Remember being a Family?

I remember one of the first times, as a young adult, that I knew I had hurt my parent’s feelings, especially those of my mother.

It was one of those family holidays, specifically, a Christmas night, where the family traditionally had all been together after Christmas dinner dishes were put away and the second round of sandwiches and chips and soft drinks were in the offing… usually around 7 p.m. As a child, the time in between “dinner” and “hey, I think I’m hungry again” was spent playing with toys and trying on the rest of the new clothes that hadn’t been worn to Midnight Mass the evening prior.

That’s how it was as a child. But I was a young adult. And the government had seen fit to allow me to start consuming alcoholic beverages at the age of 18 in 1971. So, instead of staying home, I broke free. I slipped the traces. I shattered the family unit. I chose my friends over my family.

I will never forget the look in my mother’s eyes and the disappointment in her voice when I announced I was “going out with friends”. “But, it’s Christmas night”, she protested. This was to no avail. I was twenty years old and it was time I started my own “traditions”. And so, I went out.

I tell you all this story to illustrate a point being made, here in 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are being “forced” to become family units again. Dinners are being made at home, families are sharing “device time” and the ability to “get away from the Ps (as your parents were known)” as social distancing was called when I grew up, is not nearly as available. Sure, you can get out to the store, or for a walk in the park, or for some camping time in the backyard, but these are all things that you do with “FAMILY”. There is some golf for those who can afford a country club membership, but most public links are closed. Sporting events, large and small, are gone. Concerts… gone. Dining out… gone. A simple trip to the grocery store is now an adventure in not just shopping but also in preparation. You must have a mask and gloves (if you are smart). You can no longer just chat and hug and intermingle with those you see in public places. “Keep you distance” is not something you say to a bad guy any longer. It’s something you think about EVERYONE.

But is all this bad?

I was giving that some thought yesterday as I read a complaint that “I can’t go to the hair salon. Sign the petition to allow salon workers to go back to work!” (Before you start jumping on me, my thoughts are not just about women getting their hair or nails done… it is about all the other things we no longer have time to do ourselves but depend on others to do for us. It also has a lot to do with our vanity.)

We have become so very dependent on others doing what we used to do ourselves.

I remember my sisters learning to put on nail polish… and not on their toes unless it was done at a slumber party. Massages and facials were something only the rich in a big city could afford. A “spa day” was unheard of when I was growing up. The only thing my mom ever did to her hair or my sisters was getting it trimmed. Any “hair do” was something done for a special occasion such as a dance or a big social event such as being a flower girl or a bridesmaid. It wasn’t routine.

And it wasn’t limited to just the girls. Men took pride in mowing their lawns and if anyone got “hired” to do it, it was usually the son in the family who got a little extra “allowance” for doing that new chore. We didn’t have “landscaping”. My dad trimmed the trees, and we kids raked the leaves. We irrigated the lawn as opposed to turning on the sprinkler system. We opened the windows in not just the car but the house for “air conditioning” (my mom, in the summer, would open all the windows at night, cool off the house, then close the windows and blinds or drapes the next morning to keep in all that cool air. There was a swamp cooler to move the air around but that was it! And that was only in the family and living rooms.) A car with air conditioning was something, once again, only accessible to those with more “disposable income”. I don’t know how many times my forearms were burned as my parents flicked cigarette ashes out their front window of the car, only to have it land on the exposed flesh of the child fortunate enough to have an open window seat in the back!

We didn’t dine out. We didn’t do take out. We didn’t order in and have Grub Hub or whatever deliver restaurant food.  Going out to dinner was something you did maybe once a month, and it was special. Dining was at a table at a certain hour with everyone present. The TV was two rooms away and God forbid, if the phone rang during mealtime. Whomever was on the other end of the conversation had better be having a life-threatening emergency otherwise, you were about to get an earful.

We ate what was served. If we didn’t like it, well… you know. You got twice as much if you said so! And sometimes the alternative of going to bed hungry just wasn’t too appealing. I ate a lot of things I didn’t like (liver and onions being one) but it was on the table.

What I am getting at with this trip down memory lane is that because of the COVID-19 crisis, we are being forced back into habits that have been long forgotten.

WE HAVE TO SPEND TIME TOGETHER!

Granted there are a lot more distractions with electronic devices, but look at some of the suggestions being made for activities in the “Alone Together” times… read a book, watch a family movie, do a jigsaw puzzle, play a family game.

Sound familiar? It does to me! These were all things we (collectively) used to do. Before all this technology demanded all our time, (I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier) we used to do things as a family unit. We bonded. We played outside in the backyard. Our “play dates” were with our siblings. A simple cardboard box could make for hours of amusement, because we depended on our imaginations and not a “tablet” to think for us. There was more to do in our backyard than you could ever discover!

Maybe this COVID thing isn’t so bad. Then again, maybe it is. We will see in the future when we get the statistics for this year. Will there be more divorces and domestic violence because we are forced to get to know each other again? Will there be more babies? Will social distancing weed out all the things that we have made “necessary” in our lives but that really are not that important. Will we find our “roots” again as family units or has the nucleus of the “atomic family” been split apart permanently? Are we so disconnected from the simple life that we can no longer function without the technology available today?

Let me know how your doing as you and your family are forced to get to know each other again. And let me know how your mom feels now that you can no longer “go out with friends”. This may be a sociologist’s dream or nightmare in years to come.

It could go either way.