Kids & privacy

I was talking to someone today, and they were saying how kids today expect privacy. Not teenagers mind you, but little kids, 6, 7 years old. Growing up in the house I did, privacy was something in the dictionary. In order to walk out of my room I walked through the bedroom of either my aunts or my uncles. There were 2 doors from the room I shared, and each led to another bedroom, shared by 2 or three more kids. With a single full bathroom no one ever shut the door when showering or bathing, let alone locked it. If you dared to lock that door my Grandpa was knocking on it asking why in the world you locked that door, and you’d best unlock it this instant. Now no one ever waited to find out the unsaid “or else” that lingered in the air after that sentence, they just unlocked the door right then and there.

My husband, born and bred a true New Englander was literally horrified by the lack of privacy when I brought him home for Christmas. By that time the house had been remodeled and there were then 3 full baths. He was showering in the bath off my room and I was outside doing something for my Gram. She wasn’t sure what he preferred for breakfast so she walked into the bathroom while he was in the shower and asked him. He nearly died. This is not seen as an odd or strange event to me, my reply when he told me with a horrified look was, “Well did you want French toast or pancakes?” The poor fellow was shaken to his very core. I still don’t see what the issue was, the shower door is etched, it’s not like she saw anything, and after the zillion some odd naked people running in and out of the showers throughout the house, like she’d even care. Growing up after you showered or bathed you went, in your towel back to your room and got dressed so the next person could get in the tub. You clearing out of the bathroom was so that the other person who was waiting to get to the sink could get in there. At a minimum you had 2 or 3 people in the bathroom pretty much all the time. You hung your towel up in your room on your hook near the radiator to dry, and you got dressed and came back downstairs. To this day those who grew up in this house still follow this procedure. It causes my husband to flee the house with all due speed at shower time. People running around in towels and stopping to have a chat with another person who just exited another shower also in a towel just freaks him out.

When my brother came down to grab a cup of coffee after waking he was in his boxers. Now prior to consuming an enormous dose of coffee, the man doesn’t even know what clothes are let alone have the ability to put them on. So he was drinking his coffee standing in the kitchen and I was in a tank top and a pair of shorts, my aunt was in the same, my uncle in a pair of shorts. Matt came down in jeans and a t-shirt, it the landing and nearly passed out cold. My Gram started making breakfast in her robe and he walked immediately out the back door to go have a smoke. Apparently he figured there would be less mostly naked people outside. Wrong. He walked square into another aunt in a tank top and shorts and an uncle in shorts. It was early Spring.

To this day he showers with the door closed. No one else lives here. At least he doesn’t lock it, but I still find that totally bizarre. I can’t imagine living with a family having doors closed and locked and that sort of thing. It’s a totally foreign concept for me.

When we were kids my cousin Billy had ear implants. He was born deaf and at the age of five heard for the first time. We had a party. Now when I say “party” I don’t mean a few people, I mean we had family over. This means roughly 60 or more people. It was a heavy rain summer and part of the field had gone entirely to mud. It was about 8 inches of pure mud. Thigh high to the 5 year old I was at the time. We begged to go play in the mud. My Gram said of course and stripped me, Billy and my brother down to our underwear right on the front porch and sent us off to go play in the mud. We had the best time, we swam in it, we threw it, we made mud pies, and it was awesome. After about an hour or so our cousin from Texas came over. She was 4. She wanted to be a debutante when she grew up. She was dressed in frilly white socks, patent leather shoes and a frilly white dress with bows in her hair. We told her to go get undressed and come join us. She looked shocked, informed us that she would do no such thing because we were icky and that she was going right now to tell on us. I was signing to Billy everything she said. We looked at each other, laughed and threw mud at her. She ran off crying. We didn’t get into trouble, my Gram tried very hard to keep a straight face as she told us that wasn’t nice and proceeded to hose us off in the carport. My cousin by the way did not grow up to be a debutante, but pretty close to it. We don’t speak. She was horrified to know that I keep the Waterford in a box and rocks in my hutch. Billy like most of the family went into civil service and is an EMT and firefighter. He also has rocks in his hutch; he always was my favorite cousin.

I find it so odd kids think their room is theirs. As a kid I was happy to have a room at all, let alone to think that it belonged solely to me. Well not that it ever did until I was nearly on my own, but still. When laundry was washed and dried it got put into piles and one of us had to put it away. This meant that someone was going to be opening the dresser that contained your clothes. This was not an issue. We did not play with each other’s stuff unless we asked to. It was a rule, it was respected. I never even thought of playing with my aunt Daria’s giant sea turtle she kept on her bed without her permission. It never occurred to me. She always said yes, but I always asked. I loved that turtle. If there was something that someone didn’t want you touching and you tried to go over their head’s by asking my Gram, she’d ask you why exactly you didn’t understand when they said no. If you were ever so bold as to do so anyway, that would be very bad. You’d be in big trouble and instead of just doing your chores; you got theirs too, for a week. These were not silly things like every Tuesday you vacuum the living room. These were chores like feeding horses, cattle, cleaning the chicken coop twice a day, gathering eggs twice a day, raking leaves, cutting grass, weeding, putting clothes away for 13 people and other like things. I was 4 when my brother and I had to trade off getting eggs and cleaning the chicken coop. One would gather the other would hose down the coop and feed. We’d switch at night. Combined it was not a task you’d want to do all by yourself. It took a long time and sometimes chickens can be nasty, you don’t want to be in there all alone.

One time my brother at the age of around 7, was putting my Great Grandmother’s clothes away. Now he saw the Hummel sitting on her dresser that was his favorite. When we were sick as kids we were put into her room, in a twin bed next to hers and she would take care of us. She would put a Hummel on the nightstand that reminded her of us, and she would read to us and feed us and that sort of thing. She had a different Hummel for each kid. We were never to touch these, looking was fine but never allowed to actually touch it. My brother felt some sort of compulsion to pick up his favorite Hummel. As he did she walked into the room. He froze; she took the Hummel from his hands and turned to swat him on the rear. He made a critical mistake. He ran. Now at the time my Great Grandmother was about in her early 90’s. She had raised 18 kids of her own in that very house. She had chased down more than her fair share of fleeing children not wanting their swat on the butt. Down the stairs he bolted, and she was hot on his heels. Through the kitchen he went, and she was right behind him, I ran after them both, as did everyone who had been in the kitchen. He ran out the front gate and towards the field. She leapt over the waist high hedges, broom she had picked up on the front porch in hand. He tore out across the sandy road that separated the field from the house and before he could duck under the fence she walloped him with the broom. He dropped like a stone. She scooped him up and he got 5 on the rear, and she pulled that hand all the way back instead of giving him a tap like she would have. He cried, I cried, half of us were crying the other half shaking their heads and wincing. Punishment in the house was rare, and we all took it kind of hard that someone was getting it. This is the only time my brother ever got into trouble, but I guess if you’re going to do it, may as well go big.

Out of all the kids there were only 3 that ever really got spanked liked that. All of us saw it, and every time we’d end up in tears and wincing. It was like we all got it, even though it was only one. I always found it odd how a kid I knew at school would take pleasure in their sibling getting into trouble. To us that was horrid. You may as well be the one who was being punished. We all felt shame and disappointment that we had somehow let the family down. We were all as much responsible for each other as we were for ourselves, and if someone messed up that meant somehow we all did in a way, and though the rest were not punished for anything we all knew that whatever it was couldn’t happen again. We were never punished quietly, or the crime unknown to all. Everyone was there; everyone knew what you did as an object lesson. We saw, we learned, and we did not repeat the same mistake. Matt was horrified to know this. His family was all one on one singular punishment, no one knew what had occurred, or why someone was being punished just that they did something wrong, and you’re not to ask why. I found that totally bizarre. I don’t know, nothing growing up was behind closed doors. There was no privacy, no time in which you were anything other than an integral part of a whole. He grew up where everything was behind closed doors. It’s very odd for me to understand how he grew up and surely just as odd for him to understand how I did.

I see my brother’s kids and I smile as I watch them doing the same things we did as kids. I see his sister’s kids and I can see the parallels there with him. I wonder though if today’s kids were less focused on themselves and more focused on being a part of the family if the youth of today would be different. When my uncle came home from college and my Gram found out he had been sleeping on a park bench because he had no money for an apartment, he was saving up to get a place, but with the meager money he was making he couldn’t afford the down payment. He refused to ask them for help, and we all begged him to hide in the closet until we could calm her down. She wasn’t mad, she was worried, upset, and he wasn’t really in trouble she just felt like any mother would feel knowing her son had spent September through December sleeping outdoors. He wouldn’t hide in the closet, he went down and apologized for worrying her, for sleeping on a bench and under a pine tree, and said he’d have enough by the time the next semester started. He did too; we all got to see it. It was a room really, but my Gram wanted to make sure it was his. We all tried to give him our piggy bank money but he was too proud and wanted to do it on his own. It’s a family trait. We’re all a bunch of pains in the butt like that. You can stop agreeing now.

I’m not sure if privacy is important for a child’s development, I never had any, seemed to develop ok. Then again I also keep rocks in my hutch and the Waterford crystal in a box in the basement with the other party dishes since the hutch is full of rocks so there’s no room. I’m not sure which way is better, but I believe that growing up the way I did strengthened the bond of family in such a way that no matter where we are all over the world at this point, we’re really not that far away at all.