A Happy Childhood?

What makes a happy childhood?

I have actually pondered this question quite a bit. I loved my childhood....especially the first eleven years when I lived in Iowa. Once we moved to Seattle it became a little dicey....I didn't not like my childhood then but it was certainly different. It wasn't quite as carefree or as innocent. I didn't have friends that I had known since birth. I was entering my pre-teen years.....

But what makes my childhood any better than someone else's childhood? Lincoln grew up here in Upton. As far as I know he enjoyed his childhood. And yet I look at my children and I wonder if I'm depriving them of a wonderful childhood by not raising them in Decorah. We've talked about moving there before. We once said that if either one of us lost our job that would be our sign that we should move to Iowa. Lincoln lost his job and I immediately started looking at houses online, contacting a realtor, and planning trips back there to buy a house. I wasn't entirely sure that it was what I wanted to do but at the same time I was excited to move back. Then Lincoln's company realized they had made a mistake in laying him off and they hired him back....at a higher rate of pay and letting him keep the generous severance package he had received....and the idea of moving to Iowa was dead. The next time he got "laid off" (actually his Boston office closed and he was offered a chance to work for the Indianapolis office) we didn't even consider moving because it was a bad time for us. Now that Lincoln has started his own company, and it is off to an excellent start, he has no desire to move. And I'm happy here....I love my job (most days) and I'm involved with the PTO and I have friends here....but I still sometimes feel like I'm robbing my children of the ideal childhood. And who knows what Decorah is like now. I left when I was two months shy of eleven years old. It was 1988 and now it's 2009. As idyllic as the town seems when we go back there on vacation I know it's not the same as the time when I grew up.

As hard as it could be when I was moving around while I grew up I came to value the fact that I moved around as a child. Since we always moved in the early summer, and I was a late summer baby, I always view our moves in "I was almosts". We moved from Iowa to Seattle when I was almost 11. We moved from Seattle to Arkansas when I was almost 15. I moved from Arkansas to Minnesota when I was almost 18. I moved from Minnesota to Boston when I was almost 22.

When I was in college I did a Sociology paper on the benefits of moving as a child. I felt I was more extroverted and possibly more open to the possibilities of the world around me because I hadn't lived in one location all my life. I'm glad I didn't grow up entirely in the bubble of a small town in Iowa and yet now that I'm an adult I miss that bubble. I miss the promise of what my mind has created. Would I have been happy had I never moved from Iowa? Would I be as excited about traveling the world and seeing different parts of America if I had never moved from Iowa? Who knows.

But what about my children? Are they enjoying their childhood? Are they having as great of a childhood as I remember mine being in my mind? Is every childhood a great childhood as long as it's free from abuse, neglect, and hunger? Am I doing everything I can for them to have a great childhood? I think they are enjoying their life here in Upton but I just hope every day that I'm not depriving them of the great childhood that I had. For example, every year there is a Loyalty Day Parade here in Upton where the children involved in baseball walk from the school down to the VFW. There are no floats....just the kids walking and throwing candy, and it pales in comparison to the huge parades that Decorah had for Homecoming and Nordic Fest and yet my kids seem to enjoy it just as much. Personally I think they're getting the short end of the stick but they don't seem to.

What makes a great childhood? And is their childhood great enough? If they think their childhood is great does it matter that it's not as great as mine was? What makes it great? Experience? Comparisons? Is it okay if it is their ideal even if it isn't mine?