Now that we have been vaccinated regarding COVID-19, we can have the great pleasure of eating out with our grand kids and having direct communication with them. At a recent gathering, the youngest had a question, actually a series of them. He wanted to know: “When you were a kid, did you have to do chores?” I didn’t confirm, but I expect he had raised the question, because he has his own routine chores and wanted input on their “fairness.” I’m not sure he was pleased with my response: “No, I did not have any routine chores.” I suppose he could have used my answer either positively or negatively depending upon his own situation.
Upon returning home, I thought more fully about my response. I was technically accurate. I did not have jobs to do around the house on a daily basis – like setting the table, clearing it after dinner, or carrying out the trash. TV sitcoms seem to include these as the major, routine, around-the-house chores expected of preteens and teenagers. While I did not have these tasks to do in our three-member household, I do recall a recurring job I was expected to do, when asked. Mow the lawn!
Our houses on Cedar Street or Seneca Street, where I lived for most of my growing-up years, had postage-stamp-size yards. Together, the front and back yards probably measured an area of twenty-five-square feet. A side yard for Cedar Street may have added another twenty-five square-feet; there was no yard on either side of the Seneca Street house – only a driveway on one side and, on the other, a two-story apartment building, three feet away from our house. My father attended to this ten-minute job whenever he cut the grass for our landlady who lived across the drive from us. He claimed to enjoy doing it for her.
On the other hand, there was the summer between my residing on Cedar and Seneca, when we lived on my grandmother’s farm in Mineral Ridge. Her farm had a large field on the opposite side of the road, the side with the barn and the chicken coop. Since it was visible from the farmhouse, with its own surrounding yard, the entire half-acre had to be mowed. A remaining half-acre was left to yield hay for harvesting at the end of the summer. I did not enjoy pushing the reel mower for the two hours it took to cut the entire lot. It was easier when I did not need to attach the grass-bag and gather the clippings every ten minutes, although that part did provide a momentary respite from pushing the green monster with its helical blade.
Since I did not have a routine chore, for which I might be paid, my grandson raised a second question: “Did you get an allowance?” My response at the time: “No, I did not get an allowance, at least not on a weekly schedule.” Upon further reflection, that response was, again, technically true. I did not receive a predetermine amount of money on a recurring schedule. Whenever the mood struck my mother, I was given change from the cup-in-the-cupboard that held all of the funds needed for our day-to-day living, mainly for groceries. With it I would buy a comic book, for ten cents, or postage stamps for my collection. Back then, each stamp cost three cents. When it became necessary, my mother would take me shopping for new shoes. If she spotted an appropriate sale, she would buy new pants, shirts and underwear for me. Since I never had a choice in selecting new fashions, I did not require an allowance for buying anything I really needed.
Elsewhere, I’ve noted my memories about attending movies several times a week. The intended purpose was not entertainment, per se, but was to provide an opportunity to engage in bank-nite at the movie theater. My mother would give me money from the cup-in-the-cupboard for attendance; the cost was usually twenty-five cents.
Since I did not have routine chores to do and did not receive an allowance, in the usual sense of the term, my grandson had to raise his third question: “Grandpa, were you spoiled?” He elaborated on the question. Was I given whatever I wanted; could I do whatever I wanted to do?
My immediate reaction to his question was a laugh. I certainly believed I was not spoiled. I did not get whatever I asked for. Actually, I knew better than to ask for anything.
As a child of the Great Depression, I knew I would have what I needed, but not what I wanted. If there was money-in-the-cup, I might be able to buy an ice-cream cone at Isaly’s, a comic book from the drugstore on the corner, or new stamps at the post-office.
I’ve commented, previously, that, from time-to-time, my father would explode at my mother (or me), if he thought money-in-the-cup was missing; that the amount was less than what he thought it should be. So, my response to my grandson about not being given whatever I wanted was very true. It deserved a laugh.
Then there is the second part of “being spoiled.” Could I do whatever I wanted to do? The answer is, “yes,” I was allowed to do anything I wanted to do, providing it did not cost money. At the same time, I never chose to do anything I thought was “wrong.” Unlike today, drugs and street-gangs were nonexistent for almost every kid growing up in a small town in Ohio. I did not drink beer nor smoke cigarettes. None of my relatives did; except my uncles would drink beer while playing pinochle on a weekend. I’m not sure whether any of them smoked cigarettes; occasionally, there may have been a cigar. My own evenings and weekends were devoted to listening to the radio and doing homework. It was a rather boring life, both by standards of that day and certainly of today.
It seems my parents trusted I would not do anything I should not do. Whenever it came time for me to choose to do something, to make a decision about what course of action I should take, my mother’s routine response was: “That’s your department.”
So, in reply to the question: “Was I spoiled as a child?” I have to consider the role of “free will” in my life. If I could do whatever I wanted to do, is that being spoiled? If I were given a choice on “what should I do,” or “what should I have,” and if I used my free will to remain on the conservative side, can it be said I was spoiled? My grandson needs to decide that Q&A on his own – for me and for him. After all, that’s his department!