Re: where I grew up

[Guest guest]

Let me give you a detail or two, since it may be more generally

relevant.

When I was a young child, we lived in a multi-family unit - sort

of a rooming-house, really - owned by my maternal grandmother. She

was quite a character, and, after four decades, she had two of

these 'working-class rooming houses,' side by side, and the mortgages

to go with them. They were located in an old 'working class

neighborhood' not far from downtown, such as the old cities use to

have, but which hardly exist anymore.

Anyway, my grandma Abby provided rooms and board, and somewhere

along the way she started letting to Vaudeville people. Not the top

acts, but the lesser performers. It was quite a hoot to go next door

and visit. The Turkish knife thrower was my favorite. He use to

practice in the second floor hallway.

Grandma Abby was a history buff. She had an attic filled with

scrapbooks dating back to the turn of the century, when she first

arrived in Milwaukee from the farm. The Historical Society got them

when she died, and said they were a real treasure. The Milwaukee

Journal did several stories on her over the years. She was

a 'character' in the working class community; everybody loved her.

Late in her life she converted to Jehovah's Witnesses; god knows

why. She use to take me along when we went door to door. My mother

was appalled, but Grandma Abby was a powerful force, and my mom

thought it best to not tempt fate.

Across the street were my mother's folks. They had also lived

there a long time, and my mom and dad had known each other since they

were kids. Opa was a German-trained chef, and ended up running the

kitchen at the old Schroeder hotel. We all worked in his kitchen at

some point along the way, and when I was eight and nine, I could

always pop in there on summer afternoons for free ice cream. He'd

let me sit on the chef's stool, at the end of the preparation line.

My Oma was a stay at home mom, with three kids. She was a better

cook than he was, though you couldn't say that out load without

hurting feelings. I had a spinster aunt there, who treated me like a

second mother.

I had another aunt that lived on our block, three houses down.

Aunt Elsie. She was on my dad's side. I visited her, too, but we

weren't as close. My dad had two brothers, but only one live in

Milwaukee. The one that lived in Highland Park, Illinois, though,

had me down for two summers. They lived in the country, and my

cousin had a pony. He worked for the phone company. He learned that

trade in WW I, in France, and got in on the ground floor.

On our block, but around the corner, was another family of

relatives, and my special cousin, Chauncey. He was wonderful with

kids. He was around ten years older than me. We had a 29 inch

snowfall in the late 1940s, and he took me out shoveling snow with

him. I was tiny, and could not really help. But he made me feel I

could, and he took me home and then gave my mother the money I

had 'earned'.

Chauncey was killed in combat in Korea.

Lots of the people living around us were not relatives, but they

might have been. Mrs. Benoy was a widow with a dog I particularly

was fond of. I use to spend long afternoons a her place.

The thing is, old working-class neighborhoods like this were

COMMUNITIES. People connected, relatives lived close, friends lasted

for decades or for lifetimes. What happened to these communities?

The old Milwaukee I knew had about a dozen huge manufacturers, and

hundreds of smaller supplier factories. The city was the world's

greatest machine-tool producer during WW II. People could settle

down and connect because they had jobs that lasted a lifetime.

When I bought my first house, it was in a nearby section of the

city of Milwaukee called 'Little Poland.' I bowled at the Polish

Falcoln Hall. St Stanislaus Catholic Church and school was two

blocks away. I got my breakfast when I went golfing at the public

course at a family restaurant that had been in business over 50

years.

I was one of the FEW people in that area, I discovered, who had a

mortgage!! Most of the houses were duplexes, including mine. The

parent bought the house, and paid for it. One of the kids would go

to work in the same factory as dad, marry, and move in to the other

unit. When the folks got old, the kid and his wife cared for them.

They inherited the house.

That old Milwaukee is long gone. The factories all moved to

Korea, or elsewhere. To find jobs, people had to divide and flee all

over the country. Extended families, kin groups, friendship

networks, and communities were torn apart. People are left isolated,

and economically insecure. They may go to AA, or some other 'group',

but it doesn't replace the solidity of the old communities.

Are people more isolated now than they once were? Sure. I never

denied that - though, unlike you, I don't blame 'isolation' just

on 'bad parents'. And can what happens to people - in ANY period of

their life, not just in childhood - have an effect? Again, sure.

But you wildly overestimate the role of early life experience, and

you claim 'effects' that are totally unlikely - like fascism growing

out of Hitler's (mythical) beatings.

But, in a much more moderate and cautious form, I would be

willing to entertain some hypotheses of the type you offer. But I

want to stay rational, and I want to see proof. Your extreme

emotionalism over all this, and your tunnel vision monocausality,

marks you as an 'adult child zealot'. And that is a dangerous thing

to be.

Individual traumas, whenever they occur, can hurt people. But

traumas present CHALLENGES, and people can decide how they will

respond. And the traumas of childhood - when we can actually KNOW

what these are - do not predestine the adult. And, mostly, the

causal arrow points in the reverse direction from what you assume.

There are bad parents; but most are NOT bad. And childrearing does

NOT shape history. Instead, economics and politics flows downhill

and impacts families, neighborhoods, and communities.

YOu want to blame parents. In fact, most parents, like most

children, are victims in an unjust society.

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > Messages have not been getting through -

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > Re your comment that I have falsely accused

you of

> > > > > > > > > > interpreting 'addiction' as a biological disease.

> > Never!

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > You are remarkably consistent. Everything from

> > Hitler

> > > > to

> > > > > > hip-

> > > > > > > > hop,

> > > > > > > > > > is caused by 'bad parenting'.

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > There is a lot wrong with thinking this way,

but

> > it is

> > > > not

> > > > > > > > > > biological reductionism. And you have been

admirably

> > > > > > cautious on

> > > > > > > > the

> > > > > > > > > > issue of pill-popping our way to salvation.

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > ,

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > Yahoo does this from time to time. They do end up

> > coming

> > > > > > through

> > > > > > > > all at

> > > > > > > > > once, but maybe weeks later. Evidently, it happens

on

> > other

> > > > > > Yahoo

> > > > > > > > lists too.

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > One of the major factors influencing child

development

> > is

> > > > > > > > environment, and

> > > > > > > > > the earlier in life, the more influential. Even an

> > > > appreciation

> > > > > > > > for hip-hop,

> > > > > > > > > I wouldn't be surprised to find, is related not

only to

> > > > culture,

> > > > > > > > but to the

> > > > > > > > > music and sounds one is exposed to, perhaps even all

> > the way

> > > > > > back

> > > > > > > > to prior to

> > > > > > > > > birth. (Newborns recognize more than just voices at

> > birth.)

> > > > > > Why

> > > > > > > > is that so

> > > > > > > > > surprising to you? Have you read nothing recent

> > findings in

> > > > > > > > neurology or

> > > > > > > > > child development?

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > Ken Ragge

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > >