Fun or Fuddy-Duddy?
I’m glad I had parents who took me to my first popular music concert themselves when I was just ten years old. We heard a folk group on a calm and peaceful afternoon at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville.
I’m glad that when the other families were driving station wagons and Oldsmobile 98s, Mother and Daddy were driving a Volkswagon bus. Don’t worry, it was a respectable maroon and white — not a peace sign or flower painted on it anywhere.
I’m glad that when we went to the playground, Daddy hung like a monkey from the swing posts. I’m glad we went to get ice cream after we left Granny and Granddaddy’s house on Sunday afternoons.
Being a seamstress, Mother was always aware of what was in in the fashion world — well, not what was on the runways in New York maybe, but what had filtered down to little Ashland City. When the shocking Granny dresses came out when I was in sixth grade, she bought me one — actually bought me one at a store! It was a rare treat for this seamstress’ daughter to have a dress from an actual store. Now, let me describe a Granny dress. Think cotton calico dress with elbow-length sleeves and a six- or seven-inch ruffle around the skirt, reaching to the tops of your feet. Really! Think Laura Ingalls Wilder without the bonnet. Oh, they were controversial! I kid you not. I almost got kicked off the bus when I arrived to go with my class to a children’s theater performance in Nashville on a Saturday because I had the audacity to wear a Granny dress!
The next year she bought me a pair of white go-go boots. Boots are so common now that they wouldn’t raise an eyebrow;Â but back in the day when the only boots you saw were rubber snow boots and the galoshes kids wore in Dick and Jane readers, I was on the cutting edge.
Women were just beginning to enjoy wash and wear clothing — that’s what permanent press or wrinkle-free was called back then. You could wash it and then wear it without that time-consuming ironing step in between. Double-knit polyester was not yet in its heyday, but fashion designers were experimenting with other new materials. One was paper. We heard about the coming new thing — disposable dresses — dresses, of course, because we certainly weren’t wearing pants much in public yet. Paper dresses did not catch on.
Another new material designers tried was vinyl — not just for coats, but for dresses. Mother bought me some slightly shiny hot pink vinyl when I was in junior high and I made a jumper. Boy, was it stiff. Think of wearing a dress made out of the same thing as a thick rain hat — not much give when you sat down, but, oh, it was cute with my white go-go boots.
Daddy never lost his love of fun. One time after he retired, Mother was out of town at a club convention and Daddy was staying with us. When we went to English country dance class one night, he disappeared. He must have had a hankering for coffee and walked over to Taco Bell®, because when he came back to class he had a stuffed Taco Bell® chihuahua. I’m glad I had a daddy like that.
Recently I was chatting with a woman about the difficult time a young woman we both know is having as she adjusts to being a young adult. The other woman said something to the effect of, “Ever since she got out from under her strict parents, she . . . ”
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in boundaries for children, boundaries defined by what God has told us in His word. However, I also believe in allowing children to have lots and lots of fun — but always within those boundaries.
After I wrote about hearts and husbands on Wednesday night, I thought about this concept and about using the word fuddy-duddy in a title. I was stewing on it a little more as I got ready yesterday morning. Then, late yesterday afternoon, I went to play with Mary Evelyn and Nate’s children Clara and Wesley. Mary Evelyn had drawn a game board on the driveway — a life-size game board where the players got to be the pieces. On each “spot,” the player got to act out an animal. I’m glad Mary Evelyn is no fuddy-duddy mama.
Averse that comes to mind is:
Fathers, do not exasperate your children,
so that they will not lose heart.
Colossians 3:21
I just believe that the God Who made the elephant and the monkey that Clara and I pretended to be yesterday afternoon is okay with fun. I also believe you can be a great mama without being a fuddy-duddy.
