I remember when neighbors looked out for each other

Pepper said:
So, Barney, what's keeping you in Gary, Indiana? Why can't you move? Why is there the connect in your mind between your present situation and spanking neighborhood children in the past? Or, are you just into spanking?
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I have a stubborn husband very stubborn he isn't going anywhere. He was born and raised in a small town in Mississippi and he and his family were extremely poor. He had 5 other brothers. when they grew up they wanted a better way of life. Four of them including my husband headed up north. The four of them ended up as laborers in the local steel mill

They did up moving up the economic bracket to a much better way of life. All of these are stuck here you can't get them to leave.
May I make a correction my husband's youngest brother passed away 2 years ago, So that leaves 3 stubborn men who refuse to go they all are retired and I believe they would fare better back in Mississippi as far as peace of mind and safer living conditions and being around warm and friendly people once more. They refuse to go anywhere outside of Gary.
Only a psychologist could give a logical explanation of why they choose to stay in city that is riddled with crime and falling apart in everyway and inhabited by some of the meanest people you find anywhere in America.

I have my own theory. My husband and his brothers were absolutely poor in Mississippi. They had no running inside water their of home they had to pump their water on the outside, No electricity. No inside bathroom. Their father raised pigs and chickens on their property so there was a little food. At least they didn't starve. For Christmas they didn't get toys just a few pieces of fruit.
They all focused on school worked hard in their studies. And school was a way out for all of them.

They moved north and as I said entered the steel mills. They worked hard and purchased nice homes and never had to experienced again the poverty that afflicted them in Mississippi. I see the stubbornness in my husband about re-locating from Gary connected someway to their origins in the south. He has an illogical loyalty to this city. He sees nothing that wrong here. He is serious. No matter about the high crime rate. no matter about the city's crumbling state and no matter how bad the disposition of people here to him everything is o.k.

Now do you understand the position I am in?

If changed he mind and wanted to leave it would just a matter of a few months and we would out of here
I hope you see what I mean now.

I never focused on children needed a extra hand in disciplining by spanking until I lived here long enough to realize these kids are off the charts when it comes to bad attitudes and bad behavior. They aren't being steered right in their homes the worst of them are usually the product of a teen mom and the dad is missing from their lives to help them grow into well adjusted children.

Whoever you are please believe I never seen children this terrible until I moved here. And that is the truth. you want an example? 5 blocks from my home was the home of my best friend she told me there was an elderly couple on her block who began exercising each day by taking a stroll around the block it didn't last long because the kids on the street didn't like seeing them so they threw rocks at them and drove them back into their home. And they did the same to a middle aged plus size lady who started walking to lose a few pounds. They pelted her with rocks and drove her off the sidewalks.
Now I hope you see why I feel the way I do about this city
Thanks for taking time to read this.











Why am I into spanking kids and trying to discipline because my friend these are the most horrific children I have known rude so vulgar there is no other way to describe the children I have encountered since my stay in Gary. back when I was child the kind of behavior I have witnessed on my street and throughout Gary would have never been allowed when I was growing up. I am extending my opinion about gary Kids beyond my street,
maybe I seem mean about how I feel about them but
 

Barneyhill said:
I have a stubborn husband very stubborn he isn't going anywhere. He was born and raised in a small town in Mississippi and he and his family were extremely poor. He had 5 other brothers. when they grew up they wanted a better way of life. Four of them including my husband headed up north. The four of them ended up as laborers in the local steel mill

They did up moving up the economic bracket to a much better way of life. All of these are stuck here you can't get them to leave.
May I make a correction my husband's youngest brother passed away 2 years ago, So that leaves 3 stubborn men who refuse to go they all are retired and I believe they would fare better back in Mississippi as far as peace of mind and safer living conditions and being around warm and friendly people once more. They refuse to go anywhere outside of Gary.
Only a psychologist could give a logical explanation of why they choose to stay in city that is riddled with crime and falling apart in everyway and inhabited by some of the meanest people you find anywhere in America.

I have my own theory. My husband and his brothers were absolutely poor in Mississippi. They had no running inside water their of home they had to pump their water on the outside, No electricity. No inside bathroom. Their father raised pigs and chickens on their property so there was a little food. At least they didn't starve. For Christmas they didn't get toys just a few pieces of fruit.
They all focused on school worked hard in their studies. And school was a way out for all of them.

They moved north and as I said entered the steel mills. They worked hard and purchased nice homes and never had to experienced again the poverty that afflicted them in Mississippi. I see the stubbornness in my husband about re-locating from Gary connected someway to their origins in the south. He has an illogical loyalty to this city. He sees nothing that wrong here. He is serious. No matter about the high crime rate. no matter about the city's crumbling state and no matter how bad the disposition of people here to him everything is o.k.

Now do you understand the position I am in?

If changed he mind and wanted to leave it would just a matter of a few months and we would out of here
I hope you see what I mean now.

I never focused on children needed a extra hand in disciplining by spanking until I lived here long enough to realize these kids are off the charts when it comes to bad attitudes and bad behavior. They aren't being steered right in their homes the worst of them are usually the product of a teen mom and the dad is missing from their lives to help them grow into well adjusted children.

Whoever you are please believe I never seen children this terrible until I moved here. And that is the truth. you want an example? 5 blocks from my home was the home of my best friend she told me there was an elderly couple on her block who began exercising each day by taking a stroll around the block it didn't last long because the kids on the street didn't like seeing them so they threw rocks at them and drove them back into their home. And they did the same to a middle aged plus size lady who started walking to lose a few pounds. They pelted her with rocks and drove her off the sidewalks.
Now I hope you see why I feel the way I do about this city
Thanks for taking time to read this.











Why am I into spanking kids and trying to discipline because my friend these are the most horrific children I have known rude so vulgar there is no other way to describe the children I have encountered since my stay in Gary. back when I was child the kind of behavior I have witnessed on my street and throughout Gary would have never been allowed when I was growing up. I am extending my opinion about gary Kids beyond my street,
maybe I seem mean about how I feel about them but
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Try doing some logical thinking (for a change). Kids are misbehaving, being violent & mean, so beating them is a smart solution? How did that work out in--as you say--"Crime Ridden Indiana?" All that spanking should have made your city crime free (by your logic).

My (ignorant & angry) mother was also a raging witch who hit me. As a child, I couldn't figure out why, in school, I'd find a kid who was smaller & weaker (or handicapped) than me & beat him up. I figured it out later. I was simply doing what my mother taught me - that if you're angry & frustrated, it's OK to beat someone, as long as they're smaller than you. And even if you're not angry, hitting someone gives you a sense of power. That is what you teach your kids when you hit them.
When my mother died, none of her 4 kids attended her funeral; we were too busy enjoying the moment. And the fact that she suffered the worst thing she hated the most - being completely bedridden for her last 3 months was icing on the cake. She told me frequently, "Every night I go to sleep & pray that I die." I'd think, "Yeah....so do I."
Spank/beat your kids & they're likely to take it out on people later. As an example, in an interview, Jeffrey Dahmer's father bragged that he spanked his child whenever he got out of line. He's too stupid to understand what he was creating.
Just research the childhoods of inmates serving life or on death row. I have.
As I said, it's how ignorant parents discipline their kids.
 
OK, I grew up in Chicago. Among my social group, South Bend, Indiana, was known to be a terrible, dangerous city to live in, even in the 60's. Now, it's worse! I do not believe the OP is misrepresenting her childhood experience in this city. It's simply a case of not actually knowing what was going on in her hometown, as a whole. She had an island of bliss, no doubt, but her city was far from the paradise she thought it was, when she was very young.

South Bend, today:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/patch..../south-bend-one-worst-cities-live-study-finds
 

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Oh @win231 , don't be so harsh on @Barneyhill. she's only been with us a week, she'll start to think we're all horrible,.. let her be, to settle in and find her way around and have some nice chats before she decides to leave the forum because we're all nasty... ...

Take no notice Barneyhill..Win231, is very nice really, he's just very direct and to the point.. !! Hope you're enjoying the forum so far!! 😊
 
I may not necessarily agree with Barney's conclusions, but she is well spoken and explains herself quite thoroughly, IMO. I am also basically stuck where I am. I don't like where I am. But where I am is safe and convenient, just not my cup of tea. I would choose differently if I had the means, but really, it's a matter of taste and many might consider where I am to be enviable.
 
hollydolly said:
Oh @win231 , don't be so harsh on @Barneyhill. she's only been with us a week, she'll start to think we're all horrible,.. let her be, to settle in and find her way around and have some nice chats before she decides to leave the forum because we're all nasty... ...

Take no notice Barneyhill..Win231, is very nice really, he's just very direct and to the point.. !! Hope you're enjoying the forum so far!! 😊
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Why would I think all of you are being mean and nasty? Everyone has a right to their opinion. what has been posted to me is mild in comparison to what I have experienced over the years in other forums. hollydolly I think you are very nice. I am not offended by any of the members.
 
Suzy623 said:
There was a big difference in getting 'beat' and 'getting a spanking'. I will agree to disagree with you on this though and I hope you do the same.
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I see no reason to allow a parent to do something to their child that they would be arrested & charged with a crime if they did it to their spouse, a stranger, or someone else's child.
 
I've said many times that my parents either couldn't or wouldn't construct a reasoned argument for anything. Things were black & white - it was their way or no way, and if I disagreed, I was hit with anything that came to hand. I didn't really hold it against them for hitting me, but I could never tolerate their inability or reluctance to explain anything. Ask mother a question and her favourite answer was "I don't know". With my kids, it was "I don't know, but lets try to find out".

However, there certainly was a spirit of neighbourliness in my young days (50's), but later on this had changed to remoteness. You almost felt that you needed a letter of introduction to say "hello".

In this village it's not exactly back to square one, but people are generally friendly and respectful of one another. Some neighbours used to annoy me by letting their kids ride mini-motorbikes round the place, but as my daughter put it, you have to put up with a bit of noise because you know that if you're in trouble, they will be the first to help.
 
"Sometimes if what you did to get a whipping from your neighbor was bad enough your parents would give you another spanking. Did it hurt us kids no in long run it helped to build us into better people in our later years."

Maybe that's why I'm having all the mental problems I have at this point in my life...lol Just had to cut and paste that!:LOL:
 
But really, I never got a spanking from any neighbor. One did tell on me to my mom and I hated her after that.

I do remember the days when the neighbors were always there and were friends and it was really nice. After my dad died the entire sibling family (13 of them) of our neighbors came over and offered help to us and I thought that was really sweet of them. I didn't take any help as I'm one like that.
 
hollydolly said:
Oh @win231 , don't be so harsh on @Barneyhill. she's only been with us a week, she'll start to think we're all horrible,.. let her be, to settle in and find her way around and have some nice chats before she decides to leave the forum because we're all nasty... ...

Take no notice Barneyhill..Win231, is very nice really, he's just very direct and to the point.. !! Hope you're enjoying the forum so far!! 😊
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^^^^ Nailed it! Ya sure got my number! ;)
 
Barneyhill said:
I remember when neighbors looked out for each other and they helped discipling each other's kids. That's right I was born and spent my childhood on a street named Jefferson street in in my old hometown of South Bend Indiana. I was raised with my grandparents. They knew and befriended everyone on the block. Those were the days neighbors talked and got along with each other very well and they also served as extended families they helped to watch out for each other's children and yes they had permission to spank us if we were caught doing bad things. If your neighbor spanked you did your mom or dad get mad? Hell no! in fact if you got whipped by a neighbor he or she would step over to your house and tell your parents you got a spanking and explain why they had to do it.

Sometimes if what you did to get a whipping from your neighbor was bad enough your parents would give you another spanking. Did it hurt us kids no in long run it helped to build us into better people in our later years. I remember summer nights neighbors gathering around on our porch laughing and talking while we kids ran across lawns down dark alleys without fear because way back then crime was very low and as a child you felt safe. And we would be so happy to see grown folks getting along so well.

I suffered from occasional bouts of acute bronchitis'
One summer's night a neighbor couple came to sit with my grandmother and they prayed over me because my attack was more severe than usual I will never forget that they spent most the night with us in prayer.
It's amazing how well many American city neighborhoods were similar to ours. How well people related to each other. No matter what race they were they took time to share and communicate with each other on a positive and effective way.
All of us kids respected the older people around us. If they angered us we didn't talk back to them in a disrespectful manner. In our later years when we grew up, we remembered and praised the adult neighbors who watched over us yes and spanked us when it was needed, We knew they helped to make us better people.
Those days have long passed. Neighborhoods are different now.
My daughter called me 3 years ago and told me on her street two young boys got into a fight. A mother of one of the boys angrily walked down the block and threatened to shoot the mother of the boy her son was fighting.
Later I went to visit her she walked me outside to her next door neighbor's house and showed me how the kids on her street stuffed rags into her neighbor's down spout and had knocked down one side of her back yard wooden fence. And she showed me video she took on her cell phone showing two young neighbor boys picking up and smashing her neighbors flower planters.

Oh lord have things changed!!!!!!


Now you can understand why I praise the days of the early 1960's I am thankful to have had the privilege to live in a time when Americans practiced the fine art of living in harmony with their neighbors.

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A truly lovely post! Boy, do I ever associate with so much of what you mentioned!
 
I remember when playing as kids equated to calling everyone's yards your very own, no one put the run on you or told you get off their lawn. Gosh, I remember playing tag and hide-and-seek, and no ones yard was out of bounds, and not once did anyone every say anything to us kids.
 
When I was growing up, there wasn't a neighbour that didn't know the next, and everyone knew each others children. Had any child needed a place to go after school or because there were no parents at home, a knock on anyone's door and said child would have been taken in and taken care of. Try that today.

Having grown up in a poor home, mom would call up one of the neighbours and ask, "do you have a little extra such-and-such on-hand", and if they did, mom would hand me a measuring cup and say, "Marg, run over to so-and-so's place and get me the cup of flour or sugar that I need". Then on payday mom would replenish her supplies of this-and-that, and back over to the neighbours mom or I would to return what mom borrowed.

When it came to an emergency babysitter, all a mom had to do back in the day was call up one of her trusty neighbours and problem solved. Today, most people don't even know their neighbours.

I'll never forget the neighbours we had for their generosity either, for when it was their shopping day, they knew my mom was saddled-down with little ones, and they'd call over to the house and ask, "is there anything you need, because I'm going out shopping today". How lovely that was, and I remember the same was extended to my dad who couldn't afford a truck, yet I recall two Misters in the neighbourhood saying to my dad, "here, here is the keys to my truck, take it".

My dad never did, so said neighbours would drop-over to the house in their trucks, load up any/all yard waste we had and they'd take it away, and for nothing, and I remember them picking my dad up so my dad could buy and bring home building supplies. Everyone was always there for one another, and no one ever asked for so much as a penny.

Same went for hand-me-downs and such, bags, and I'm taking big plastic garbage bags of hand-me-downs would be brought over to our house. Thinking about it now makes me sad, but at the time I was relieved for my parents sake, because I knew they were struggling, and that the donated clothing items were a saving-grace for them. A winter jacket, a pair of snow pants, a few pairs of jeans, a few tops... all went a long ways in our home.

Neighbours didn't know how truly poor we were, because days before my dad paycheck would come, we had no food left in the house, but had any one of our neighbours known how bad things were in our home, there isn't a doubt in my mind that they would have been on our doorstep with boxes and bags filled with food for us.

I remember one neighbour used to make homemade wine, and every year that neighbour used to bring over a bottle or two of his homemade wine for mom and dad, and I recall a few times on really miserable days, being driven to school by a caring neighbour that was considerate enough to drop-in at the house on their way to work and offer to take us kids to school.

During the winter months when someone go stuck, we kids were there, we'd amass like an army and help push them free. How many times I've witnessed a neighbour in a lurch, and no one comes to their rescue.

Times have changed... how I miss the days of old.
 
I don't remember neighbours' looking out for each other' on the street where I lived , growing up in Yorkshire. I do remember they were all friendly with each other, and we always knew the names of people all along the street. They seemed to stay for years. Yes, we were a friendly bunch, and there didn't seem to be any crime around. We had respect for our elders, I know that.

And never swore ( except in secret ! )
 
Late 40's-early 50's in apt complexes, a kid's butt was community property.
Whacks with an open hand was the norm, never saw a kid (which was not their own) whacked with a switch, stick...
The worst part was you parent's would be informed which meant more whacks.

Whacks on the butt with an open hand make more noise than the infliction of pain.

Not sure when the standards changed, it was taboo in the 1970's...
 
This thread appears to trace the change of societal norms in our culture.
It is neither good, nor bad, it is just the way it was, but it is extremely interesting.
 
aron said:
I don't remember neighbours' looking out for each other' on the street where I lived , growing up in Yorkshire. I do remember they were all friendly with each other, and we always knew the names of people all along the street. They seemed to stay for years. Yes, we were a friendly bunch, and there didn't seem to be any crime around. We had respect for our elders, I know that.

And never swore ( except in secret ! )
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Same for my childhood neighbourhood.

Neighbours were long-time standing fixtures.
 
I grew up in a small town atmosphere where everyone knew each other and their kids played together. We got into mischief but we never got whacked by neighbors since we ran like hell and never got caught. If I was whacked at all by my parents it was probably more of a light tap or two which I don't remember anyway. The freakin' nuns however had no problem using the cat-o-nine tails if we screwed up. I got it once and it is traumatic for a small kid. I'm glad they are all dead. Good riddance.
 
Who can clarify this topic for me:
Nuns whacked kids with a ruler: yes or no?
No whacking with paddle, switch, stick-yes-no

Watched documentary of 'facility' for unwed mothers in Ireland run by nuns-Brutal,...
Their supposed to have cleaned up their act, but the 'facility' are 'personnel only,' so it is
difficult to get info.
 


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