My mother used to ship all of us but the baby outdoors right after breakfast during the summer. She would then lock the door behind us. We had screen doors on the front and back. If we needed something, we would stand at the door and holler in. Mom would holler back that we only thought we needed something when in fact everything we needed was outdoors.

“I’m thirsty!”

“There’s a hose in the backyard!”

Except for potty breaks, which my younger brother never availed himself of as the neighbors lilacs served more easily, we didn’t get back inside until nap time. Even lunch was served al fresco out back on the picnic table complete with paper plates and a jug of kool-aid.

When I tell this story these days, it’s greeted mainly with horror. How could my mother have locked us outside? A bunch of preschoolers unsupervised in the wild? But we were hardly unsupervised back then circa 1970. Our neighborhood was typical of the era, packed with children of all shapes, sizes and ages. Even though there were working moms, at least every other house had a grown-up in it. It was hard to do anything that wouldn’t be seen and reported by someone be it child, teenager, someone else’s parent or a busy body senior with nothing better to do. Of course at the time I was being jailed in the vast playground the neighborhood provided for me, I was indignant. All the other kids could wander freely in and out of their homes. It wasn’t fair. Today I see my mother’s side of it. My mother had four children between the ages of six and one year. Four and not one of us useful in any meaningful way and there she was with a house to clean, laundry for a family of six and a baby to mind. Not to mention, meals to prepare and stockpile. Clothes didn’t come out of the dryer wrinkle free because the concept of that kind of clothing wasn’t yet a reality and there were precious few edible ready made meals. We didn’t own a dishwasher yet, didn’t even have a window unit air-conditioner. A mountain of work whose enormity was fairly consistent from day to day and primitive working conditions while handicapped by a wee one. I would have thrown the rest of us out too.

My own daughter’s experience with neighborhoods in summer is ironically in the same neighborhood I grew up in. Our home in Des Moines was not somewhere I felt safe letting her roam. The next door neighbor was creepy. He watched me and my house intently after my late husband went into the nursing home, and numerous visits from local law enforcers to his home plus an unfriendly, territorial dog that roamed freely had me keeping Katy inside. At my parents however, she ran freely in and out, playing with the neighborhood children much as I had at her age. The only difference was that my mother didn’t lock the screen door anymore and my daughter sometimes need to be ordered inside because she couldn’t bear to not be a part of the action outdoors.

Today we live in a rural township. There aren’t many children visible until we discovered the boy and girl who live across our alley. Josh and Hamburger (Amber) are just a bit older and younger than Katy respectively. She made first contact and kept at it until they began to let her into their games. It’s not easy to be an only child. She doesn’t have the built in playmates that I had with my siblings, although I regarded my brother and sisters as a fall back measure only. It’s been hard for me to let her run outdoors without me following after to keep an eye out. Last evening she decided to go out after supper to look for her friends, and to try out her new rain boots as it had rained all afternoon and there were still a few puddles. I told her she would have to wait until Rob was ready to go out. He was going to work on some reno projects. “Why?” he asked. Why indeed? 

We went into town today to register for kindergarten and shop for school supplies, and when we returned, Josh and Hamburger could be heard from behind the hedge as we climbed out of the truck. Katy was off like a shot and before long she had brought her friends back to play in our yard for the first time. Unlike my mother, I let them come inside at some point and they played noisily and messily in Katy’s room for a time. The messy part was rather upsetting to my very untidy girl. I think it is an only child thing. As I sat in the kitchen below her room trying to work on email, I realized the vast wisdom of my mother’s decision to lock the door after us all those decades ago. Not that I bother much with housework or cooking. I tidy more than clean and I cook…..my husband is laughing as he reads those two words and chortling at what comes next…..when Rob doesn’t. I have no great interest in the “house” part of my wifely status. It’s a by-product of my earlier circumstances. The beds don’t always have to be made. Dishes will be fine in the sink overnight. And if you can’t see the dust, it isn’t there. Still, small children are only just practicing the art of playing together and doing it nicely. (Actually, I don’t think we ever really make it much beyond this stage….ever.) The noise and disharmony eventually reach critical mass and I unilaterally decided that it was time for friends to go home for a while and for Katy to eat lunch and have a rest. Surprisingly, she agreed with me.

As I type this there is a toy strewn bedroom beckoning, along with the lunch dishes, and a very tired little girl watching odd Francophile  cartoons as she lies on the couch in the living room. Another interesting day for us both.