Life’s Decades - The First 10 Years

Now that my life has spanned more than 6 decades - I’m thinking more about my own history (what was typical…what wasn’t) and how growing up has changes over the years. Today I am focused on the first decade of life which, for me, was mostly in the 1950s.

My earliest memory is of a shadow made by a Venetian blind on the wall of my bedroom. I don’t remember being frightened (although I’ve read that something frightening is usual for a first memory)…only the image. My mother thinks it was the first night in a new house when I was about 2 although she didn’t realize I was frightened. With the advent of baby monitors - do parents detect the frightening first memories of their children more often?

We did not have air conditioning at home until I was 4 or 5…and the schools were not air conditioned at all. It was very hot during the Texas summers! Strangely enough - I don’t remember melted crayons. When my daughter was growing up we had a couple of instances of melted crayons. Is air conditioning so pervasive that the crayons have a lower melting point now than they did 50 years ago?

There were lots of children in the neighborhood before I started school. There were swing sets and shady porches…popsicle trucks on hot afternoons (although Mom had made our own in the freezer most of the time) ....getting wet with sprinklers or in small pools. In the neighborhood where I live now, the density of children has always been less during the 20 years I’ve lived here and many are in day care during the day before they start school.

Kindergarten was in a local church basement - across from the public elementary school. Both were within walking distance. Dresses were the mainstay of my school wardrobe. I had enough clothes to last between laundry days…not extra. Jeans were not the norm although I don’t know whether it was a rule or just tradition. I don’t think I had a pair of jeans at all during my first decade. Now the clothes for elementary school children usually includes jeans…and lots of other fashions that was ‘too causal’ for school in the 1960s!

Probably everyone remembers some trauma they remember vividly from their first decade even though it might not have been all that import to their parents. For me it was falling down on the boundary between vinyl flooring and carpeting when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. The carpet nails did a multi-streaked scrape across my shin. It was not deep or gaping. It did not get infected. But - I picked off the scabs several times and still have the scars.

In fact - maybe a lot of ‘scars’ we carry along with us for the rest of our lives have an origin in the first decade of life. I must have been frightened by a dog very early - I don’t remember it - but I do remember having to learn to remain calm around them and I still don’t want a dog as a pet.