I remember when I was three, having a bath with my mother, and when I was four, leading my sleepwalking sister back to bed before she woke up and freaked out. And I remember wars with the kids down the road in which we threw stones at each other. Once, I even hid in our garage and thrust a metal bar through the spokes of an enemy kid’s bike as he roared down the hill outside our house. I had to run like crazy and lock the door to escape the wrath of his elder brother, who chased me up the path.
I remember the fruit and vegetable truck stopping outside the houses in our street and our mothers buying apples and potatoes which the green grocer weighed out on old-fashioned scales, and the ice man who carried a huge cube of ice on his shoulders up the steep path to our house and put it in our large ice box; no electric fridges in those days, or if there were we didn’t have one.
I remember watching my father sharpening the carving knife and turning it sharp side up and telling the four-year-old me to feel how sharp it was, whereupon I ran my thumb along it with the obvious bloody result. It was a painful but great learning experience as I very rarely slice myself open with knives now. In those days, if you were sick or injured you could call the doctor and he or she would come to your house. How things have changed.
I remember the six-year-old me walking up our street and being beckoned into a neighbour’s garage by their high school student son who was working on his old Ford car. He then unzipped his trousers and showed me his private parts and told me not to tell anyone. I must have thought it was a weird thing to do, I can’t remember, but I do remember telling my mother anyway. I am not sure whether she followed it up with the boy’s parents, but it makes me wonder how many young kids have experienced similar abuse. Perhaps professional advice should be sought if there are unusual changes in our children’s behaviour.
I remember the only time my father ever hit me. My friend John and I decided to ride our trolleys down our neighbour’s steep lawn, planted in citrus trees of which our neighbour was very proud. As our trolleys built up speed, we would roll off them and they would eventually hit one of the trees knocking the fruit off. The prize grapefruit, lemons and mandarins then rolled down onto the road and then to the bottom of the hill several hundred metres distant. My father was livid when our neighbour complained and he thrashed me hard on the butt several times. My mother used to chase me around our house holding a wooden spoon and would have hit me for some misdemeanour but I was too fast for her and usually escaped the threatened corporal punishment.
I remember my mother walking up our path when I was seven, holding a new baby, my brother. He was the result of a failed medical experiment, or so I was told. A close relative was a doctor who helped develop the first contraceptive pill and asked my mother to participate in early trials to assess the pill’s effectiveness. My brother was the result. Fortunately for everyone, apart from those Catholics who followed the Pope’s edicts, scientists eventually made improvements in contraceptives, which had a profound effect on women’s lives and on society as a whole.
Before my brother arrived, I remember we had a basement flat at our place which was often occupied by young women who my mother described as “having a wee baby in her tummy”. My mother had joined an organisation, with what I have always considered is a very weird name – the Motherhood of Man Movement.
It helped young unmarried pregnant women manage their pregnancy and choose whether to bring up their child or to adopt him or her out. The movement was founded in 1943 as a response to the increase in sexual activity resulting in unplanned pregnancies during the World War II years, with many Kiwi men away fighting and countless foreign soldiers here on rest and recreation. It was an alternative to the church-based organisations which often adopted a judgemental approach to pregnancy outside marriage and which in some cases denied the women pain relief during birth coupled with the mantra, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Contraception was non-existent and if ‘backstreet abortions’ were performed, they were often life-threatening. The man could walk away while the woman was left to bear the consequences of their sexual frolicking, and of course there was no single mothers’ benefit then.
The young mothers-to-be, who were hosted by families under the Motherhood of Man’s management, received food and board in exchange for helping with household jobs during which time they could see what mothering was really like. It appeared to be a win-win situation. Unfortunately, despite all its good works, the movement’s reputation was tarnished when it was revealed that the couple who ran it were encouraging new young mothers to adopt their babies out. They would then accept money from rich couples to be put at the top of the list and the money was siphoned off into the couple’s personal accounts – baby farming if you will. I think my own dear mother became a MHOM ‘hostess’ because of her own experience of becoming pregnant before marriage, and I was the result. Luckily, she didn’t need the Motherhood of Man Movement because, unlike many a horny male at that time, my father stuck around.
I remember the teenage daughter of our close friends suddenly leaving high school and going off for ‘a holiday in Australia’, the term used for girls who became pregnant and were sent across the ditch to have their wee one and adopt him or her out. The baby was often taken from the mother immediately after birth, to avoid her becoming attached and perhaps changing her mind about adoption. Anyway, I don’t remember knowing of any single mothers when I was young.
However, once the 1960s arrived things began to change. I remember, at around 14, saving my pocket money to buy my first pair of winkle-picker shoes, which were so impossibly pointy-toed that I don’t know how my wide feet fitted into them. I paired them up with some cream-coloured ivy-league jeans with leather pockets. I thought I was so cool.
We also attended dancing class on a Friday night where all the local young teens would be taught ballroom dancing so that we could go to the college ball. It was a nervous time when you had to call a girl up and ask her to the ball and have your parents drive you there. Once in the hall, you weren’t allowed outside and the teachers would prowl around in the dark hoping to catch students smoking or swigging alcohol from a hip flask. The girl would sometimes go with you even though she didn’t really like you so that she could maybe dance with a guy she had a crush on who was also there. It was quite tough being a teenager.
Now, in my 70s, I reminisce and certainly don’t envy the teenagers of today with all the societal changes they have to adapt to. In fact, apart from watching more and more of your friends kick the bucket, growing old is quite cool really. There is no pressure to keep up with the Joneses or to be a fashion statement. A beat-up station wagon and gumboots and jeans do the trick. Happy memories.
Words by Ross Liggins
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