I’ve never met anyone that has had a childhood like mine. If you did, I’d love to hear some stories!
I grew up in the 70’s in 2 room cottage without electricity or indoor plumbing (yes, we got them eventually). We had acres of gardens and ate off the land. We worked sun up to sun down.
I was 14 before I realized you could buy pickles at a store. Of course by this age, I could shoot & skin a deer, build a canoe, and sew my own clothes.
We never went to the doctor either- I once watched my dad sew up his own leg after gashing it with a chainsaw.
He was a Native American and lived by the old ways. He would do raindances in full costume handmade from deer hide, etc.
What fantastic memories **dreaming**
Haha thankfully no.
Yes and it was bloody freezing
No, I grew up in New Jersey in the ‘burbs of New York City, no where near the prairie.
We may have been neighbors. Your story sounds like mine . I used to say ” I was 15 before I found out someone would actually PAY you for working youbutt off”. We did have electricity but no plumbing. Cut firewood for heating, canned fruits/vegs, even made our own sorghum syrup.
My childhood consisted of Helping my Dad grow all our own produce for the table. He was a policeman. His other talents consisted of Carpentry,growing prize winning Chrysanthemums. He made wardrobes beds tables etc. Mum made our clothes knitted our jumpers ,she made our herb sachets ,table napkins. My Mum and Dad were self sufficient and worked hard they passed their talents to us. I used to do Mums house work for her because she worked part time. We were a large happy family.
That sounds incredible. What a fantastic childhood.
Mine was just the opposite, you could call it “Little Cruddy Shack On The Marine Base”. I grew up on Marine Corps bases, in base housing. It wasn’t quite squalor, but they weren’t very nice either. There was plumbing, but it often required work. The base plumber was so busy that Dad decided to buy a plumbing how to book, and did it himself. The walls usually had little to no insulation in them, so you could hear well what was going on in the next room. Creepy when Mom and Dad got frisky.
My father is Cree but I can not imagine living anywhere but a large city.
I have never hated anyone in my life. . . . but damn I think I just might be so jealous and envious of you, that I just might hate you
I grew up in middle class suburbia with two parents who never should have had kids period. Not an unhappy childhood, but not exactly happy either. My happiest times were reading the Laura books and dreaming, and walking in the woods by myself.
I live a couple hundred miles from where she wrote those books in Mansfield. I took a visit down there many years ago with my kids to see their farm. It’s funny how much shorter they were back then, the ceiling heights were all of 6′, but it was all very beautiful.
Well, that would have been really interesting and I’d like to live like that one day (for a while!). But I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything! Living in a small beautiful coastal town (it has since changed) learning how to swim, surf, fish, read the water, and lifesaving was amazing.