Sunday, July 15, 2018

FOUL RECOLLECTIONS -- CHANGING RESOLUTIONS

My most recent recollections here in which I briefly referred to a few of my younger years may have left an impression I led  a more humorless life those years than would be accurate.   These were years when I enjoyed and learned a lot about nature, the environment, wildlife and domestic creatures and pets. 

Some of the events occurred when we were in the chicken business.   In addition to our Rhode Island Reds a weasel got into one night as they sat on their darkened enclosed chicken coop roosts, we also had some beautiful multi-colored game birds.   These latter foul are used by unscrupulous owners as fighting cocks for entertainment and on which they gamble, but we did not engage in that activity. 

We also had some colorful bantam chickens and a couple ducks.  Half an oil drum with drainage holes in the bottom so fresh water could be added was buried to ground level in the chicken yard.  The bantam hens had been given the large duck eggs to sit on, keep warm and hatch.   These eggs were so much bigger than a small bantam hen's egg I always wondered why that chicken wouldn't have noticed and rejected the whole project.  Well, she didn't complain and dutifully hatched the lot, at least two, maybe another, but I can't recall exactly. 

As soon as the ducklings were able, mother hen took them on outings.   Eventually, their wanderings took them all further afield, but they always had to be wary of hawks soaring about, looking for a meal.  The day came when the ducklings encountered the water-filled little pool into which they immediately plopped.   They swam about having a splashingly good time while their mother had a squakingly traumatizing time, circling the pool's edge,  flapping her wing feathers, warning her "chicks" of danger to no avail.   They ignored her and they did not flounder or sink.  What must that poor little hen have been thinking? 

The wonderful feature I perceive of childhood is that much of what we encounter is new and can be fascinating.   We absorb so much through those formative years from which to learn, that influences our thinking and contributes to our becoming the person we are.   Probably we don't really recognize all this until we become a few years older. 

I recall thinking about events that occurred in my family, listening to the adults talking about what their life experiences had been plus what we were actually living.   There was no television.  We received no newspapers or magazines.  We did have a radio.    Today with the addition of televisions, cell and/or smart phones, other digital technology devices, I wonder if exposure to such family conversations for young people is as prevalent? 

I became aware despite the best preparation and plans kind, loving, industrious, intelligent, talented, capable people made that unexpected uncontrollable circumstances could happen completely altering their expectations.   This could occur as a consequence of the behavior of others or self, and health issues.   Even performing legitimate labor that's necessary to survive,  also unintentionally ultimately damaging one's health further can occur.   Companies, unions, government enforcement agencies, justice officials, individually or jointly do not always exercise the correct judgment, sometimes for illegal reasons, especially for a person of average or less means.     

I saw how life went on as people put their energies into adapting to whatever the circumstances were rather than complaining and moping about. 

I learned by several means that my happiness level to a great extent was my responsibility to cultivate.    Finding the humor in life contributed considerably to healthy development. 

This all convinced me that becoming educated and able to independently care for myself seemed a most intelligent and sensible goal.   As much as others might care for me, anything could happen to anyone, at anytime and they might no longer be available to help me.   In fact, I might need to help them. 

That view partially fostered my thinking that I would never get married, but if I did, I would never have children.   In my early twenties my perspective gradually began to change and the rest as is often said, is history.    I wed in my late twenties, also having decided children would be acceptable -- which I jokingly referred to then as being an occupational hazard (birth control pills were just coming into limited usage.)

If I also thought world conditions were troublesome then, to be raising a family, I can only wonder what young people today think.   At least our country, the U.S., had seemingly stable leaders in the major political parties which is more than I can say for us currently with our democratic republic and individual freedoms at stake. 

What were your conclusions as a young person about how you would live your adult life?
Had you formed a point of view that you later changed? 




 

23 comments:

  1. I think on happiness, I had no idea that when I had children my own happiness would forever be hostage to theirs. It may not be that way with all parents but my love for those two people surpasses anything I expected; and even now, with them grown up, having families of their own, approaching middle-aged, when they are unhappy or something goes wrong in their lives, I am in pain over it even knowing I can do nothing about it.

    This year had some of it, still ongoing, to remind me of how vulnerable I am where they are concerned. I guess there are parents where it's not that way. I had no idea it'd be that way with me. I enjoyed all the years when we had them as a family and am glad I have that as a memory when things go wrong now.

    As for the country, I just don't let it get to me other than sometimes having to stop watching or reading somewhere that is a constant drumbeat of anger and fear. I get it that many see me as being naive and not doing enough. I just don't see how my being enraged would fix anything and at my age (almost 75) I can see how it could make my life much worse. Happiness where it comes to the world beyond my control comes down to releasing what I can't change. I try that with my kids but it's harder...

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    1. Can appreciate having feelings of concern for our children at every age as the bonds can be unlike those with any others in our life as you describe. I’m not sure anyone who has never had their own children can ever fully experience that. Can be challenging sometimes to know what and how much we can do to help our children and affect desired changes in the world beyond our families. We do have to take care of ourselves in order to be able to do anything else.


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  2. Your horizons as a youth were much wider than were mine. Perhaps the fact that two of my siblings did not live to age one may have been a factor: I focused on survival. World view? What's that? Only when I reached a stage of life in which survival was more or less assured did I start worrying about the world.
    Cop Car

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    1. Losing not just one but two siblings would be an intimate experience that would likely dwarf other issues about which to be concerned. My earliest memory at about age 3 centers on death, but it was a distant family member I didn’t know. The take away was the finality of death for the body, but the experience of beginning to know dying was an inevitable process of living for all things. .My awareness of the world occurred because of WWII, my decade older brother and a female cousin serving in U.S. Navy. Concern for their physical safety, especially when my brother went overseas but I didn’t know where, made the world become much more of interest, plus there was much family and our community talk.


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    2. Sorry, Joared, I did not mean to imply that I was oblivious to the world - only that my thinking was on survival (which WWII emphasized, of course!)
      The effect of the war on my family (whose male members were either too old/with family or too young to serve) was that my father, mother, and aunt worked in an airplane assembly plant; that foods that we did not grow ourselves were in short supply, and that my father had to patch one or another tire 13 times on a road trip between Tulsa and Little Rock. The newspapers that we read came from our neighbors from whom we collected paper to turn in for recycling.
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    3. Rubber tires and gas would have been a premium. Do appreciate survival emphasis as that’s what we were doing, too, though as a child I may not have comprehended just how serious our situation was. What did we have to compare the situation with, so what we did was just the way it was.

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    4. Yes, our world changed significantly when Pear Harbor was attacked (just 6 days before my younger brother's birth).
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  3. It's fascinating how impressionable young children are, just mopping up everything fairly uncritically as they have so little life experience to provide alternative views. It's also fascinating how many older people are the opposite - totally unimpressionable and impervious to any differing outlook. Somewhere along the line their thinking has ossified and become TOO critical.

    As a young person, my only vision of my adult life was a desire to be a journalist - which I was for a while until I went into bookselling instead. I had no desire to get married or have children, I just wanted to enjoy myself!

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    1. Your description of what occurs in thinking does happen with many people of all ages, but is not necessarily excessively true for old people IMHO. In fact, I think that may be one of those stereotypical views of oldsters that many of us need to keep dispelling.

      Whatever your experiences that led to your formulating how you wanted to lead your adult life, sounds like you had a pretty clear idea. Apparently it all worked out as you wanted which is really fortunate. I think I recall you are married, so guess your thinking on that must have changed for whatever the reasons somewhere along the way.

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  4. Loved the chicken/duck story. Had the same thoughts about raising children in a troubled world, I suspect that has been true forever. Our country will be just fine, everyone should relax about our current leadership...no one is ever as bad as the press makes them or as good as the press may make them. I think the last several years have gone as well or better than previous years for the country, I only fear the blind divisiveness and hatred coming from people who claim to be tolerant and caring.

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    1. I suppose what qualifies the view that our country has been going better in recent years depends on the criteria used to make that determination. The deliberate stimulation of divisiveness for political gain that seems currently to have been brought to an all time high in my lifetime, as some prominent groups have been used to promote, is a serious concern for preserving our democracy and personal freedoms, I think. Thanks for stopping by.

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  5. Well my comment was dropped again so am commenting now on my computer. Interesting question about plans and hopes for the future. I always knew I wanted a child, a girl. I added to that a dog a piano and a cottage in that order.

    An unplanned pregnancy resulted in a huge turnabout on dreams of more stage work, writing and singing in the country of my birth. A rapid emigration to Canada ensued as the Ireland of that era was unforgiving, condemning, brutal and eternal (if unmarried).

    Canada nurtured my dreams and hopes and I was engaged politically and as a feminist and activist.

    My dreams had been simple, really, but they all became reality. Still working on some of them.

    But truly, the love for one's child (and I would add grandchild) is so intense as to be breathtaking. I was never prepared for its magnitude. The true love stories are between a mother and her child.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Really is frustrating when a comment gets dropped as seems to happen more frequently for me, too. Glad things worked out eventually for your plans. Attitudes could be brutal toward those who didn’t conform to others rules years ago. There are still those attempting to force their beliefs on everyone. Love for a child or children is unique.

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  6. Oh yes, I know there are plenty of very open-minded oldies, maybe more than I think - or have come across. The only reason Jenny and I got married was that under the rules of that time, her occupational pension wouldn't have transferred to me on her death unless we were married. So we tied the knot!

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    1. Legali considerations can be an incentive for wedding and think it’s been deliberately set up that way in many instances.

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  7. Your duckling story proves nature over nurture. So many of my views have changed I don't know where to start. I too however think today I would hesitate bringing children into this uncertain world. But then I think each generation has had their doubts yet some how we muddle through. I just hope we can save this beautiful blue planet for the future.

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    1. Interesting to see what is innate vs what’s affected by environment, but pretty clear a ducks affinity for water prevails in this instance. I sure agree about hoping we save this planet. I can’t help wondering if that’s how we ended up here — cause we ruined another planet,so had to send some life here to start over.

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  8. Ah, yes, it was a totally different world back then. The only thing that has remained constant through it all is the way things never turn out as I plan them !

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    1. We make plans, then life happens as one of my favorite sayings goes.

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  9. I did not have a very happy childhood, but now that I am married, I feel much better. I don't need the approval of others to feel good about myself.

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    1. Glad you reached that positive attitude about yourself.

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  10. Your duck story made me think of the imprinting/attachment experiment by Konrad Lorenz (https://www.macalester.edu/projects/UBNRP/Website_Attachement/history-psych.html).

    My father bought a b/w tv when I was 10 and as he only watched sports on it, we kids never thought it was any good. We were always outside. That was in the 1960s in a suburb in Germany. I eventually turned into a tv addict. Much later.

    I had my own daughter while we lived in a commune in Ireland. Her introduction to tv (and sweets) was at her grandparent's house and when she was 4, we moved to a small African country where we lived and worked for several years (the Irish teacher diaspora) and I remember the increasingly panicky conversations I had with friends before our return to Europe: Where will she climb trees, where can she swim and catch crab for dinner, do they have indoor playgrounds? and so on.
    If there is one thing I am deeply content with re that whole business of raising a child, it's that she had these wild years in a natural paradise. And I know that my own experience of an outdoor childhood help to make it happen.



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    1. Moving to different countries, cultures and languages would make world awareness much more pronounced especially for children. I agree that having an opportunity to experience the freedom of a wild environment as a child can be an unparalleled experience. I was living inland so fresh water streams, rivers, lakes, woods were what I encountered. An ocean, beach would be paradise as you describe.

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