Childhood Deprivation

 

Childhood Deprivation

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I survived a deprived childhood. We had none of the things that my great-grandchildren have today. We did have two things that my great-grandchildren do not have. We had a daily newspaper with a great-fat Sunday edition. And, we had phonics.

 I grew up reading. I don’t remember not reading. Sunday morning I devoured the comics, reading aloud to my Dad, sprawled on the floor, paper open before me. My favorite was Pogo. At five years old. At five years do you suppose I understood Pogo? At some level? Nancy and Sluggo? Dagwood? Mary Worth? I read all the words.

I read everything. Cereal boxes. Can labels. “Popular Mechanics”. “Successful Farming”. What would you like to know about raising pigs in the 50s and early 60s? Or the contents of Cheerios? I read every magazine or book I could find.

My favorite place to hang out, as I grew older and was allowed to ride my bicycle to town, was the library. By that time I had already sneaked through my Grandma’s book collection, including some on the banned book list. Do you suppose I really understood the depths of “Le Rouge et Le Noir”?

My own children never had a chance. I nursed each baby with two books close at hand. I read to them until they fell asleep, carefully put the children’s book on the table and carefully picked up my own book while I continued to hold and rock my baby, holding my breath that he or she would stay asleep. Those moments were doubly precious. Holding my sleeping babies were the only times I got to read adult fare. With a baby awake, reading goes on “hold”.

“Do you remember Friday nights when you were a kid and we . . .”   I asked my daughter, but she interrupted me before I could finish my question.

“Of course, Mom, I remember. Friday nights were the only times we were allowed to read at the table. We’d all have a book beside our plates, eating without even looking at the food. Those Friday night family eat-and-reads were great.” She laughed.

I was a mean mama. I never let the children bring books to the table except for that one night a week. The rest of the time, we ate and we talked.

When I go out to dinner with friends, the thing that makes me grind my teeth, and at my age, my teeth are precious, is that every one of them has an electronic device beside their plate and no matter the intensity of our conversation, the device rules.

If you come hunting for me when I’m out with my friends, you will recognize me. I am the one whose cell phone is at home, on my desk, but I have a real book beside my plate, open.  My current book is “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”. It’s about, well, physics. I have a tiny understanding of some of it, enough that I like the book.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 9, 2025

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