I had a privileged childhood

We've all heard about the baby that was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Well, that was not me. But I did have a very privileged childhood. I was privileged to have had nine parents.

Two of them were called Mama and Papa. The other seven were my seven older brothers and sisters who guided me, bossed me, included me, taught me, played with me, shared with me, maybe very rarely argued with me, and were proud of me.

I knew more about many things than some of my friends because of my siblings' special interests which were shared around the table and in conversation. I became acquainted with young people much older than I was through the friends my siblings brought home with them.

Later my family increased as marriages brought extended families into our family circle. I learned to love my Scotch-Canadian in-law's family along with the Hungarian, southern, northern, and Ozarkian ones. Before I was fully grown myself I enjoyed these different cultures that came into our midst.

I was privileged because we only had one car in our large family. That meant that my sister Ellen and I walked the mile to school in Washington, D.C. together until I was in the third grade. Then she went to Junior High and I walked by myself.

But I learned to enjoy the walk, and soon made friends who were going the same way. I became acquainted with the dogs that were penned by an alley that I cut through. I watched for a certain flowering hedge to bloom in the spring, and even found a dead blue jay that I proudly took to my teacher.

Another benefit of having only one car was that I could ride along with whoever was on an errand. I remember several serious conversations with brother Ralph as I rode with him to go pick up his girlfriend, who was later his wife.

If anyone was coming in by train, I could join the welcoming group as we drove to the Union Station. Since our car did not have a trunk I wonder now how we fitted in the arriving relative or guest, luggage, and all the greeters.

One more plus of the single car was that Ellen and I rode our bicycles everywhere. We went to the grocery store, to our friends' homes, and to see if the wild strawberries were ripe yet in the field back of our residential area.

On the farm in the summer we would ride our bikes or walk to visit friends, to buy our daily gallon of milk from Mrs. Welty, or to figure out complex ways in which we could ride three people at once on one bike. (I usually ended up on the handlebars.)

One of the biggest privileges I had was space. In Washington, our lawn was very big, our friendly neighbors' lawn was even bigger; there was a vacant lot across the street and a triangular park cattywampus across the street.

We lived on Western Avenue, which wasn't even paved all the way through at that time, so there was little or no traffic in front of our house. Behind our house were fields and woods. On the farm of course there was plenty of space also. In addition to our own farm, our neighbors were all like family in that we never felt hemmed in by anyone except one misunderstood German man we made out to be someone to fear.

So with all that space, lots of family and friends to do things with, the biggest benefit I had was freedom. I always told my mother where I was going and unless there was a chore that she wanted me to do, she agreed. I had to be home in time to set the table for our six o'clock supper.

If it was an after supper excursion of some type, I was to be back in time to be in bed by nine o'clock. In between that time it was up to me what I would do. I was always conscious of not wanting to disappoint my parents or any family member, but that left a big leeway for me to decide what to do. Sometimes I just sat on the front steps, or out on the swing, and daydreamed. Other times I headed to our secret clubhouse to be sure no one had disturbed anything inside.

Often I wanted to just stay wherever the family was and listen to the conversations and jokes.

But it was my choice. What better privileges could a child have than a loving, creative family, space, freedom, and the right to make choices? I am very grateful that I was this privileged.