When I was a kid, free range parenting (not to be confused with permissive parenting) was the norm and helicopter parenting was considered bizarre and obsessive.
These days, helicopter parenting is the law-required norm and free-range parenting is considered criminally negligent or something.
Anyway, what this meant is that I had a lot of freedom to learn and explore on my own as a kid that today’s kids can’t seem to even imagine. I’m often having to explain it to them. On the one hand, we were given guidelines as to what we could and couldn’t do and faced scolding, restriction, a bar of soap, or even (gasp!) a spanking if we got caught crossing that line. On the other hand, we could stay home alone, walk to school, park, or the corner store, or explore the entire suburban forest near home without adult supervision. We could ride bikes or city buses all over town if we liked. We could just pop over to play at a friend’s house without any pre-arrangement either. Our parents only wanted to have an idea of where we’d be, that they could trust us to follow the rules, and that we’d be home in time for super.
We did chores around the house and garden in order to earn an allowance for some of these adventures.
Don’t get me wrong; we were required to do the chores. If we attended them without having to be yelled at, we got our allowance. If we had to be forced into it or did a deliberately bad job of it, we didn’t, so we took them pretty seriously and usually did them before doing anything else.
I must have been between the ages of 6 and 10 when my sister and I used to walk or ride a mile or so from home to the nearest shopping center just to buy little bags of candy with our allowance: Tootsie Rolls, Good and Plenty, wax harmonicas, Bottle Caps, jaw breakers, bubble gum, chocolates….
I think I was about 11 or 12 when I first took the inter-city metro bus to Seattle to take a day-cruise on The Princess Marguerite II to Victoria, BC. I don’t recall what the circumstances were except that, yes, my parents knew and had given their approval, and that I may have been traveling with a group either from church or Girl Scouts. All I remember of the trip, in fact, was that wonderful ship, and the time I spent chatting with an elderly woman I’d met onboard on the return trip. Her and I were pen pals for a few years afterward.
Today’s kids don’t have the freedoms I did as a kid. Their parents are not allowed to give it to them. There are laws against it and a great deal of oversight. I gave mine as much as I could but, given I was a single mom, being unwilling to put up with an abusive husband, I was on my own as far as giving them the responsibilities of chores and the award of a regular allowance. In short, I failed to overcome the system on their behalf. Yet they are on their own now and must, ready or not, take their own initiative.
Now I look at my kids, the kids that grew up with them, and their kids, and see a lot of overly sensitive people prone to meltdowns, nervous of exploring, terrible at creative problem solving, and often unable to take personal responsibilities on or even earn a living.
Despite all this and the fact that my own childhood seemed to last forever at the time, I have developed a view of children as being amnesiac adults relearning everything in tiny bodies.
Maybe that’s a normal view considering the eternal nature or our souls. I don’t think everyone believes in that, but I’m sure a lot of us do. I, for one, am completely convinced of it.
It could be all the documented cases of reincarnation memories of via regressive hypnosis I read about growing up, or some of my own, fragmented though they are. I know full well that I’ve been here before and am aware many others are too.
In recent years, channelers I follow on YouTube have only added to my conviction. Sure, a lot of the people they channel in are recently “departed” celebrities and news items, but not all. They speak about their most recent lives from the Other Side, but also, quite matter-of-factly, about their previous lives and sometime future lives. All time is One for them. And reincarnation cases also pop up elsewhere as more and more people – especially in early childhood – are spontaneously recalling their previous lives.
It seems as though souls are being reborn into the physical much more quickly than I ever suspected in years past. Pretty often, people are being reborn into their own previous families within a few years or even days of their previous death, sometimes even on the same day.
That last dawning realization came as a surprise to me. I used to think of reincarnations as widely spaced and maybe even rare. Instead, I now see souls moving in and out of the veil as rapidly as they please.
It occurs to me that childhood is a neutral position before the realities of life in the Physical sets in. We come in with some amnesia, usually a lot, but not always, mute in small and helpless bodies so that those who have been here longer can guide and protect us while we’re learning the ropes of this new life. It won’t be the same as the last one, which can be very confusing for those who recall too much. It will have some new rules.
I wonder if we’re giving them enough guidance to work from anymore and… hmmm. It’s strange for me now as I’m about to turn 60, how many souls have gone and then quickly returned in the small space of my life alone. Every time I see a newborn baby, I can’t stop the feeling that I may have known them from high school or even my own present family. I look for family and friends. I see the soul spark in their eyes and wonder where I’ve known them from previously.
Is that terribly odd of me?
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