Memories of My Latchkey Childhood
There is a spate of new books on “overparenting†or “helicopter parentingâ€â€”spoiling one’s child (buying him too many toys) while subjecting him to “achievement pressure†(sending him to kindergartens with advanced math, forcing him into extracurricular activities that would look good on his college application, zealously monitoring his test scores). Most of the authors agree that overparenting is bad and may result in the children being so dependent on their elders that they may never move out of the house. All I can say is: Ha!
Arguably I am not qualified to give an opinion on parenting, having neither children to raise nor any intention of spawning. That is true, but I happen to be an authority on childhood: Mine. Owing to my staunch refusal to grow up (which is my own choice and not a consequence of overparenting), I have managed to extend my childhood for decades. In fact I have made a career of warding off adulthood; I would recommend it as a lifestyle, except that few of us are allowed by society to remain in a state of happy immaturity, and all the slots are taken. In any case, don’t be like me: if there are too many of us, civilization would grind to a halt.
As I read the review of the literature on overparenting, I recalled my early experience as a latchkey child. A latchkey child, for the benefit of you spoiled and overprotected types, is a child who goes home to an empty house after school because her parents are still at work. When I was growing up we were frequently without a maid, so I simply let myself into the house and looked after myself until my parents arrived three or four hours later.Â
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December 1st, 2008 at 04:02
At age four, I thought that the Cheez Whiz fairy really lived beneath the Cheez Whiz pot label.
As a child, I hated the gloppy, sodium-laced pseudo cheese junk that is Cheez Whiz. Playacting as my yellow hell in a bottle, Cheez Whiz has ruined innumerable lunch hours and birthday blow-outs. It counted as one of my many childhood saboteurs of fun—-alongside obnoxious cough syrups and playtime cornstarch powder—-that aroused the tantrums I curb within the four walls of my four-year-old head.
However, I recall feeling especially high-strung whenever my mother brings home a bottle of Cheez Whiz for my unfortunate sandwich school lunches. The glee is rooted from the happy thought that I have yet another opportunity to take prisoner the Cheez Whiz fairy that lived beneath the Cheez Whiz pot label.
I’d rip the label off each time and think: She hides pretty well.
The urban legend of swallowed citrus seeds lodging their roots into the walls of your gut enthralled me more than the blah fairy-tales of Disney princesses clad in bed sheet-gowns. I imagined having an orange tree breed slowly beneath my skin, with its red-yellow fruits cheek to cheek with my otherwise maroon heart. The resentful nanny swore the branches would begin to crawl out of my ears before I am ten. Of course, I waited for that one momentous occasion in vain.
At age six, I thought that Batibot was an actual place filled with peculiar looking humans with patchwork brains and prosthetic noses; some quiet little town that my mother just could not locate with her car, despite the fact that she had the brains, ability and gas money to locate all the godforsaken Shoe Marts mushrooming in the metropolis.
And then I grew up to be nine and began realizing that Kuya Bodgie is too happy for a middle-aged man—-his method of eternal kindliness was so original, I remember how no adult in my childhood existence was too willing to smile sympathetically whenever I skip my afternoon nap. Mostly any virtual thing made my middle-aged father yell. Kuya Bodgie, I thought, must be bluffing it too perfectly.
At ten, I unlearned, gradually, the lies of special effects and the many fish stories of television and bed time fairy-tales.
And I learned not to trust and to stop believing.
***
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
–Billy Collins, On turning ten
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:51
Those movies they showed on channel 9 were great. There was one, and I vaguely remember what it was about — Gene Wilder collecting horse manure or something — but whose title I cant forget: ‘Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx.’ I have to find a DVD copy of that one.
December 4th, 2008 at 00:05
Miss ko na si Kuya Bodgie at si Ate Shena at si Kuya Ching at si Kuya Mario. :'(