parenting, and my childhood memories.

[vash]

that gorilla thread got me thinking.

i dont have kids, so i cant rank my own parenting skills. i am an awful babysitter..and technically my god-baby navigated the stairs safely. hell, his stair skills are BECAUSE of me.

anyway, i had parents. they were okay. i didnt die. came close tho. we were in Vancouver. i was maybe seven. my family was catching a bus to go back to our hotel. we missed the bus and it pulled away from the stop. i dont know what got into my pea brain, but i sprinted after it. i ran across a street and i saw the car barreling down on me..next thing i knew i was levitating..my feet flew out in front of me as my upper body came to an abrupt stop. my dad had caught up with me and grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and clothslined me to safety. my dad was fast!!

being a parent must be insane..you cant watch the kids all the time..no way. one of my best friends lost her child in a swimming pool accident..that crushed the family. sucked the joy right out of it. i just isnt the same anymore. they got divorced and everything.

oh, i almost pushed my little brother into a steaming hot water pit at yellowstone park. i cant believe all those walkways had no guardrails back then. i would have been busted/grounded..but my mom almost burned down the cabin..haha..

gah..i kinda remember a lot of my youth.

[recycled sixtie]

That sounds like pretty traumatic incidents in your childhood Vash. I am happy that you survived to tell us the stories.

On a more positive spin I remember I was about 7 or 8 and sleeping in my bed soundly in our UK seaside home. During the night time my parents hauled me out of bed to look at the perfectly clear sky absolutely full of stars. I still have that memory to this day of the beauty of it.

[GH85Carrera]

I did more than a few stupid things growing up and my older brother was a real bully to me. When he got married and told his wife some of the things he did to me she was amazed I survived.

One thing we knew was a certain tone in my dad's voice meant we had pushed the envelope as far as possible. He did have a belt and knew how to use it. We were in no way ever abused and I always KNEW that I have a warm bed and food at home an parents that loved me. That is a huge advantage to many kids growing up today. I had no concept of divorced parents until I was about 10, it was just unheard of.

Dad taught us gun safety early. One of the unbreakable rules was don't touch his guns unless he is the one to hand it to us. As we got older the gun safety rules of how to handle a gun were just embedded in us.

They did something right. I have never been arrested, never once had handcuff on me. It is the same for my brother.

[Evans, Marv]

I was a good/bad kid. I never stole, seldom lied, protected kids getting bullied, & was a good team player with other kids & in sports. But in elementary school I was a terror for a few years. I can't figure out why to this day. In fifth grade, I made the teacher so mad one day, she hit me on the head with her wooden paddle - cracked the paddle. Our parents fed, clothed us & did the basic things. Their idea of kids was that they "were to be seen & not heard." The extent of counseling and advice consisted of telling us what we should do and shouldn't do. Both had a tendency to use the belt, stick, or whatever was at hand. My dad broke a leather belt on me in first grade. I remember him standing me on top of a stool go whip me in second or third grade and using a razor strap later on. My mother hit me until I was pretty old until one day at the age of 14, she was hitting me across the back with a green stick from an apricot tree. Since I was just standing there not reacting, she got madder and finally hit me across the back of the neck. I turned around, took the stick and broke it into small pieces, and told her I was too old to whip. Didn't get whipped after that. Lots of times I was sort of amazed when at other kids' houses and the parents would interact with their kids in a respectful, rational way.