My growing up years have very clear setting differences. Maybe that makes me a hybrid? One thing for sure it did is prepare me for how to adjust to differences in life styles and find the best things to appreciate in all of the places I’ve lived as an adult.

0- 2 years In a house in a small town or rural, low population density location in a Western state

2 - 4 years In a mobile Spartan brand (think cheap Airstream style) trailer traveling from various towns / cities within a state for dad’s work locations in Western state

4–12 years In a house 10 miles outside nearest small town. My cowgirl days - I had a pony & ran wild through the forest in Western state. Lots of neighborhood kids to play with. Lots of access to winter snow sports & outdoor activities. School & church located in the smallish rural town.

12-18 years In a house in small town, on an island, retail in walking distance. Location in PNW AK - following dad’s career.

Residential part of large city. Grass, woods, high crime, everyone played outside, took buses, or quick drive to loads of independent stores, restaurants, movies, museums. Took bus downtown for work and cultural events.

First 12 years or so, I grew up in a big home in a residential neighborhood of a large city. Very low crime rate, lots of other kids and plenty of big backyards and nearby parks to play in. We biked everywhere, although we walked a couple of miles to the nearest theater for Saturday matinees. And in my last couple of years at that location, took the bus downtown to shop or attend first run movies.

We moved (when my siblings - both older - flew the nest) and to a neighboring bedroom community. This covered my middle school and high school years but is not a fondly remembered occurrence :-(( Unless you had grown up there, and in the 'right' location, and knew the 'right' people, you were never really accepted. I have no friends still from this period but a bunch from before and after. I moved away as soon as I graduated. I still do not feel comfortable or "at home" in this snooty suburb and avoid it now that my parents have passed.

In the country, not on a farm. Spent the fist 5 years with no playmates. Only saw other children at church services. When I started to school I was shy. WWII started when I was 5. I spent the next 6 years living in a time when many of the adult males were off at war. The women and children did the work that the males had left behind. Most everything was rationed. Make it last was a slogan. Patriotism was emphasized. Movies on Satyurday were the main entertainment.

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I grew up in a densely populated big city, with 60 families in my apartment building, and 5 such buildings on my block. The place was crawling with kids, so much so , that there were kids my age who I did not know. (hard to imagine but it was). We did have a car, but that was mostly used to visit friends and family who were not accessible closeby, or for daytrips.

My elementary school was one block away, the junior high was around the corner ( my bedroom window looked out on it) and the high school was one block further than the junior high . Friends lived mostly within a 5 block radius, though some were up to 10 blocks away.

We mostly walked places. To go downtown, we would take a bus and a train.

One street away was the major avenue which had 2 supermarkets, and restaurants and general merchandise store. We lived in one building for my first 4 years, and then moved one building over to a larger apartment ( 3 BR) where I lived until I moved out as a young adult.

Standard middle class suburb. Completely dysfunctional family. I got out as soon as I could, and have never looked back. Fortunately, I was able to bond with friends and other families who encouraged self respect despite my surroundings. I attribute my successes to these relationships.

We did fun things...beach house, cabin in the mountains, camping in the summer, Disneyland, etc. They didn't beat me, and my physical needs were met, but I don't know if folks knew how to parent in those days. (1950's) They were so self centered, and I don't think they cared or even realized what a poor example they were showing to their offspring.

Sorry Elmer, I didn't mean to get psycho on your thread.

From birth to 8 years I grew up in a residential suburb in a US city. We roamed the immediate neighbourhood and played with the children in nearby houses. We had Jewish neighbours, which may have informed my interest in Jewish culture as Jews in Australia are relatively few and far between compared to the US.

When I was 8, just after the beginning of the school year in the US and just before the end of the school year in Australia, we moved to Australia to another residential suburb in a city, though quite a small city compared to the one we had just left. Again, we roamed the neighbourhood and played with other children from the neighbourhood, though as we were older we did roam rather further afield. As our house was across the street from a large public playground, we spent a lot of time there, and we were even allowed to go on the bus accompanied only by other children to places such as the cinema and an ice skating rink.

When I was 10, partway through the school year, we moved to a country pub my parents ran. The town was tiny, with 34 adults in the whole shire (county). I was the only girl my age in town. We went on a school bus to a three room primary school some 30 miles away. My teacher, who was also the school headmaster, said at the end of the year that I had already covered most of the material I would be doing the following year while I was at school in the city, so he felt I would be bored spitless if I remained in the primary school. So he recommended I go up to Year 8, which is the first year of high school here.

The high school in our little town was a Catholic boarding school, which I attended as a day pupil. Otherwise I spent my time in the country pub, either helping with the housekeeping and kitchen jobs, or wandering the historic town it was situated in, helping the local museum curator (we went on a "dig"under the cellar of one of the historic buildings and found a bunch of stuff, and when they built a new, larger museum I hand calligraphed all of the signage and the labels) and reading voraciously from the library of a well travelled woman who had been hired to restore the art works collected by the museum. She had some really fascinating books and stories to tell. Personally, I think it was a great place to spend my early to mid teens, as I had a far wider experience than I would have had if we had stayed in the city.

Due to the two moves, I finished high school and graduated at 16. Then I took a year off and travelled alone back to the US to visit relatives and, as it worked out, get over my misplaced belief that the US was superior in all ways. I discovered that Australia was actually doing life really well and so I returned, to start university studies.

Oh no, not at all hobbitmom. I appreciate your feeling comfortable to share those details and you can be sure readers took them in with understanding and empathy. I've known many people who've described similar home experiences. I don't know if our generation made better parents, worse parents, or the same. I suspect more the same than not, based on what I've seen and experienced with people I've known and with parents of my kids' friends. The bell curve of parenting ability and attention to kids may not have shifted much.

What an interesting collection of responses, thank you all so much! I hope to see many more.

From the time I was born we moved pretty much every year or less. As I got older it was longer times. I lived all over the place. I lived out of the US and various places in it. Our fall back was a farm in southern MS. That is where I lived with my Papa and Grannie. So I have lived in rural places, big city suburbs and medium city suburbs and foreign places and what ever, The schools varied and the local world varied. I feel really fortunate that I have such a varied experience in life. I am not bound by any narrow understanding of life. I love where I live now which is amazingly not so awfully far from where I was born. I chose this place from all the places I lived. It was my choice. Yeah.

I don't want to "moderate" comments but this one triggers an immediate thought I'd like to share

" get over my misplaced belief that the US was superior in all ways. "

For a number of people who visit this forum who like me have lived abroad in jobs not affiliated with the US government (ie, not with the military nor with the Foreign Service), this is oh so true. Oh so true. The best way to look at oneself is from the outside looking in. It's difficult to do with one's person as seen by others but quite easy to do when comparing countries, dispelling what turn out to be baseless assumptions and ultimately found to be myths.

I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in a large city. Same neighborhood as my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Most of the older people were all from the same Italian village and more Italian than english was spoken. I grew up thinking we were all family. It was a great place to live.

From the time I was born until I was almost 18, I lived in small town of around 8000 people on a beautiful recreational lake. It wasn’t rural itself although it was and still is somewhat surrounded by smaller livestock farming areas and a few crop farms. It was a town where you could walk many places depending in where you lived, but being almost totally surrounded by water made it difficult to get some places without a car. Our parents didn’t seem to mind taking us to friend’s houses, go to the movie theater or the pool. We had a rambling neighborhood with many homes on large hilly lots or separated by groves of trees, and we roamed it all the time, weather permitting. No one minded if we took a shortcut trail behind their house for example, as everyone knew who you were.

Mostly it was made up of local business people and the support for recreation and power generation facilities. In the 50’s-60’s began to grow a bit because of it’s proximity to a major NASA space and DoD missile development facility, so we had our share of people who chose to live there. I left for college and never really lived there again except for a short periods between college and a job and looking for a place to live on my own. It’s still a nice place to live and has grown by about 4000. We only live 35 miles from there and I still see a few old friends now and then and we have had a condo on the lake for a number of years.

I grew up in a newly built suburb on the edge of a small city adjacent to farm and ranch land. We were in the rural school district rather than the city school district so I attended school with the children of farmers and ranchers and with middle class kids from my neighborhood and a couple of adjacent neighborhoods. Our schools were integrated racially, but the neighborhoods really were not. The city was bigger than a small town, but not urban in the way you think of Los Angeles or Philadelphia. We were able to walk to a small neighborhood market and to elementary school, but had to ride a bus to middle school and high school. Many of us spent all 12 school years together. The quality of the education was average.

I left the area for college and my parents moved to another part of the city around the same time, so I've never been back.

Have you looked up your childhood home on a real estate site or Google Earth? I was surprised to see the wooden fence that my parents installed was still standing all these decades later.

Small town, ~1,600 to ~1,700 population across the timeframe. Nearest large cities 35 mins one direction (typical shopping destination), 60 to 90 mins the other direction. One "public" school comprising 1st to 12th grades. The Catholic elementary school, 1st to 6th grades, closed after I finished 3rd grade. My 3rd grade teacher was one of my 5th grade teachers. One grocery store, a couple convenience/drive-in stores, one pharmacy, one bank, one clinic (w/3 MDs), one hospital, one movie theater. Dad and a partner owned/operated a very successful small business from 1958 to 1983, later bankrupted by the fellow (2nd partner for a few years before the sale) who bought it from him. Dad died a few years ago. Mom still lives there in the house they bought more than 40 years ago. One of my sisters and her wife decided to get out of the Metroplex in preparation for retirement, moved in w/mom last year.

Residential neighborhoods in a major California city was where I spent my childhood. I was unaware of the immense changes that were taking place in a relatively short period of time as DOD monies poured into the area for aerospace research and development. (The soundtrack to my childhood was comprised of sonic booms.)

One family home was built by my father on land that was once a walnut orchard; the next one where my mother remembered fields of lima beans. Farm land and citrus orchards were being sold for new homes as the city’s sprawl continued, and population increased.

I remember a teacher - must have been in the 7th grade - asking how many of us had been born in California. Less than half the class raised their hands. So many of my classmates had fathers who were engineers, a profession that mystified me, and who worked in aerospace.

Proximity to beaches was an important part of my childhood, and young adult years, as well as seeing Malibu periodically burn. The Sunset Strip was a constant allure during my teens, as well as the possibility of attending a nearby university.

Family lived nearby, and visits were frequent. One memorable event was the visit of some of my father’s aunts from Italy, their first trip to the U.S. and California. Now knowing their way of life at home, they must have been shocked by our homes, styles, and to them, abundant material possessions.

I was also introduced to class differences in high school as kids from a wealthy area joined the middle class students of my middle school. This continued during my university years as well.

I grew up in a small town and walked to school in all 12 grades. It was an idyllic childhood where my friends and I had the run of the whole town. I lived on Second Street, one block from Main Street, which had a great variety of wonderful stores. We could go to the five-and-dime stores across the street from one another, or swim at the Y or read movie magazines at the News Center. The beautiful movie theater got new films every week, and it was 21 cents if you were under 12. I was tall, and they always questioned me. On our bikes, the "country" was just blocks away. My best friend's father was our doctor, and they had a maid who would pack us lunches to eat by the creek a mile away. Our parents had no idea where we were or what we were doing. Just imagine that today. Sadly, downtown today is a ghost town, and that carefree childhood life probably doesn't exist anymore. I left for college and never returned, and I would never live there today, as it's very conservative and has none of the places I shop or good restaurants I'm used to.

Grew up mostly in large cities, in and out of the US. Paris, New York, Vancouver, L.A.. A couple years in Northern N.J.. Moved every few years. I was riding the metro on my own from age 5, riding my bike in downtown traffic from age 7. Pretty much a loner, only child, latchkey kid. Made friends but left quickly. Did a huge amount of reading. Lots of food around of all cuisines, ate lots of ethnic food. Definitely an urban upbringing. Never had much exposure to “nature” unless you count a city beach, local park, or vacant lot, until college when I started skiing, later backpacking and fishing.

Grew up in the 50s in a big, working class, urban environment just a subway ride from NYC. My family often went into Manhattan for shows, restaurants, shopping, etc. We were financially comfortable, though certainly not rich and we lived in a row house. (Google shows that the street is essentially unchanged even 80 years later.) Neighbors were Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish. Big high school with same ethnic breakdown with about 1/3 Black as well. We all got along great--complete mix of people on school activities, sports, student government, dances. There were two full time Black teachers and one substitute who was there quite often; I am the only white person my age (just turned 81) I've ever met who had Black people in positions of authority over them during those years. It made me a person who believed that racial/ethnic mixing was simply normal life.

We spent summers very differently in a rural area of upstate NY where we three sisters roamed the fields of the old farm, swam in a small man made pond, and for several summers went to a day camp a few miles away. We had no television at our summer place--parents' decision, and we never missed it. Those summers gave me a love for the country that never left me, so much so that I moved back to the land in the 60s and have never left the rural life.

There were two other houses on the old farm, the originial farm house and a small house built just off the long entry lane, used like ours in summer and spring/fall weekends. In the farm house was elderly writer and feminist Dorothy Dunbar Bromley Walker at whose house I spent hours on rainy days reading my way through her bookshelves. One summer we read Shakespeare's plays-she let me pick the ones to read and take the best parts. (I think back on it and can't imagine the patience she must have had to listen to a 13 year old reading Mark Antony's and Juliet's speeches.) The other little house was owned by Judith Crist, the movie critic. Our families spent much time together during those summers, and among the visitors to Aunt Judy's and Aunt Dorothy's (not really aunts but our parents taught us to use those terms) were several movie actors, a couple of moderately well known writers, and once, the ambassador to the US from Burma who wore native dress and fascinated us three little girls.

Grew up with a field on each side of us, a big wooded area behind us, and one house across the road. Not farm country, but not nice, curbed residential.

We all rode our bikes on the gravel road in front of our houses. Remember playing cards on bicycle spokes? We had more fun mowing the field beside us, and having a huge softball field all summer with the neighbor kids. The Boy Scouts came and camped in the woods behind us. We played in those woods a lot. About 2 miles away was a NEW grocery store and gas station. We loved walking there and getting a bottle of pop.

I got to have 4 baby ducks from the feed store. When they got pretty big, I could not get them in the coop at night. One night I cried and cried, cause I could not find them. I just knew a fox would get them. THe next morning my mom informed me the ducks had roosted on our house roof and she was NOT living on a farm anymore. The ducks were moved to the farm. Sad

A friend of my dad brought me a baby raccoon. Bottle fed him, and fed him canned cat food. Never caged him up. He would come running from the woods when I tapped the can with a spoon. Then he became more interested in lady raccoons and I rarely saw him. Occasionally he came looking for cat food.

My early years were spent on 20 acres in a rural area where the nearest small town was 6 miles away and the nearest small city was 20 miles away. We lived next door to 3 other homes of my mother's siblings. These homes had 8 other cousins that we joined for work and play. Our times were spent roaming the woods and fields, playing cowboys and indians, swimming in the field pond, having sleepovers, walking to the country store, working in our vegetable garden--happy days with two siblings and great parents, a truly idyllic life. We had few worldly goods but everything that was important.

I grew up a bit similarly to Sweet Betsy. We lived in old farmhouses owned by farmers who hired my dad as a laborer. We moved 13 times before I graduated from high school because dad’s job was pretty seasonal. We lived in the midwest, outside very small towns.

Mom didn’t work outside the home and didn’t drive, so us kids were stuck on the farm. None of us ever participated in school sports or activities. No way to get there, no money to pay. We all went to town together on Friday night after dad got paid to get groceries. If there was a bit of change leftover (rarely) we stopped and got soft-serve ice cream cones for 5¢ each.

The first time I saw a black person in real life (close enough to speak to), I was in 7th grade because we had moved to a school district that was not totally Caucasian. And when I saw someone on a tv sitcom say they were going to fetch a phone book to use as a booster seat, I thought they were kidding. The only phone books I had ever seen were 1/4” thick.

Obviously we were very, very poor. On Sundays we visited some of my mom’s relatives and once a year we took a trip to our grandparents’ house in another state. All were just as poor as us.

I spent my first 18 years in a tedious Midwestern town of about 30,000. I think I knew from the moment I was born that I wanted to leave. My parents were loving; my father made a very good living; my mother was the one who baked cupcakes for my class on holidays. But I was miserably depressed and never felt, or wanted, to fit in. No idea where I wanted to go to school, just that I wanted to move. I did well on my SAT and was recruited by Ivys. Instead, on a whim, I chose a Southern state university, thrilled that the weather was warm and the campus was bigger than my whole hometown. Gradually I moved to bigger and bigger cities. The bigger the were, the happier I became. Today I live in NYC. Not a day goes by that I don't pause and think about how lucky I am to live here. I'm just not good at small town living. I need the pulse of a city to pump my blood. My family all left that Midwestern town years ago. Over the past 5 decades, I've visited it five times, for funerals.

grew up in the suburbs back in the day when i got together with friends and stayed outside playing until the street lights came on. no cell phones, no computers, no worrying about being snatched off the street, i feel bad for the kids these days who don't enjoy the freedoms we had in the 50s.

I grew up in the suburbs of town about half an hour outside of Detroit, Michigan. A safe suburb near the lake and woods. I was just a typical kid with eight sisters and brothers, and many neighborhood kids our ages that we played with outside every day. My parents, were absolutely wonderful and very much liked by everyone in our neighborhood. We had a pool in our backyard, a basketball hoop out front, and a pool table down in our finished basement. Our friends loved coming over to our house to play because they were always welcome. My parents didn’t interact with us kids when we had friends over but they did sure keep an eye on us all! Dad was a banker and worked in Detroit, and such a great dad. Mom was a stay at home mom and a tomboy like me, which made her such a fun mom. As a tomboy, I had a lot of friends (& siblings) that I rode bikes with, explored the nearby woods with, and play basketball, softball, rollerskated with, and in the winter, we ice skated in the outdoor pond just down the street from us. My family was very close with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They all lived near us and we got together all the time. Our neighbors were very good people, and we all got together with them as well. We had a family summer house on the shores of the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair. There, we would swim in the lake, catch polliwogs , build sandcastles, boat and have bonfires in the evenings. It was truly a wonderful way to grow up. And, although I now live across the country from most of my family, we’re all still very close and visit regularly.

Such a widely diverse group. Each mostly unique and different from others. I hope more will contribute. I know there's a group who are enjoying reading but don't want to be seen participating. It's not because of their shyness. It's childish and too bad, eh?

I grew up in a large neighborhood in a college town. Our house was on a street that backed up to a wooded area, so we would often have fun outdoor adventures exploring. Nothing as far as businesses were in walking distance, but were still a very short drive. It was mostly families that lived in that neighborhood, there was a country club and a golf course on the "other side" of the neighborhood. We were not members, though I think I can remember my oldest brother working there in his teen years. Doing what I do not know. It was nice. Everyone was friendly enough but tended to keep to themselves.

Returning to that neighbothood to visit my parents is sometimes a bit sad. The residents there have all aged, of course, and the homes and yards in some areas are not as well maintained as they used to be, though there are no eyesores or dilapadated homes or anything like that. But lots of them just look, i dont know, shabby I guess is the word. My parents home is not one of those properties.

I grew up in Alaska (before statehood) and lived there for most of my life. I still consider it home, even though we live in New Mexico now. Alaska was a great place to grow up, although we were always a few years behind the times--which was not necessarily a bad thing! It was also a wonderful place to raise our family-very safe and adventures galore! Other places I lived as a child: Peru for 5 years (age 6-11) and central Washington state for a few years from age 11-14.

The first 4 years of my life we lived not far from the zoo. I could hear the lions roaring at night. That summer we moved to the "city" which really was just a neighborhood farther from the downtown. At that point I met most of the children I went all through school with, from kindergarten through high school. There is a small group (now that I live back here) that still gets together for birthdays. We have known each other for 70 years.

During the grade school/high school years, like others here, we ran the neighborhood, played in the woods, went to the local stores for treats. I'm Catholic and most of my friends and their families were all members of the same parish. It was a great education. My dad first worked in the main post office downtown but later became a supervisor for the substation in the neighborhood where I was born. My mom mainly stayed home although from the time my younger brother started grade school, she was the head of the cafeteria. She knew all the moms and made many friends there and it meant that she was home by the time we came home from school. There is 22 years difference between the oldest and the youngest children in my family. I am second to last. My parents were in their 40's when first I and then my younger brother were born. My oldest sister was married and had her first child before I was born. She and my mom were pregnant at the same time when I was born and my nephew was born and again when my brother and my niece were both. I have/had two sisters and three brothers. There are lots of nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews and now great greats. I only have my younger brother still alive.

I want to talk about something Elmer said above. About the importance of seeing things from the outside in. When I was growing up, everyone looked like me and we all had the same basic life experiences. A couple of years after high school, 3 friends and I decided to move to San Francisco. It was September, 1973. We bought an old van, packed up a few things and left town with about $250 each in our pockets. Our parents were amazingly understanding about our doing this. We promised that one of us each would call home each day so that they would know we were ok. We drove north through Detroit into Canada and then drove west to the coast. We camped every night. We actually met other people making this same trip. We went mostly from one National Park to another though sometimes camping in KOA if no park was within driving distance. Canada was spectacular. Quebec City, Toronto, Montreal and staying in the parks there. Their national parks had shelters and as it was fall, most were closed for amenties but we were still allowed to stay in the shelters. We would meet up with other travelers and end up sharing dinners, hearing their stories around a campfire. We spent 3 months going all the way to Vancouver Island, then through Washington, Oregon and finally into California. Having met so many interesting people along the way was perfect introduction to San Francisco. So many people were from somewhere else. I only knew a few people who had been born there. Oftentimes, walking down the street, I would hear many different languages being spoken. And finding a job and working was such an adventure. Making new friends, learning new cultures. The weather was almost always perfect or at least predictable - there actually was a rainy season that you could count on. After 11 years, I moved to Baltimore and lived there for 14 years. That was a wonderful time as well though a bit different. Baltimore is an hour drive to Washington DC and even a fairly quick train ride into New York City. So many cultural possibilites opened up to me. I also got my college education at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, which is now a University. I first signed up to go to Towson University but when I saw the huge class sizes, I knew it was not for me. The small classes and close access to the professors was perfect for me. They had established a Weekend College there and I took classes on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays. It was perfect for the working adult. It took me six years but I graduated with honors. It's a Catholic university and I felt at home there. My boss at the time gave me some great advice. He said that time was going to pass whether I pursued my degree or not. He was right and I made great use of that time.

All this to say that Elmer is right on about getting out of your comfort zone and leaving to find the unknown and the different ways of life and making friends with people you would never have found "at home".

I did move back home in 1998 because my parents were in their late 80's and my oldest sister was doing the bulk of helping to care for them. They lived on their own with my mom caring for my dad who had alzheimer's the last 3 years of his life. After he passed, my mom came to life with me and we had 2 fun filled years together. She only spent one week in a nursing home before she passed. It was an honor to be with both of them as they passed on. It gave me a different perspective about death and as such I have no fear of it. I will be 75 this year. I am enjoying life to the best of my ability and I try to find goodness wherever possible. I am a very positive person and I have a lot of friends and I have a number of nieces and their families around me. My younger brother lives in Oklahoma so I don't see him but we do keep in touch. For me, friends are almost more important than family. I have been blessed to have both in abundance.

I have really enjoyed everyone's stories. So varied and so interesting. Thanks for sharing your lives.

The US.

I've lived in the Northeast, the South Pacific, West Coast, and Southeast. Seem to be missing the Midwest? Guess there's no ocean there 😉 or my family (which is how we ended up back in Nashville). Pretty much raised free range. And taught my child to do so. Give them the parameters, and enough rope to hang themselves. She seems to be reasonably well adjusted. And I'm doing pretty well, so I guess it was a good way to live a childhood. I think the biggest factor influencing my childhood (which has translated well in my adulthood), was interacting with international people, all day long everyday. The military is good for that, but it also helps having lived on the West Coast. That's a large cross-section of people. A lot of Asian people, and a lot of Mexican people immigrate there. It has kept me grounded and humble, understanding that everybody has some sort of thing that makes them happy and some sort of thing that is difficult to overcome. People are people everywhere.

rob, I appreciate your contribution, as I do all of them. But from other things you've said in the past, I think you're embellishing things a bit.

You've previously mentioned living in Hawaii, yet just above, you say "South Pacific". That's perhaps a different location, because being north of the Equator, Hawaii is not in the South Pacific.

You also previously mentioned that your West Coast time was similarly during some of your childhood years because of a parent in the military. As a kid, your surroundings were likely less influential on you than if your presence had been as a college student or adult. .

I was in the military myself. I've been to a number of bases in the US and about a handful across an ocean, both abroad and in Hawaii, and they are anything but diverse.

For a long time, the military has been disproportionately composed of people from the South, the Midwest, and from small towns. They bring these cultural vibes and insular attitudes to military communities everywhere, even in foreign countries. Military communities seem like little towns transplanted from Midwestern or Southern parts of America.

Anyone else getting popcorn about now?

🙄

eld6161 , you found your way to the thread. How about sharing your contribution to the topic?

Well Elmer please ruin your own thread.

Now a good deal of my travels was because of a military dad and we always lived off base so we lived in what ever was the local community so your understanding of growing up military is wrong. In the Philippines we were raised free range like Rob and even though the housing area was primarily American just outside the base we hung out with local kids, ate their forbiden foods and chewed their weird gray chicle chewing gum. My brother picked up a particularly nasty rash from our riding water buffalo with the local minders. Boys who rode around on the family animal and took it places to feed. Our favorite Kalesa driver Joe took us out into the countryside to visit with friends on farms. It seems you moved around an awful lot in your brief military stent. Maybe you just didnt get a chance to get out of the base orbit yourself so assume it was like that for everyone? A particular specialty makes a huge difference in how much of your local community is also military.

I debated joining in on this and had been very much enjoying people's stories but this is why I have to debate taking the risk of commenting on an Elmer thread.

Patricia, your comments and thoughts are as valuable and welcome as any other. I don't see threads as belonging to anyone, the originator starts a conversation hoping to trigger further conversation and comments and that's that. Comments about comments are what conversation is about. A conversation with only the same, cookie cutter views and experiences are boring.

I've found some to be surprising, most very interesting, some have been even shocking. Some I might have liked, many I definitely wouldn't have, I'm sure that's true for others too. I've enjoyed the wide diversity of experiences and adventures people have shared.

People can experience the same reality and come away with different impressions. That and an interest in focusing veracity was what my comment I think you refer to was about. I think you've disagreed with me in part, your generalized take aways about the military and the military culture as a child (apparently in whole or in part) were different from mine as an adult. Maybe that's why, maybe not. No problem either way.

I was actually referencing your comments to Rob Elmer. You are dismissing her experiences. Icant imagine why as they mirror mine. I completely disagree with your idea that local communities dont have major impacts on kids. We did not live in a bubble. Some kids do. Too bad for them but they seem to learn this from their parents. I always thought it was the GI's who were missing out and less likely to interact with locals except at the local bar that GI's went to. In any case I will pit my years of military experience which started when I was born as I was born in a military hospital and delivered by a Captain against any average guy doing his stint. I couldn't get away from it even in college as we had an enormous national guard camp near by.

@murraysmom Zone 6a OH

“Having met so many interesting people along the way was perfect introduction to San Francisco. So many people were from somewhere else. I only knew a few people who had been born there.“

Moving just a few miles away from my childhood homes, I encountered so many from different countries. Hearing foreign languages is just part of the social fabric in my city, and honestly, I feel a bit lost when we’ve traveled to places that present as typically “American,” that is Anglo.

They say that in general Californians are more disposed to accept new ideas by nature of so many transplants and immigrants here - who by definition accepted the idea of moving elsewhere to start a new life.

There have been a few times when as an adult I’ve found myself with a group of native-born Southern Californian friends of a similar age. I’d say that, ignoring weird stereotypes by outsiders trying to define us, we’re recognizable by a certain sense of humor. At least my generation recognizes that in each other.

nancy, being around all those different cultures was eye opening to me and I came to embrace it all. It was all so very different from where I came from and how I was brought up. I loved it. Mind expanding. :)

patricia, I don't need to bore myself, you or others to list the experiences I had during several decades of exposure to the military. As the son of a retired officer with base access privileges as a dependent, with my own access as a service member, and visiting friends and siblings of friends serving in the US and on bases abroad. Back in the days when bases and living quarter areas were more easily accessed than since post-9/11..

But all as an adult or near adult, none as a child or a child of a serving service member. I was most certainly on the outside looking in, which murraysmom described so well as being important to be able to see. You were on the inside looking inside and looking out, a very different perspective. Differences that don't need to be reconciled or resolved .

I was referring to your comments, when I said (repeated from above)

" your generalized take aways about the military and the military culture as a child (apparently in whole or in part) were different from mine as an adult. Maybe that's why, maybe not. No problem either way."

I have lived in this small ( 4000 residents) for almost all of my 75 years. This area is made up of many small towns with large cities 150-175 miles away. I always knew most of the people in town because my friends and I walked everywhere. Everyone was mostly lower middle class with working fathers and stay at home moms. We ran around with all of the kids in the neighborhood. No one got in trouble, we made our own play, adults knew who we were, etc. We never traveled anywhere because families could not afford it.

I graduated from a college about 30 miles away, and paid every cent of my education costs. Obviously my parents knew I was there, but they really had no idea of what I was studying. i met my husband at a bar ( I don’t drink and never did). He grew up outside of Pittsburgh but he loved our more rural area, so here we are. Our daughters went to a large university and both now live in cities.

We have been fortunate enough to have done a good bit of travel over the years and especially love London after traveling there often while our daughter and family lived there. We also have a second home outside of Pittsburgh ( near to one daughter). We are 75 and 77, so we know that we might have to move there as we age.

I was born and mostly raised in central Arkansas. Rural living mostly unless my mom was in the middle of a divorce (happened twice before I was a teen) and we lived closer to Little Rock and work for her. I was the eldest and had 3 brothers that I cared for from about age 8. We also were able to play with neighborhood kids until 'dark' since we lived outside of street light range. I remember Halloween where someone's dad hauled us around for trick or treating in the back of his pickup truck, good times in the 60s! I left home at age 16 to reinvent my life and visited many US cities, finally settling in Texas, where I've been for about 45 years. I met some wonderful people in my journey, a few really awful people and so many insincere people. I'm very selective about who I bother with now. Few people are worth my attention.

Way to go, killing a thread, Pam! Sorry for TMI.

I thought what you wrote was exactly in line with what everyone else was writing . There wasn’t any TMI it felt real, every word. c

" Way to go, killing a thread, Pam! "

Not hardly. I thought yours was one of the more interesting ones. Thanks!

It was winding down before you came along.

Looks like I missed Pam's response. It seems to have disappeared. Who is Pam?

Pam was commenting on her own post, She is also pkponder.

Ah, thanks, bpath.

What was known as a bedroom community back then. Where kids played out in the streets until the lights came on. Backyards were fenced but mostly shared among the neighborhood kids. Large front lawns were where we played, as well as the street. Gates were unlocked and we would wake each other up to play in the morning by going in the backyards and tapping on bedroom windows. We went to neighborhood schools within walking or biking distance. We had fields and orchards everywhere. Had a creek nearby to fish and swim in. Post world war 2 single family homes on lots that would be considered large by today's standards. Most mothers stayed home and if we were at someone's house during mealtime we were often fed there. Always fed snacks or when food was being cooked. It was genuine it takes a village parenting back then. We were working middle class but we had a 30x20 built in backyard pool my dad put in himself short of having the hole dug. A neighbor who was a fireman filled it for us from the fireplug on our street. So many memories that pool brought. We also had a nice fish pond and a turtle who lived there. The pond had a short brick wall on two sides. Every warm weather day that turtle would climb that wall, drop down into the flower bed then down the short brick off that onto the pavement. Made a straight beeline for the pool which was mayve 15 feet away. Plunk into the pool. Stayed there at the bottom of the deep end next to the drain. Before sunset each day I would dive down to retrieve her and put her back in the pond. Rinse and repeat. Silly turtle. Did it for years. Before moving there we lived in a San Francisco flat. My dad had remodeled it into 2 main living quarters and a little granny cottage in the back.

"Silly turtle." Love that, wildchild. All of it.