Today
Young child toddles away from the restaurant table where the
adults are seated. Her mother calls the child back to the table but child
treats this as part of the game and goes her own way until mother gets hold of
her after a short chase. Mother explains at some length how naughty it is to
toddle off like that, then she takes child back to the table.
A few minutes later child has toddled off again. This time
she has climbed the stairs to the mezzanine floor. Mother fetches her back
after even longer explanations as to why this is a naughty thing to do.
Decades ago
My cousin climbs a tall tree close to the house, but to his
considerable consternation finds he cannot manage the descent. He calls for
help and my uncle comes out to see what all the fuss is. After glaring up into
the tree he says “yo gorrup, yo mun get dahn” then disappears back into
the house.
6 comments:
On the other hand if you are going out for a meal, hire a babysitter.
And then there was that Japanese couple who abandoned their 7 year old alone in bear-infested woods as a punishment. If you're going for tough love, might as well make it really tough.
I can't recall seeing any kids climb trees these days. I used to have a favourite branch about forty feet up a very spindly ash tree, and could make it swing about five ft in any direction...
But the we didn't have to worry, as we were proper kids, and didn't have a mobile phone or a television.
Oh such a different world, the local park has just spent a small fortune on relaying the areas round all the play equipment with soft landing materials so the darlings won't scrape their knees, at that age we were playing on bomb sites, neither right nor wrong but very different environment, and no kids go to school on their own these days either oh no no.
Hence the two different types of people.
Demetrius - this was a child-friendly place. I suppose that means not always adult-friendly.
Sam - not sure about the love in my uncle's case.
Scrobs - I had a number of favourites. One was an easy crab apple tree which was good for sitting in.
Wiggia - roads too, it was possible to play near roads without much danger.
James - prepared and unprepared.
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