When I went off to college I encountered an entirely different strain of Dutch.  The only Dutch I was accustom to was the West Michigan Dutch.  However, there are pockets of Dutch communities in other parts of the country such as South Chicago and Northwest Indiana, parts of California, Montana, and New Jersey.  My exposure to the Chicago land Dutch opened my eyes and made me cognizant of the fact that not all Dutch people are the same.  This was discovered when I was talking to my girlfriend who hailed from Lansing Illinois and I told her about how we only heated a couple rooms in our house.  She actually laughed at this practice and thought my family was crazy, she was right, but there were a number of other reasons we were crazy beyond our desire to only heat 400 square feet of our house.  The refusal to heat the entire house made existence a struggle during the winter months.  My siblings and I all had electric blankets.  For those of you who haven’t had to depend on electric blankets for survival they are similar to a heating pad, but they cover your entire bed.  In order to make the transition from frozen bedroom to bed one would have to plan ahead and turn the electric blanket on roughly ten minutes prior to bed, similar to heating up your car before you drive away.  Sometimes we would leave our electric blankets on all day either because we forgot to turn them off or we didn’t want to forget to not turn them on prior to bed.  Either way, if our parents discovered this we wouldn’t hear the end of it.

I’m not certain if my parents chose to heat our bathroom, but even if they did, the heating vent was the size of pocket comb and wouldn’t be able to warm up a dollhouse let alone an entire bathroom.  This was problematic for a couple of reasons.  One problem was that it was a bitch getting into the shower and the second issue was that you never wanted to get out of the shower.  My parents would also turn the heat down to about 32 degrees at night so that in the morning the entire house, not just our bedrooms, was an ice box.  I will always remember getting out of bed and sitting in front of the heat register trying to keep from suffering hypothermia.  Obviously, it went the exact other way in the summer,  we didn’t have air and had to rely on window fans to stay cool.  Guess what? blowing hot air from outdoors to the indoors isn’t an effective way to battle the oppressive summer heat.

Temperate comfort wasn’t the only thing I was deprived of as a kid, my parents refused to spend money on suitable transportation.  My dad had a chevy citation for a significant portion of my formative years.  It was a stick shift that was rusted out to the point that it had holes in the floor board and water would come into the car when you went over puddles.  Monza, Grenada, Caprice Classic station wagon, these were all vehicles owned by my parents.  When they rolled up in these clunkers my first inclination was to pretend like I didn’t know them.  Additionally as self esteem deflating was how frugal my mom was when it came to clothes.  First of all she had no fashion sense, that combined with significant budgetary constraints, resulted in a serious blow to my self confidence.  I distinctly recall when frosted jeans came out, man did I want a pair of those.  One of my best friends had multiple pairs and they attracted chicks like bears to honey, or so I thought.  The only problem was a pair would set you back at least $30, which is roughly $800 when you factor in inflation and how incredibly Dutch my parents were (100%).  In order to fashionably dress I was forced to get a paper route and then secure a job working on a celery farm when I reached the appropriate age.   As stated previously, I was the triple threat back in the day, zits, mullet, and braces.  The only way to overcome these multiple afflictions, or at the very least compensate, was to dress fashionably.

(My preference was for Levi’s but I probably would have taken a pair of Lees)

As a parent I feel I deal with this one question time and time again, what do I spare my children from that I had to suffer through as a kid and what do I force them to endure that I was forced to also endure growing up?  If it were up to me, my answer would be everything, well almost everything, but due to the over protective nature of their mother I am fairly limited as to what, if any, adversity is thrown their way.  This morning I was getting Parker ready, Aiden had already dressed ahead of Parker, possibly the first time this has ever happened, and Parker was being so particular I would have thought he was attending the academy awards.  He had a zip up under armor shirt and nike athletic pants but needed something under his zip up.  He thumbed his nose at six different shirts until I finally was able to coax him into wearing one that he claimed matched. He was insistent that the under shirt either be Nike or Under Armor.  On top of that he is now out of the gold toe sock phase and insists on socks that go all the way up.  When we were heading out the door he asked if I could buy him a bunch of Nike shirts before school starts, meanwhile Aiden was playing away on his tablet completely oblivious to the fact that nothing he had on matched or looked good together.

On the way to school they wanted to hear a Chucky Chuckerson story so I told them about the time Chucky’s mom signed him up for youth basketball.  Chucky’s mom didn’t have any fashion sense and only bought MTA Pro (Meijer Thrifty Acre Pro, I think they still manufacture this shit today) athletic apparel for Chucky.  When Chucky showed up for practice he was ridiculed for his attire and went home and complained to his mom.  Did he get a paper route so he could buy his own clothes? No! did his mom cave and give him an ensemble of Air Jordan from head to toe? No!  She forced him to suck it up and things continued to spiral.  Eventually, Chuckie’s mom caved and bought him head to toe Air Jordan apparel and suddenly Chucky went from the worst player on the team to decent.  Parker asked me mid way through the story if Chucky was good looking (Parker isn’t even five yet). His desire to be fashionable and fascination with important things such as looks and appearance couldn’t make me more proud.  Ultimately Chucky ended up hitting the game winning basket in the final game of the season, which just so happened to be his first basket of the season.  I followed up the story with the question “does that make you want to play basketball?”  They both responded “No!”.

So, what am I to do?  Do I give all of their name brand apparel to Goodwill and replace it with Champion and MTA Pro gear?  (I would have actually been satisfied with Champion when I was growing up, but I sense it is now on par with the gear Fed Meijer churns out). I really can’t do that to my kids, the scarring inflicted upon me today is still fairly evident.  I play a lot of pick up basketball and everything has to match and most of it needs to be Nike, specifically Air Jordan.   Curtailing the toys would probably be my best way to inflict a childhood upon them that was similar to mine but for Shirley.  Four days after Christmas she decided she wanted to get the kids legos, funny she didn’t just purchase them as Christmas gifts.  When she arrived at the store she determined they were too expensive, however the kids had been promised legos so she felt obligated to purchase them a substitute toy.  I mentioned to her when I got home and discovered the purchase that we just had Christmas, she received my statement as if I had been speaking in Latin.

The harsh reality is that my only true option to inflict emotional distress and emulate my upbringing would be to buy a $500 car and use it as the only thing I transport them with when they are with friends when they reach the age where something like this matters to them.  I could show up on a lawn tractor to pick them up now, and as long as I let them play on my phone it wouldn’t phase them.    Granted, driving a $500 car will be a bit of a struggle at first, but it will make me appreciate my car all the much more.

(this is an exact replica of the citation my parents had but it is missing all the rust, however the color did mask the rust fairly well)