Childhood, observation skills, and empathy make a difference when adventure finds an introverted and highly sensitive child.

In the summer of 1970, approaching my tenth birthday, my first taste of real freedom comes with consequences. But before we go there, I’d like to share something about the previous decade.

In the 1960’s, growing up in the south, I live in a neighborhood full of young professionals. The husbands and fathers are civic leaders, church leaders, business owners and managers, doctors and dentists, lawmen, lawyers, and even an FBI agent. My daddy is the owner, editor, and publisher of our local newspaper. 

The wives and mothers are teachers, nurses, secretaries, and homemakers. Those that stay home to raise the babies are also church leaders, civic leaders, garden club members, and some, like my mama, are all that as well as art students on their way to becoming local artists.

1960’s Nuclear Family Structure in my neighborhood (at least that which I observe)

Our neighborhood has three types of families. Those like mine gave birth to their first child somewhere between 1959 and 1961, adding one or two kids within a few years. Other families with nearly grown children had “happy little accidents,” giving me peers that had teenage siblings.

Then there are Catholic families where children were born one right after the other over a period of many years. I think these are the happiest families; probably because the parents, having so many children, realize they don’t have to keep a tight rein on their kids.

Those that are the youngest in their families by many years are also raised by parents with an easy spirit. But they have older siblings with whom to contend. Teenage brothers and sisters don’t necessarily want to be in-house babysitters with the little kids messing with their stuff or their lives just as they prepare to launch out on their own. 

These kids are an interesting breed too because they know something I don’t. With older siblings full of information, exposed to things like the “British Invasion” of The Beatles in 1964, and getting their hands on copies of their teenage siblings’ magazines, “Teen” and “Tiger Beat,” they know what “cool” is and I’m not that! They aren’t either, but in any era, knowledge is power.  

My family’s structure (as I experience it)

By the summer of 1970, at nine going on ten, my parents decide that with a little supervision from afar, they can trust me to go alone to visit friends.  A “little supervision” means Mama watches me walk there and when it’s time for me to leave, my friend’s mother calls her so she can watch me walk safely home. 

Up to this point I haven’t been allowed to play outside my yard or driveway without adult supervision. Other kids of all ages commandeer the streets on their bikes, on foot, crossing the street and playing in each other’s yards at whim. Not me. If I step out into the road without an adult around to keep an eye on me, I’ve disobeyed and am in trouble.

If a friend, as they play in the street, invites me to play with them or follow them to their house, my only choices are to invite them to play in my yard or turn them down. Trying to get my parents to bend the rule is considered manipulative and offensive and so is never worth the effort.

I will eventually come to appreciate that both my parents were afraid of losing their children to some catastrophe – that their intense control was them giving me phantom versions of themselves that would accompany me wherever I went. Their control, intimidation, and punishments insured I was always aware, even when they weren’t around, what was right, wrong, and expected of me. At a very young age, they raised me to be a little adult whose #1 responsibility was to put others first, making sure I didn’t inconvenience or offend anyone or make others feel uncomfortable.  

Periodically my mother would release her firm grip on me. As I grew she determined when I was old enough to gain more freedom. Then she gave me that freedom before I could ask for it on my own. Her proposal that I could walk to the homes of friends alone was a first significant boost in my independence.

So at nine going on ten I am thrilled to exercise my new autonomy, even if all the kids I visit live on our side of the street! To visit friends who live too far down and across the street, I am taken there by an adult. Nevertheless, I deeply appreciate this amazing grant of trust and freedom.

Autonomy causes growing pains

One family I visit, the Taylors, have a slew of kids. Having lunch at their house, I marvel at how differently Mrs. Taylor handles her children. Everyone talks at once and loudly, competing for attention. We’re served water, but asking for a glass of milk I am refused. I feel horrible, selfish and rude, as if I’ve done something really bad, putting Mrs. Taylor on the spot like that. But she doesn’t care. It doesn’t bother her at all to just say no as the conversation around the table moves forward.

There is another friend with whom my visit causes discomfort. Rose is an only child. We play outside for a while and then she invites me inside to help her get some toys from her room. Once there I sit on her bed.

“Get up! You can’t sit on the bed after it’s made!” I jump off the bed, confused. How can sitting on a bed be offensive?  Rose smooths out the covers where I sat down. I feel dirty.  Then her mother fills the doorway and says, “That’s right. A bed is for sleeping. Sitting on it after it’s made is a whipping offense. If you’re going to play in here, you’ll play on the floor.”

Feeling a little sick to my stomach, I put my attention on helping Rose collect the toys we’ve come for. Worried about her having to live with that kind of rigidity, I try to read my friend to see if she’s mortified by what her mother said. But Rose avoids eye contact as she gathers the toys.

At nine I don’t understand how I try to read my friend, but checking in with her via empathy is what I do. When you’re little and adults seem threatening, empathy is all you’ve got to go on.

If a child avoids adventure, adventure finds them

Another home I visit belongs to a family with two sisters, Holly and Mandy, who take an interest in me. I’m flattered to be invited to their house because they are older than me, which makes them exotic. 

Also, they live a considerable distance away. Mama walks with me past three houses on our block till we got to a little side street. From there she watches me cross that street and walk across a few more lawns to arrive at Holly and Mandy’s home.

Their mother, Mrs. Anderson, is waiting outside their front door to receive me. Once there I wave goodbye to Mama and go inside. The sisters and I are given a snack then go to their basement to play on our own.

It’s dark down there with mismatched old furniture, a book shelf filled with dusty books, and a television that doesn’t work. There is an additional room they want to play in. It has school desks, a teacher’s desk, and a black board. They want to play “school.” That seems kind of boring to me but, OK. So I sit in one of the desks to see what will happen next.

The oldest sister, Holly, reaches in the teacher’s desk and pulls out a paddle that has strips of tape on it is what happens next! It seems the whole point of playing “school” is to take turns playing at getting in trouble. One is the teacher and the other the errant schoolchild. They giggle about the marks the tape leaves!

The three of us are to take turns getting paddled!

I stare at them in horror. My throat is dry, I’m biting my lip, I feel trapped and clueless as to what to say or do to make it stop. They think it’s funny but these girls are bigger than me and, clearly, they are tired of playing “school” with each other so I’m there to relieve their boredom!

Sensing my anxiety they try to make it better by going first. Mandy sits at a school desk with a sassy attitude while Holly scolds her and tells her to come forward, bend over the teacher’s desk, and receive her paddling.

Suddenly, miraculously, I remember seeing a door to the outdoors in the first room. As they position themselves, I deftly get up from my seat, race out of the “school” room, through the first room, out the basement door, into the light and hightail it home!

As I run my thoughts race. How and why did they have that paddle? Had their parents used it on them? Did their parents know about their game? I’d left without telling their mother I was leaving. She was supposed to call my mother before I left. Would I get in trouble?

I reach the side street stopping only long enough to stop, look, and listen before racing across it into my own block where landscaping and shadow from the trees hides me from view. I can hear them calling, “Sally! Wait! Don’t go! Come back!”

My neck and shoulders are on fire with creepy crawlies. I can’t stand to look over my shoulder or slow down a bit to find out if they are still at their house or closing in on me.

When I get to the edge of our woods, disappearing inside, I slow down and bend over to catch my breath. Our woods have been my playground for years. I know how to hide in them.

Their voices are faint now so I risk turning to face the enemy. I can see Mrs. Anderson straining to see me as Holly and Mandy talk at her nonstop. They’re probably explaining what they think happened or they’re making something up. I don’t care.

Running again, I reach my own back door and haul myself into our den where my brother is sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching an old episode of “Gunsmoke.” I drop down beside him, putting him between me and the door, sit cross legged, and try to stop panting. More than anything I want everything to be all right and back to normal.

The phone rings. Mama answers it. I pull one knee up under my chin and pretend to watch TV. What Marshall Dillon, Miss Kitty, and Festus are up to is all a blur.

“Yes, I think I just heard her come in.”

Her footsteps approach and the telephone cord strains as it’s pulled through the kitchen.

“Sal, you here? You OK?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She turns back to the phone, “She’s here, she’s fine. Yes, I’ll check. Thank you for calling.”

She hangs up the phone and comes back to the doorway that separates the den from the kitchen. With my peripheral vision I can see her nodding her head up and down, alternately looking down her nose at me then straight at me as she considers what to say.  

“Are you all right? Mrs. Anderson is concerned that Holly and Mandy may have hurt your feelings.”

“They wanted to play a game I didn’t want to play and it didn’t feel right so I came home.”

“Well, they are older than you. But anytime you decide you don’t want to play, let the parents know you’re ready to go home. It’s rude to just take off like that.

“Yes ma’am.”

As my brother and I continue to watch TV I dive inside my thoughts.

Why hadn’t I told my mother the whole truth?

Because as tough as my folks can be on me and as often as I seem to bear the brunt of their judgement over other kids’ mistakes, I know that this situation can result in my parents confronting Mr. and Mrs. Anderson about their girls.

First of all, to speak out loud the fact of the paddling game would be extremely embarrassing for me. I’m not comfortable talking about these things – especially to my parents. It’s humiliating! Though I’m no stranger to being punished, I like to pretend it doesn’t really happen to me.

And the idea of me telling on Holly and Mandy, with my parents ultimately confronting their parents, makes me feel personal shame as well as humiliation on their behalf while it is still only an image in my mind! I do not want to live through that, plain and simple. 

True Autonomy

Weeks later I turn ten years old. Months after that, we move to a neighborhood, to a house on a hill, with very few other houses. It’s a quiet place. Though my brother has a friend living close by, there is no one for me to play with. 

On warm days I sit on the hillside daydreaming, fantasies born from the books I read and television I watch. In the winter we have a full and outfitted basement I can play in where absolutely nothing scary exists or occurs.

Well, except for the night I camp out down there and watch the Bonanza episode where Little Joe’s true love gets killed. At eleven years of age, that’s kind of dreadful.

We aren’t the only family to leave the old neighborhood that year. My friends’ parents either build new homes or find bigger ones to accommodate themselves and their growing kids.

So my friends come to my house to play or I go to theirs, driven by our mothers, when we want to get together. My closest friends’ mothers are my mother’s closest friends so there is plenty of just dropping by to have fun. As it turns out, all my friends move to neighborhoods full of children, so when I go visit them we wander off and have fun adventures. I must have passed some kind of test the previous summer in the old neighborhood to be given free rein like that.

I never see the sisters again.

Looking back 

Forty-five years later I visited my home town and the street I lived on the first decade of my life. It wasn’t the first time I’d driven there to see and remember the stories of my childhood. On this day and as I drove down the street, the sisters and their paddling game came to mind.

In an instant, as of its own volition, my head turned on my neck to the left as my eyes lit on the very house in which they’d lived.

Driving down a side road that would show me the back of the house, I wanted to see if what appeared to be a one story ranch on the front actually had a mostly buried but full basement with a back door. It sure enough did. No other house in the neighborhood had a basement like that. I’d spotted the right one – or some part of my brain sensed its presence.

I couldn’t have told you which house was theirs, but in that moment some part of me remembered and knew exactly where to look. It was likely a part born that day long ago when I found I had the pluck to pick myself up and race away from a bad scene. I left my tormentors in the dust instead of giving them what they wanted. That day the polite little girl with the people pleasing heart found courage and I ran, full gallop home, to safety.