Play - Giving Childhood Back To Children

I grew up in an upper middle income community in South Florida on a lake and many of our neighbors like us had maids and yard men, which in those days meant your family was doing pretty well. We had the nice pool that all the kids come over to in the afternoon for a dip when the weather was too hot to ride bikes to climb trees. It was a real neighborhood where the families talked to each other and watched out for each others kids. And more important kids were able to be kids and play.

Finding someone's bike left out behind our car in the front driveway seemed almost a daily occurrence. It seemed that when their mom's would holler for them to come home for dinner they would run off with their sisters or brothers and skee dattle home leaving their bikes behind.

We had the house where all the kids loved to come and hang out. It was fun. My father even built on to the house and created a game room with pool and ping pong tables to gather and socialize with our friends. It would have seemed like we had the ultimate family until that dreadful day.

My parents gathered my sister, brother and I together and sat us down to tell us their news. Dad and mom were getting a divorce and dad was moving out. That day my world changed. I went from being a happy go lucky child, not having a care in the world, to a child who felt the stress of her parent's adult world.

I grew up in that moment. I became serious. I was given a pen and piece of paper at age five and told to write down my new chores because mom was going to need extra help and many things were going to change. Boy, was I unaware of just how different things were about to become.

Childhood after that day was no longer carefree. I was told I had to grow up and become responsible. I took what they said seriously and after my father moved out I began taking on a lot of the rolls that our maid used to fulfill. I began cooking, cleaning, and being the older sister even though I was the youngest of three.

We no longer could afford the house with all the luxuries that once was ours when both dad and mom lived under the same roof. We eventually had to sell it and move to a house my mom could afford. Mom also had to get a job to support us which was tough back then for women because they made peanuts for their hard work. She worked two jobs many times just to make ends meet. There wasn't much time let to nurture us when she came home most night clasping from exhaustion.

Mom was taken to a hospital due to a nervous breakdown. I was so sad to see her in such pain but on the outside I wanted to act big and not cry so that others would know that I was not being responsible. She finally came home and returned to work but it took her a long time to recover and the scars it left on me still continue.

I went on to buckle down in school and graduate early because I thought school was a waist of time and I should get on out there and work. I missed out on many things by this sentence that seemed to have been placed on me. I am sure it was my own perception of that day that cost me like many other children, their childhood. But like so many other kids from broken homes, two parent working homes, or other hardships to where growing up in the world today surely seems certainly difficult.