Time together or Together alone?

Modern life is certainly very different  compared to that some of us can recall having had one form of entertainment cease to work properly and require replacement this week.

I think one of the big factors has been that increasingly we are living separate lives even when we say we're living together say as partners  or with our families, often in isolation in not just our own mental space but actually increasingly our own physical ones.

It's by no means uncommon to hear of families may text members about either meal times although increasingly that's no longer shared or to have snacks fixed for them ready as they emerge briefly to return in minutes.

When I was growing up the television was seen by some as threat to their way of life, taking away from things people did together such as playing games or just talking to each other with us becoming just passive consumers of that coloured tube in the corner of the room.

People didn't anticipate we'd talk about what we were seeing to each other, on the subway or at school or work so in some way you can look at it as a 'golden era' like that family in the picture, that's how we lived including for some of us the wonders of NTSC colour that was like going to the movies, except it came to you as huddled around it.

Today though we consume our YouTube, NetFlix an co wherever we happen to be and you may be watching that as someone's chatting away or playing a game which is really cool but as people we need some US time as well as ME time to catch up with each other, talk about what we've seen and done, maybe gain some perspective too.

I think it matters for all of us to try to get our modern lives into some kind of balance, sharing time with each other as well as with watching or keeping up with our friends online. Don't you?

*Extra paragraph added 2017

Team Games

One sport I liked at school was Netball

Going on with the ball under pursuit.

 She goes to score!

 Ready to throw the ball!

I love ball games running around as part of a team.

Winter thoughts

 

This time of year has this habit of reminding me of what I always was and am unable to do such as ice skating cos I am unstable on me feet, not that I hold anything against those that can as after all there are things I can do that others cannot.

A bit of it is undeniably the whole feel as you twirl around in skaters dress so elegantly as I live the feel of twirling dresses and skirts, given my gender past that's hardly surprising as what we had to wear never gave you anything comparable although shorts are better than dresses for serious hiking which I did enjoy a lot growing up.

Having passed Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween, my mind is moving towards Christmas, getting presents for people I know apart from what I may get myself of course.

Footwear in the past

There are bits about my my early school days that stick out.

 One is that all the girls had white socks usually knee length on as in that era the idea of a school girl in trousers would of been unthinkable as their parenst were only starting to demand the right to wear pants in the workplace.
The other was the 'classic' T bar shoe with a  buckle fastening as girls shoes didn't have laces except say plimsoles.

Using the hols productively

Just over two months to go before Christmas and the first full year of having a blog on here as a chunk of my mind goes back to when it was Autumn half term where after a special assembly at school, that was it as we had time off which often was focused on Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween.

 

Of course back then it wasn't all plain sailing not least when you literally lacked the language to express what it was you were feeling and why how it was they people saw you wasn't really how you saw yourself.

You wanted it different.

Yes! No more school for a fortnight and all the rules and enforced ideas about how how they think you should be not that there's anything much wrong with trying encourage us children to be kind, to think of others and do what we can for ourselves.

Can't we just use this time for something better for me?

How about setting aside some Girl Time, working on helping me dress a lot more girlie, encouraging me more to engage with and in the world of girls, maybe even find a girl or two help me learn to play as the girl I am?

Isn't this really what someone like me really needs?

Scouting and me

The one organization I'd love to have joined when I was a chronological child would of been the Brownies, the younger side of Girl Scouting but it was never to be. In fact my folks never enrolled me to any part of the World-wide Scouting movement which was a pity for although I have disabilities it wouldn't of been hard for them to accommodated me (and I'm sure if asked nicely they'd of been happy too).
This is the Brownie uniform I'd of been proud to have worn, learning more about self-reliance, serving others and improving my poor confidence at the time.

Taking the promise, one I'd of been happy to made in 1972 as I had no problem uphold the principals and pledging my allegiance.

Here's a 70's vintage uniform with  badges but can you see that oh so  1970's smiley face yellow badge. I used to have loads of them then!

Doing things Jo style

The same but different was part heading of an entry on the "big" blog that was a necessary examination of some topics before it could (and did) move on in an integrated way and in some ways this year was like that.

Different people do things very much in different ways and how people present and the kinds of gender roles and that they do can vary as indeed society itself has moved on since I was a child.

I have decided to put my feelings pretty much on the line where it comes to the variety of forms of presenting as more as a Little/Middle simply because as I see it we all do it differently and so do actual little or middle girls.

It's not uncommon for girls to wear shorts or trousers to school however much traditionalists may not so keen on it as I saw earlier on in the week where one girl of about ten living on our road wore grey long trousers to school and still be the same girl who may put a dress on whenever she feels like it. It's not one or the other necessarily.

There's a TomBoy element within me that likes in that context wearing formal shorts so I decided for the first day to wear my black ones where everything else was all girls  which I quite enjoyed as much as I liked wearing my thicker grey school dress on the Saturday and part Sunday.

My heroine, George who really is Georgina in the Famous Five novels by Enid Blyton did the same believing in challenging perceptions around what a girl can be.

They are both equal parts of the same fully integrated girl me, Jo, and I don't like pigeon holes.