My three-year-old plays pretend shopping: She sits by a “computer” and orders on Amazon

W

ithout outing myself too much, I’m young. I’m in the awkward space between true millennials and true Gen Z’ers, but I won’t tell you the exact year I was born because a woman is not supposed to state her age. (I really don’t know why this is; is it a boomer thing?) When I wax nostalgic about my childhood, it feels wrong, like I’m stealing someone else’s rite of passage. I’m a ’90s baby. I don’t even remember what I was doing when the Twin Towers went down; how can I have any memories of value?

But then again, I have kids, and I keep contrasting their childhood with my own. Allow me my own short walk down memory lane.

We played in forests, unattended. The very thought sends shivers down my spine. But we had huge imaginations, and we would spend the day wandering through the wondrous woods, finding treasures and fighting pirates. We’d dream of building tree houses, of forming clubs the adults would never know about. My adult self worries about me. There were ticks! And animals! Poison ivy and quicksand (true story)! Didn’t I (or my mother) learn the lesson from Little Red Riding Hood?

We explored homes under construction. Growing up in Lakewood meant there was always a new house to explore. Were there gates around the construction sites? Probably not. Either way, gates are just a suggestion, right? We would tour the homes when they were in their wooden-frame stage, imagining what each room would be. Could this be a closet? A bathtub? Oh, look, there are pipes here — maybe it will be the laundry room! The lack of railings on the staircases wasn’t a deterrent, but a challenge. I am relieved to say that we made it out of the home tours in one piece, sans tetanus from rusty nails.

Independence. My five-year-old walked to a friend’s house on a different street without telling me, and I was terrified. You can’t go places by yourself, child! You must tell your parent-figure where you will be at all times, and I will be checking in periodically with drinks and snacks. Kidding! (Nervous laugh.) I would walk myself to kindergarten at the ripe old age of four, but it was a different time, what can I say?

Screens. My children will never know the joy of pulling a five-ton box out of the closet and inserting the VCR into the machine. The way the blue screen flickered with white dots, the little ear-ringing sound the machine would make when you turned it on, how we would bang on its hood viciously whenever it stopped working. And the classics: Torah Bike, 613 Torah Avenue, The Sound of Music. (Let’s derail this section for a moment and discuss why this was a classic for children. Nazis? For real? I completely did not understand what I was watching, but gleaned that “Heil!” was a form of greeting. When my aunt visited us from England when I was six years old, guess how I greeted her?)

Simplicity. Remember when Children’s Place was haute couture? When challah was eaten with just salt, or sometimes mayo if you were feeling fancy? Remember when the coolest tech a kid could have was a Game Boy? My three-year-old plays pretend shopping: She sits by a “computer” and orders on Amazon. Her big brother is the delivery driver and brings her the requested items in his truck within five minutes. It’s cute, I know, but it just hits differently than my games of princesses and castles.

Everything was so different then. I have little snippets of time swirling around my head — Hello Kitty and Lisa Frank and Skip-Its — and my heart swells with longing for the days of yore. Bring back the paint nosh! The corded home phones! Bring back the hazardous playground equipment! (Okay, that last one is debatable.) I look at the world now through my children’s eyes and there’s a part of me that yells, “No! It was so much better twenty years ago!”

But then I order my week’s groceries without leaving my house, I see a hoverboard zooming down my street, or I speak to my friend 6,000 miles away, and I realize, hey, the present is pretty cool, too.

I’ve never had to lug a 20-ton car seat from my van to my house; the Doona came out just in time for my first baby. I have a walking pad under a rising desk so I can walk and work at the same time, along with a pedometer that counts my steps. And of course, where would I be without my Betty? I’d still be living like some archaic plebeian, heating up my pizza in an oven.

My kids will never have the simplicity that I knew, but that’s okay. Their reality is a gift, too, filled with opportunities and moments they’ll look back on and fondly call their own “good old days.”

The present isn’t painted in hues of nostalgia. It’s a different kind of magic. And who am I kidding? I am so looking forward to when flying cars become a thing.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 980)