Yesterday I was sitting on the couch and bouncing a ball. I was sort of attempting to dribble it, but it's a DORA ball, so it's not like I was going for a professional record or anything. Anyway, suddenly I flashed back to my parents telling me not to bounce in the house. Not necessarily not to play with it in the house, but not to bounce it.
See, my parents, although we are homeowners like they were, had tenants to concern themselves with. So bouncing a ball in the house meant we were bouncing a ball on top of our tenants' heads. Most of the noises we made in our house probably sounded like thunder or a stampede to them! It was just my brother and I, and not like we had ten kids rolling around every day or night, but still ... can you imagine what that sounded like?
So I consider the differences my daughter and I will share once she's older. Are they differences because I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and she is growing up in the Triangle area of NC? Or is it just our way of life?
* I grew up in a 2-family house. She is growing up in a 1-family house. No downstairs to concern herself with. And yet, no basement for storage, either. Although we have a garage. And my parents have a flight of 13 steps to get INTO their home. We have 1 step to get onto our little porch. Growing up we had to walk down a windy and twisty staircase inside our home to get to our basement, and then the backyard. My daughter opens the door off of the kitchen and she is out in our backyard.
* Our basement was the best! We had a ping-pong table, pool table, and an above ground (4ft) pool in our backyard. No basement, just a sandbox and baby pools, for now, here in NC. Hopefully we'll join a pool facility of some sort when she gets older and add a swing-set to our yard, as well.
* We have a multitude of pets, maybe because I grew up without any (minus the occasional fish or two.)
She is so young that it's not easy to assess the various comparisons that we will make later on, but I just thought about those few that differ our living environments and figured I'd point them out. I could go on and on about my own experiences in NY and NC, but I'll save those for another post.
Regardless of what kind of home we live in, what our backyard is filled with and where we live, we both absolutely have been surrounded with people who love us and take care of us, and that, no matter where we are/were, is a given!
Very interesting comparisons. Isn't it amazing how differently our kids live then we did. I think that's one of the difficult things about parenting is trying to figure out how to help a child grow in a world different then the one you grew up in.
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