It’s always fun to chat with someone about their experience as a child. The topic is fascinating to me. No two upbringings, it seems, are completely similar.

That stands to reason. Parenting styles are dissimilar. One has to assume that that’s a good thing. Otherwise wouldn’t we all be the same ? Perish forbid !

A good buddy was recently telling me of his childhood that was strikingly different from mine. His reminded me of those horses that roam wild down there in the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina. He, like them, just ran with the wind the summer long.

His Mom essentially had one daily parameter: just be home at dinner time. Go where you want to go, within the constraints predicated by a bicycle, but be home by dinner hour.

How would that benchmark have affected my childhood ? It wouldn’t have. No need for such a rule . I was home anyway. We were farming.

That “rule” couldn’t really be described as such. It was better described as a way of life. It was an assumption. It was what you did every day . Farming necessitated that the whole family be home, every day. 365 days a year.

Of course, I was home at dinner time. That came right after milking. Every day.

You might ask about vacations. We had one once, for five days. A neighbor dairyman did the milking for us.

As you might imagine, he didn’t have anything else to do !! ( joke) It was strictly a matter of neighbors helping neighbors. That was a rule, too.