Oh yes Alexa and going even earlier than that, I remember when there was no TV so we listed to radio programs such as Ozzie & Harriet, Mr. & Mrs. North, Lux Theater, The Edgar Bergen show with Charlie McCarthy, Amos and Andy. We read books and comic such as Archie, Little Lulu, Donald Duck and played cards, jacks, pick-up sticks, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, hopscotch, skipped rope, and roller skated on heavy metal skates that you clamped onto your heaviest shoes using a tightening key on a cord that you hung around your neck, until you needed to tighten them again. Balloons had just been invented or reinvented after the war. Records were 78 rpm until the Long plays LPs and the 45s came out. We could play outside all day until we heard our moms standing on the back porch calling our name for us to come in. Girls all wore dresses to school and wearing trousers or slacks (as they were called) to school was forbidden except when there was deep snow. We wore gumboots over our shoes when it rained. When we picked up the phone, an operator said...'Number please', and the phone cord was black and not spring coiled. People who came to the door: the milkman, the egg man, the newspaper boy, the grocer bringing the groceries, the boy from the meat market, the laundry service with dad's white work shirts, the Watkins man, the bread man. There were no supermarkets. We fought over who could read the Sunday comics first when the weekend newspapers arrived on the front porch. And we walked miles to high school carried a load of books and an umbrella, usually open. I guess I'm going farther back in time to when most here were not yet born lol! SharonCb

Many children today are not being 'parented' by anyone. Mom and (maybe) Dad only see their kids for a few minutes a day, when they are rushing off to work and when they return tired from work. Yes, there have always been some families where parents worked long hours, but in the not-so-distant past Grandma or Auntie was at home doing some care-giving, raising the kids. In the area where my DIL teaches a tiny minority of the children are living with a close relation. Many go 'home' to an array of ever-changing adults or foster homes. Some who 'go home to Mom' go home to Mom, her current live-in and drug and alcohol 'parties' all night. In the area where we raised our DS rows of Mercedes and Jags were at the daycare as early as six a.m. to drop off children before Mom and Dad commuted into the city to their law or investment offices. Parents bragged that at *their* daycare the ratio of children to caregivers was 'only six to one'. If parents' jobs required a lot of travel, there was often a non-English-speaking housekeeper. In the park I would meet three-year-olds fluent in Spanish or Polish, their English halting. 'Hired help' is no substitute for parenting. It's not the same *care* or child *raising*. Many children today grow up from infancy in group 'care'-giving settings. Then they go to 'pre'-school starting at three or even younger. Grammar school teachers who started teaching 'parented' children had to adjust to a very different kind of child, one who had learned to act out to be noticed or who was unable to think independently of the group or teacher. As for discipline, I cannot see how striking a child teaches anything except that big people can hit smaller ones. Shunning, the withdrawl of approval by a loved one, motivates most kids to behave appropriately. Of course, first they have to LOVE and feel loved!

He really needs a parenting class or a counselor to tell him that he's doing it wrong. When my kids were younger, I was not so consistent... a little guilty parenting... etc. I had the same problem, the kids would ignore what I told them, I would get frustrated and give up.. not follow through. They learned all about empty threats... they knew how to wear me down to where it was easier to give in than follow through. Of course, I was a single parent... there were three of them.. and they took advantage of a tired mom after working a 10 hour day. (and they were older... Jr. High age) I took a parenting class when they were teenagers and I wish I had taken it before they were born.. or at least when they were younger. Honestly, I thought it was too late to make changes with my kids because they were practically grown. It was probably tougher than if they were 5 or 6, but things improved immensely with just being consistent and never saying anything I didn't really mean (ie. empty threats that they knew I would likely not follow through with) Your SS doesn't take his dad seriously because dad flakes on follow through. I can't say it's not a LD, but it sounds like he knows what he's doing... he's got dad's number. What I would suggest is that instead of telling DH that he needs a parenting class... because he rejects your advice or input... I would suggest that you approach it as a couple thing. "WE need to take a parenting class" My husband took it with me and it opened his eyes to a lot. Sometimes it takes an uninvolved third party to say it. He doesn't want to hear it from you. He may know that you are better with your DD than he is with his DS... so you telling him what he's doing wrong might be interpreted that you are better than him. (or make him feel that way) If you tell him you don't have all the answers and you would benefit from the class too, maybe he'd be more receptive to the idea. One thing to stress is that it only gets harder/worse... when they become older, smarter and learn new ways to manipulate. When they are teens, they also can become rebellious. He may have a teenager that borrows the car, breaks the rules regarding the car, brings it back late, dirty, broken down, gets tickets and dad will say never again! Then a week later, dad will give him the keys... It doesn't resolve itself.

I will try to condense this because I could pontificate for hours on this! My love for gardening came from my father. He was the ultimate green thumb-he didn't have formal training that i know of, but he was a street tree gardener for two of the communities we grew up in, and always had a vegetable garden as a way to supplement our large family's food budget.(Six kids) He was a school music teacher and when summer vacation began he was always found out back tending the garden for pretty much the whole summer. Of all six children I seemed to be the most interested in what he did-and my first memory of my own interest was when he gladly allowed me to plant marigolds around the border of his garden to keep pests away(this was a fairly large plot and now I know why he jumped at my offer to help him!)I was in elementary school at the time. Also eating a tomato whole and sprinkled with salt always brings dad's tomatoes to mind. And asparagus and homemade pickles.... That was my first taste of working in a garden. It wasn't until I was a first-time homeowner that I knew I was going to be a gardener but I chose to go the route of flowers instead of vegetables. The saddest thing, though was that the year before I moved into my new home, my dad developed Alzheimer's disease and everything I needed to ask him for gardening advice about trees and organic gardening was completely gone-he was just a shell of my father-quite sad. Not a day goes by when I'm in my yard and garden that I don't think of Dad and the gift he gave me. I just wanted to share it with him. He passed away two months ago. Just an interesting note; Our family surname has it's origin from Poland and it means 'gardener of an estate' I find that kind of neat. Maybe it's in our bloodline to be gardeners! * Posted by: pkock Zone 6 (My Page) on Tue, May 28, 02 at 2:44 So glad to find this thread - hope it lasts, because it's fun! Honestly, I am not sure what got me hooked. I think it's my tendency to love "scientific" stuff - I never pursued it professionally, but I'll make anything into a science experiment. I got through two pregnancies with that attitude. ;-) My grandma was the gardener in our family. She lived with us, and each year we had to have a veggie garden. My dad wasn't into yard work much, but was "forced" into the labor required, turning over the clay soil with a spade and protesting the entire time. Always basic stuff - tomatoes, peppers, pole beans, but they sure tasted good. We had strawberries for a couple of years, and there was a big apple tree in our yard that grew "cooking" apples. Grandma made lots of pies and applesauce. Then there was Girl Scouts - one year we had a hike with a knowledgeable person who pointed out all the fantastic wild plants along the trail. I absorbed it all like a sponge. This is rare, this is edible, this is a cure for poison ivy, etc. I still remember most of it, teach my daughter, and soon will teach her scout troop too. I was voted "Miss Outdoorswoman" in high school. Isn't that neat? Some things never change. :) --Pam * Posted by: Lucy2 Z7Atlanta (My Page) on Wed, May 29, 02 at 8:23 I love reading these. I remember going to visit my grandparents in Texas every summer. We lived in New Hampshire and would fly down and my grandparents would meet us at the airport. The first thing we would do when we got to Grandma's house was run to her garden. Every year she planted a watermelon JUST FOR US! Oh, how special that was. We would walk into the garden and she would "double check that it was ripe and time to pick it and she would let us watch as she "ever so gently" plucked the watermelon from the garden and we would sit on her front porch all afternoon eating the best watermelon we had ever tasted and spitting seeds as far as we could. Sadly, my Aunt burst my childhood memory bubble (when I was in my 40's but it still hurt!) by telling me that my Grandparents would go to the grocery store the night before we flew in, buy a watermelon and lay it in the garden "just for us", pretending they planted it and grew it all along...I guess I'm in denial because I still tell my children about those fond memories! * Posted by: becki3 z5 IN (My Page) on Tue, Jul 23, 02 at 20:34 Can I still step in here? This is such a wonderful thread, brought back some great memories. But now I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes and a big lump in my throat. One of my first garden memories is of my next-door neighbor when I was very small. She had a gigantic (to me) gooseberry bush that she would make pies for us from, if I would pick the berries. And she also had a thick grape vine that she would sit down with me in the middle of the yard and eat grapes from right off the vine. We always sat on the other side of it so my mom couldn't see us from the window. I don't think she would have minded, but my neighbor made it fun, thinking we were being secretive. She also had about a million plants in her house that she would show me all the time. Thinking back on it now, I realize they were mostly African violets. She was in her late 80's, early 90's, and I thought she was the best neighbor a girl could ever have. (still do) :) Then there was my grandpa. When he was a teen in the service, he had come home to visit his mom just before being shipped overseas. He took ONE little segment from her Christmas cactus, which had been a wedding present 25 years before that, and put it in his wallet. He then drove all the way across the country (took a few days), all the while sitting on this wallet. Just before being shipped out, he stuck this one little smashed, dried up piece of Christmas cactus and stuck it in a little pot of dirt from the ground outside his barracks. I'm not sure what happened to it (where it was, who took care of it) while he was in the war. But I do know that when he died in 1994, that Christmas cactus was not only alive, but very, very, VERY big. He had built a planter for it on wheels so he could move it outside in the summer and back inside for the winter. He also had a ramp leading up to his patio door, which he had to remove to get it through. This "planter" was 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. Filled all the way with soil and thick, long roots. And the plant filled every inch of the top of the soil and hung down to the floor all around. He had to give it a "haircut" every time he moved it in or out so he wouldn't run over it with the wheels. I now have a pretty good size pot of this same plant in my husband's office, where it sits in front of a huge window all year long and blooms from Oct to around May every year. I ask about or stop by to check on this plant about once a week. I'm always terrified I might lose this plant, I feel like somehow I would be losing my grandpa all over again. Or that he might be disappointed in me for letting his precious plant die after having survived 4 generations in our family. But my all-time favorite childhood memories (of any kind) come from my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. They had a big farm in Missouri with a couple horses, a coop full of chickens, and about 300 head of dairy and beef cows at any given time. Along with the usual couple of dogs and a barn full of cats. And I remember one time my Aunt sent me out with the horse to get a few apples from the big tree out in the east pasture to make a pie for dinner. She told me to get a sack out of the barn to carry them in. Well, being about 8 or 9 at the time, I had no idea how many apples it took to make a pie. So I took 2 big gunny sacks, and me and Ginger (the horse) set out to find that big tree. Ginger was so patient with me as I stood on her back on the blanket that I rode with (never used a saddle) to pick all the apples that I could reach. I tied these two gunny sacks across her back and filled them up full. (poor horse!) When I got back, I didn't think my Aunt and Uncle would ever stop laughing. Instead of a few apples for a pie, I had just picked enough apples for an entire week of non-stop canning, freezing, and baking everything we could think of that contained apples. Then there were the times that Aunt Julia and I would pack a picnic basket to take out to my Uncle Bill when he was working the fields. We would sit under a big tree and just watch him disking the field, or baling the hay until he noticed us in the distance. Then he would come get me and let me drive the big tractors for a while before we ate. But one of my most vivid and comforting memories is of me and Aunt Julia sitting on the porch swing snapping beans or shelling peas. I can't remember who picked those beans and peas, or what she did with them afterwards. But just sitting there snapping and shelling, not even having to speak, but feeling like the most loved person in the world. I just started to garden seriously for myself last year, and this year I had to have those green beans and peas. And I think of my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill every time I go out to the garden. I almost started crying when my daughter (5yo) asked me the first time if she could help me shell the peas. She had so much fun with them I didn't even mind the ones that kept flying across the kitchen to land under the cabinets or off in a corner with the dust bunnies. And I can just see my Aunt and Uncle smiling now (more like giggling probably). Right now I think I need to call them (they live in Arizona now) and tell them how much I love and miss them, and maybe thank you for teaching me about all the things I love the most. Then I think I will sit down and start crocheting an afghan for Aunt Julia (she taught me how to do that when I was 6). Luckily I learned to crochet a lot better than I learned how to milk a cow (sorry Uncle Bill)! Thanks for letting me take this stroll! Becki :) * Posted by: Mirri 5 (Finland) (My Page) on Fri, Jul 26, 02 at 3:06 My first attempt to garden vegetables was when I was 9. I loved peas, so I wanted to grow them. My father formed me a lot saying it would be too hard for me, turning the thick soil. Then I sow the peas and watered them for about 2 weeks. Then my first dog - who died of old age a few years back at 13- had a friend over. They were just puppies back then, running and playing. My daddy warned me, but I wanted to let them play on our rather tiny lot. They run over my pea-lot several times, breaking all those tender 15cm pea shoots. Oh, how I cried. Then I took little sticks and tied the shoots back up. Most of them recovered. Then the dogs, Roope and Olga, run the pea shoots down again after a week or so. And I gave up. I quit gardening for about 10 years. I only had a few cacti which I killed and bought new ones. But now I am a horticulturist. Working, ironically, in a greenhouse that produces pea shoots! I think that the wonder of growing, seeing the shoots come up from earth was a positive thing in the end. Even though I didn`t get to harvest the peas. This year I have a tiny pea-lot again, the first time after I was 9. I have harvested some, but my dog keeps steeling the pods before I find them. When I was 17 I found gardening again, in the form of houseplants. I was living in a tiny oneroom flat without balcony. The houseplant hobby lead me into studying horticulture. Now I have a son and 2 dogs. If Pyry wants to be a little gardener, I will build a fence around his lot. * Posted by: prairie_rose southalta (My Page) on Tue, Aug 20, 02 at 23:56 my earliest memories. being sat in the potato patch with a coffee can with some kerosene in the bottom and picking potato bugs and putting them in the can. i think that was the way my mom and grandma kept us out of their hair on wash day ( the old wringer washer, rinse tub, mangler days.) i remember the smell of the compost heap, and i never thought it was nasty. my grandpa and i spent lots of time there, spreading things out, turning it over occasionally. i think i must have got compost in my veins, replaced all the blood, cause i still don't find the compost heap all that nasty. (compost tea, well that is a different story. lol) i remember i hated bringing kids to our house in the fall cause you could smell the crocks of sauerkraut brewing. we lived on the edge of town, and i swear my mom was the only one who canned. but i couldn't wait for it to be ready and eating the stuff till i was sure i would burst. i remember we were the "poor kids" but we ate better than any of my friends, and were healthier than most of my friends. the garden was a way of life, and everyone was expected to pitch in. and when harvest happened, everyone was expected to come home to can. my mom would pick the weekend and as young adults, we all showed up. 5 women in a kitchen!!!!! lots of hard work, but lots of laughs, too. and when it was over we all got our share to take home. now, i am a single mom with two kids, and all those lessons are paying huge dividends. my two are the "poor kids" but they eat better than most of their friends and are healthier than most, too. what i save at the supermarket because of the garden pays the morgage and the extras for the kids. and this year, my daughter is taking an active part in the canning. i just wish my grandma, mom and sisters were here, too. * Posted by: lynne_s z5ny (My Page) on Mon, Sep 9, 02 at 22:23 I remember planting potatoes on my grandfather's farm in the early spring when i was about 4 years old. We weren't just planting a little garden patch...I swear this field must have been at least an acre. I remember the fun we had, laughing and running around in the dirt...getting dirty, but it was ok..we were doing something productive. I remember Grampa explaining the different types...we even planted purple potatoes from Russia. Later in our visit to his farm my brothers and sisters and I helped plant the seeds that would become carrots, corn and beans. I remember trudging through the brambles in search of the elusive blueberry bushes...after a morning of picking berries, we'd stop and have lunch...Grampa would take a fishing line and hook out of his pocket and catch small trout from a nearby stream and we'd roast them on a stick over a fire...just like a hot dog. He amazed me...the man could survive in the wilderness with nothing, and probably live better than most of us do today. lol The outdoors was his church; where he prayed, pondered and planned his life. My grandfather, retired by this time still loved gardening and sold his veggies every summer from his down-sized farm. We spent the entire spring and summer there. Everything we ate and drank came from that farm. I still remember how wonderful everything tasted...the taste of fresh food was foreign to me then. I went back to Grampa's farm many times until he passed...there, I worked hard, enjoyed the freedom of being in the outdoors and learned how important it was to treat our planet with respect, for it is what feeds us. It seems I forgot a lot of his wisdom until quite recently. Now that I'm a Mom of 5 boys, with many mouths to feed as well as many personalities and value systems to help develop, the things he taught me are returning. My husband and I have purchased a home out in the country trying to create an environment for our boys that my Grampa created for us...one of fresh air, sun, fun and respect for all things living...an I'm proud to say, we are well on our way! * Posted by: KCtomato1 z5/6 KC, Mo (My Page) on Sat, Sep 14, 02 at 0:36 My grandfathers both got me started. My first memory is of dark purple tulips and tulips that were taller than I. I recall what a joy it was grandpa let me pick one. Somewhere in the family, someone has a picture of it. I was 2-3. Both gardened but it was my paternal grandfather that let me try everything. He introduced me to raw veggies. I still prefer them over cooked. He would also let me in the berry patch - which is what really got me growing. He made a deal with me - if I picked 2 I could eat one. He'd go in and I would pick 'em clean of course taking the best for myself. We both walked away thinking we got the better deal. My maternal Grandfather taught me more on the "how's" rather than the "whats". He grew to sell and was not keen on kids picking things he could potentially sell. When I was small I would go out to the garden where he was working just to be with him and I'd watch. I would have worked but he wouldn?t let me. He thought I was nuts for wanting to work. He told me there were snakes in the berry patch in an "effort" to keep me out. Most the time he ran me off I was just looking for the snake. Him teaching me things came at a much older age. Im grateful for the time I did spend with them and the gift they passed on. Keith * Posted by: bizmhamama CA z10 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 15:09 This answers your interest in childhood memories in a roundabout way. My parents and I immigrated to the United States when I was four years old and I never really knew my expanded family. My mother, who grew up on a sugar plantation, cared absolutely nothing for getting her hands dirty. Our back yard was concrete! Her only gardening interest was roses. I became interested in indoor plants as a teenager and then became obsessed with succulents once I moved out of the house & had a patch of dirt of my own. I even wondered what it would take to go back to school for a landscaping degree, and daydreamed about owning a nursery. My maternal grandmother came to America only a few years ago. I was fairly shocked to learn that she loves gardening! She grows guava trees from seed. In her 80s, she still derives incredible enjoyment from simply watching living things grow. I realize now my passion for gardening would have been sparked much earlier in life if geography (& politics!) hadn't intervened.