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A Childhood Memory
When I was six years old, I went to Europe with my parents and baby brother for a number of months; for a large part of that time, we were in Germany, where my father was a guest professor at Heidelberg. Our friends the Seebohms, who had been in State College, Pennsylvania the previous year, had a vacation home on the island of Sylt, in the North Sea, and we visited them there for perhaps a week or so.
I was friends with Lars, a year older than I was, and the oldest child of Herr Doktor Professor Seebohm and his gracious wife. One morning, his parents sent Lars before breakfast off to buy bread, and I was allowed to go along. I might add that Lars spoke English as a result of his months in America, although I, attending the school in Heidelberg for the offspring of U.S. Army personnel, had not learned much German. Anyway, at ages seven and six, we walked some distance to the bakery, I think on a raised wooden path, and chatted with each other; then Lars bought the bread, and we walked back to the house without incident.
Partly, I’m recounting this memory for its own sake, and partly, I’m making a point about what it can be considered appropriate for children to do. In the United States these days, parents who sent their children off on their own to carry out such an errand would be in danger of being investigated by CPS, and perhaps of being prosecuted, or having their children taken away, a shift in mores of which I do not approve. Ich glaube, dass die Deutschen diese Schnappsidee night angenommen haben.
I was friends with Lars, a year older than I was, and the oldest child of Herr Doktor Professor Seebohm and his gracious wife. One morning, his parents sent Lars before breakfast off to buy bread, and I was allowed to go along. I might add that Lars spoke English as a result of his months in America, although I, attending the school in Heidelberg for the offspring of U.S. Army personnel, had not learned much German. Anyway, at ages seven and six, we walked some distance to the bakery, I think on a raised wooden path, and chatted with each other; then Lars bought the bread, and we walked back to the house without incident.
Partly, I’m recounting this memory for its own sake, and partly, I’m making a point about what it can be considered appropriate for children to do. In the United States these days, parents who sent their children off on their own to carry out such an errand would be in danger of being investigated by CPS, and perhaps of being prosecuted, or having their children taken away, a shift in mores of which I do not approve. Ich glaube, dass die Deutschen diese Schnappsidee night angenommen haben.