Social ecology

I grew up in the safety of a middle class neighborhood, which didn't seem all that safe to me. Housewives visited each other in the middle of the day carrying coffee mugs filled with Vodka. I could hear them downstairs complaining about their kids ..and how they’d like to “..really rip into them sometimes.” However, it was usually the mothers who were not present that got to be the subject of ridicule .. spouse and children included. So, it was very important that I be raised not to be a topic of housewife gossip. But I knew it was inevitable ..they spared no one ..everyone got his or her turn on the ‘chopping block’. They knew it too ..I could feel the tension. I could definitely hear it in the grief my mother gave me. Expressions like “What will the neighbors think..!?” were often used in reference to the length of my hair or the style of my clothes. Then there was “Look, I’m not talking Little Lord Fauntleroy or anything ..but it wouldn’t hurt if you wore something other than Levis or corduroys to school everyday ..what about those nice gray slacks I bought ..how come you never wear those ..?” Because I’d be mortified, I thought. I was more concerned with what a group of vicious classmates would do than what a flock of housewives might say. Which reminds me, the expression “birds of a feather” was one of the choice clichés my mother frequently hurled at me. So, you could say I was raised on a diet of clichés and hackneyed expressions. I guess it’s no wonder I don’t have an original thought to my name.