Facts of life more than the birds and bees...

 Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/8-3-24

 There comes a time in every family when certain things should be discussed with children who are showing signs of leaving childhood and entering adolescence.

 

These are highly sensitive times for parents, uncomfortable times for both parents and their kids, but every responsible parent must take on the job of making sure their offspring understand some of what used to be called certain “facts of life,” some of which change through the generations.

 

I’m way beyond those years as a parent, of course, but as I move through the world, I encounter so many things that should be discussed with today’s young people that I sense are not being talked about, who knows why?

 

So let’s outline a few here, hoping that today’s parents of not-so-young kids might appreciate the insights I have to offer as a registered geezer who has seen just about everything but heard less and less, although a hearing aid helps.

 

We’ll start with luggage. Yes, luggage. Were I talking to a young person today I would come right out and tell them: “Daughter (or son) there was a time when suitcases didn’t have wheels or pull-up handles to ease one’s way through airports or other places.”

 

How did people travel? (I knew that question would come up,)

 

They CARRIED their luggage, clinging to small handles affixed to the top of suitcases. Petite women, elderly people, everyone. If they were traveling anywhere and had a suitcase, they either carried it themselves or found someone else to help them.

 

I know it’s hard to imagine that such conditions once existed, but, trust me, they did. I once carried a big suitcase through huge Kennedy Airport in New York and survived, but just barely, And I was only about 30 years old.

 

I know a couple of generations — maybe more — have journeyed through life in America (also Europe and Asia but not Antarctica) without ever being told luggage once had no wheels. Well here it is.

 

Let’s move on to another aspect of the past that today’s youth has no recollection or understanding of: The Bell telephone and telephoning.

 

Brace yourself, kids. All telephones had wires sticking out of them connected to whatever building the user was in, most commonly the home. Most telephones consisted of two parts, the “receiver” and the part you held to your ear. A wire connected them, too. (All outdoor utility poles were once called “telephone poles” inspiring the accusation, “Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire,” a reference to Pinocchio, until recently considered the greatest liar in history.) 

 

All you could do was talk on phones in those days. To call out of town, you had to connect with a long-distance operator and ask for help. Phones

couldn’t take and store snapshots or movies or show the faces of the person on the other end. Which brings us to cameras.

 

Incredibly, at one time in history, to take photographs you had to have a separate (from the telephone) instrument, a small portable device with a lens and viewfinder called a camera. Inside the camera you had to insert something called “film” which recorded the images you photographed. When the film ran out, it had to be taken to a processor to be what they called “developed” and printed on special paper. This cost money too.

 

I know this information is old hat to many readers who have been around awhile, but there are millions of younger Americans who are not aware of this history, or, if they are, never experienced it. Like when all nurses were women and they all wore white uniforms consisting of a starched dress and small white cap. Many wore a blue cape over their nursing uniform when outside the medical facility — capes of good hope.

 

Finally, of course, when enlightening young people, there’s the matter of what used to be known as the birds and the bees. That’s simple. Just tell them: “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.” 

 

Nature will take over from there. But be careful: Birds can leave a mess and bees sting.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

Sometimes facts of life are fiction...

 Written by By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune, August 22, 2020

"There comes that morning when no money shows up under the pillow replacing a lost tooth. "

There comes a time in every parent’s life when certain things must be discussed with their children as the kids rapidly approach an age when they should be told what used to be known as “the facts of life.” At least some of those facts.

 

This is an uncomfortable time for many — I daresay most — parents who have nurtured their little ones from sweet innocence when they are very young all the way to the cusp of the teenage years.

 

The realization creeps up in the parent’s mind over a period of time and is often put off longer than it should be, or not broached at all. In my own life, there were no such talks from parents — it was relegated to learning these important life lessons on the street, or, perish the thought, in an alley.

 

This is not the best way to handle it, child psychologists aver. But you can’t blame parents for putting it off because most are uncomfortable with openly discussing certain matters with their own offspring. Besides, we were Lutheran.

 

I believe it is best in families if “mom” talks to daughters and “pop” talks to sons. Being a pop, I can only reflect here what I have experienced strictly on the male side of the family.

 

There are two principal approaches to having these conversations, although it likely is not a conversation at all, but rather a lecture.

 

There is the oblique approach in which the adult drops hints to see if the child already is aware of certain things, such as the discovery of large footprints in the woods.

 

Looking backward, when I was “coming along” there was much unsubstantiated evidence that we were in danger of being invaded from outer space by little green men and, it can only be hoped, green women, scooting around the sky in “flying saucers.”

 

I remember my father pouring too-hot coffee into his saucer at breakfast and slurping it from there, so saucers didn’t seem to be much of a concern to me.

 

Now I see concern about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has risen again in America. There are rumors they are being investigated by “the Pentagon,” which is shaped pretty much like a big flying saucer itself.

 

I merely cite this as an example of the kind of thing that young people will encounter as they make their way from early childhood into those pre-teen years when there are so many questions about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and so few easy answers. Questions like, if a vampire gets you, will you have any blood left to donate?

 

There are others too. There’s that certain “jolly old elf” who seems to show up every December. How to explain that is a conundrum difficult for most parents to resolve. I must admit I skirted that one in life. Couldn’t bring myself to discuss it with my children. Let them find out in an alley.

 

It’s different with the tooth fairy. There comes that morning when no money shows up under the pillow replacing a lost tooth. The situation speaks for itself, no explanation necessary. Does any parent have to sit a child down and say, “There is no such thing as a tooth fairy.” Of course not. You just withhold the change.

 

Same with Jack Frost. Imagine how idiotic you’d feel if you awakened a child on a cold January morning when the windows are caked with condensation and told her or him, “There is no Jack Frost.” They’d laugh you right out of the bedroom. 

 

Johnny Appleseed? Don’t get me started on Johnny Appleseed. Paul Bunyan? Different story. Isn’t he from Bemidji, or is it Brainerd, or both? I clung to a belief in Paul Bunyan longer than I should have as a child, but it was that outsize blue ox named Babe that gave him away. Let’s face it, oxen aren’t blue, unless they are as depressed as they always look with those yokes on.

 

What about the Easter Bunny? I believe children are disabused of a belief in the Easter Bunny long before they admit it in order to reap more candy on Easter morning. No explanation necessary.

 

I do think, though, when doubt lingers on a child’s part the direct approach in such matters is preferable to the oblique strategy in which the parent “fishes” to see if the child already knows certain things. I’m sure Drs. Phil, Oz and Mary Trump would agree with me. Also Dr. Fauci.

 

Hence, seize the moment, trap the child in a speeding car or some other place where escape is impossible, wrest the phone from his (we’re talking man to boy here) hands, take the bull (or ox) by the horns and come right out with it:

 

“There is no bigfoot.”

 

Then let the chips fall where they may.

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.