and "women wanted" - women could be wives, mothers, nurses, secretaries or teachers. All of which paid a pittance.
Men were paid more because they had families to support, a working woman was a single woman, an old maid, a spinster, and probably lived with her parents.

A young lady went to college to get a husband. People believed education was wasted on daughters.

Or women worked only until they got married. A women's greatest achievement in life was getting married, having children and keeping the doilies starched and alway always having a hot meal ready for her husband and never never bothering him with silly gossip or asking him about money.

There were articles on "How a Good Wife can Manage on the Allowance Her Husband Gives Her"

And as for Grandma? The advise she had for her daughter was "you made your bed now lie in it".

Yup those were the GOOD old days all right. I can "relate" to this question just fine, but if you are asking us to all fake it and say yes that was a great time - aint gonna happen.

In the community we generally post openly and honestly, to questions, if we disagree then we disagree - we didnt all come out of the same cookie cutter.

And a lot of people dont have great childhoods and great lives, you are naive if you think so. And if we all did what the heck would therapists do to make a living?