::Retro Parenting
10:53 a.m. - 2004-08-04
Today I have been thinking about the whole idea of being a "retro" family. I was talking to my father on Sunday (a rare occurance - he called because his psychotic girfriend's stoner son had let him know that my sister was having some difficulties after her surgery. He didn't manage to call on his own to see how she was, but what else is new? Incedentally, I think the conversation I had with him was the spark for the moronic email I received from his whatever-she-is), and while talking to him, he kept talking about how my generation is going through a "retro revolution." He's right, in a way; things that are made with a classic look are getting easier to find, and mid-century modern is all the rage. One one hand, it's good, because I can find all sorts of neat stuff in retail stores, and only some of it is so disgustingly, cheekily "retro" that you can't stand it - they're finally making reproductions that actually look like the real thing. One the other hand, in California, it is outrageous how much is being charged (and people will PAY!) for 50s junk. $300 for old ceramic lamps. Thousands for Haywood-Wakefield furniture. It's the same stuff you'd find piled in the back of a junk store in Missouri for $20.
Anyhow, I was thinking about this, and thinking about a rockabilly couple I know that is having a baby in November and I thought about all of the repro stuff that is out there (I know what their condo looks like, and what my house looks like) and I thought that it would be completely possible, if you wanted to, to re-create your entire household (and thus, that baby's entire world, for quite a while) that would mirror any era you felt would be the "perfect" one. Your kid could grow up thinking that it's 1956 until he's five. Is that disillusioning him, though? He'll certainly be exposed to the real world once he's in school. How unfair would it be to send him to school in vintage kiddie clothes? Should you really put that dax in his hair? How horrendous would he be treated once the kids start teasing him and calling him Dennis the Menace (if they are still running that comic in the Sunday funnies, that is - I'm sure the kids won't be watching Nick-at-Nite, like I did!) How much will he hate you and how weird you are as parents once he's in high school?
Or..... on the other hand - would this be a good way to teach him the values that you feel are lacking in the world? I mean, what you wear and what your living room looks like and the dishes that you eat dinner off of probably aren't really going to change your personal values, but still...?
The idea of sending a tiny little Fonzy to Kindergarten in his tiny leather jacket and greased back hair is priceless to me, and yet, if the kid didn't like it, it sure doesn't seem fair.
I still want to get saddle shoes and make circle skirts for my daughter, if I ever have one.
Who knows how these kids will react? I guess there's no way to know until it happens. I know that when I was a kid, it was the 70s and 80s, but I was glues to Nick-at-Nite wathcing Donna Reed and My Three Sons and wanting, oh, so very, very much, to be Shelley Fabares. She was so pretty in her pony tail and her sweaters that she hung over her shoulders with a sweater chain or by the top button. It was awesome! My mom thought I was nuts. I would tell my mother all the time that I wanted to look like the beautiful ladies in the old movies when I grew up. She laughed and thought that I was cute.
When I grew up, I realized that I could look like those beautiful ladies.
When I realized that I could find men that looked like the handsome men in those old movies, well, I was really set to be toasted!
So, I married one who looked like that. :) Not to mention that we love each other so much, and the whole thing is just so real. And we live in a house that looks like it ought tohave come right out of one of those old movies. It's a neat thing.
But it's still real. I mean, our house may look like it's out of 1958, but the food we eat is real food, the clothes we wear may be vintage sometimes, but they are still clothes, the cars we drive are old but they get us to work, we work and live and exist - so it's not really like a fairy tale. I don't know if any of this is really making sense... I'm probably rambling.
Well, anyhow.
I was looking at the Restoration Hardware catalog, and they've really got some neat stuff. You can buy a reproduction 1936 tricycle for your tot for the mere cost of $199.00 plus shipping. Just beg him not to crash it into the side of the porch or leave it out in the rain!
If I really lucky and hit the lottery before SW and I decide to have kids, maybe we can afford to furnish their lives with 100% retro. They won't ever know what in the hell an X-Box is!
Somehow, that's like never telling your kid that if you put a quarter in the horse ride at the grocery store it will move up and down just like a real horse.
P.S. at 11.34 am - I guess Nick-at-Nite runs re-runs of Rosanne and the Fresh Prince and crap like that now. The good ol' shows are on TV Land. (Like Mr,. Ed. I loved Mr. Ed.) It's really easy to date oneself, isn't it? That seems like an amzingly ironic thing to say in light of the above entry.
