Dialogue: Lost simplicity of times gone by

By SANDY BURGHAM

Our daughter started primary school last week. I shed a wee tear as I stuck her name on her new drink bottle and took the obligatory photo of her in a yet unblemished uniform - a smiling picture of sweet naivete, an innocent yearning for new experiences.

Thus we released her into a world where for quite a while we will be pushed aside to allow her teacher to become the world authority on everything, and then her peers and then the media, and not necessarily in that order.

Over the few years her clean slate will be muddied by the dark side of playground politics, her individual spirit dampened by peer-group movements (by day three she had refused to wear the regulation culottes because others seem to favour skirts) and she'll start noticing those who eat food that's more "in" than her own lunchbox fare. ("It's not fair, everyone will think I'm poor if I don't have chips," said one lad I know to his mum in his first week at school.)

Soon she'll doubt the existence of Santa Claus, start closing the door to her room for privacy and at some stage after that realise that her parents are social pariahs who are embarrassing to be seen with.

As she looks forward I can't help but look back and it's surely a sign of ageing when you find yourself habitually replaying the same childhood memories among friends - conversations which usually start with "Kids today ... " For example: "kids today" are trapped in the compound of their less-than-quarter-acre section for fear of abduction or at least not getting their homework done. It's easier to allow them to play computer and video games or watch TV, so parents can keep one eye on them, an ear to the phone as they sort out pending work issues.

One particular friend and I have the same conversation every few weeks. We usually finish each other's sentences and talk in unison as if it were a well-rehearsed school play. It's the one about how in the old days the after-school drill was to throw our school bags down, scoff some home-baking and then jump on our bikes to explore and play on the streets, to return only when we heard a parent holler, "Tea!!"

My reminiscing was further encouraged by an e-mail that painted a vivid picture of a time bygone, my youth. It asked me to go back in time before the internet and the PC, and home video games, to a time of "one potato, two potato, three potato four", hopscotch, elastics, hula hoops, running though sprinklers, milk moustache, climbing trees and being tired from playing. When ice cream was chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, and Sunday-night TV was one word - Disneyland.

Oh, yes, life was tough - we had to walk to school no matter what the weather and we got about 20c for pocket money. And when milk went up one cent everyone talked about it for weeks.

A time when the worst thing we could catch from the opposite sex was germs, and having a weapon at school was being caught with a slingshot.

I remember it well - an era when for hours we'd play a game called kick the stone, the dynamics of which are fairly self-explanatory.

While we may embrace globalisation and progress that allows everyone no matter what age to have more toys to play with, many of us simultaneously yearn for a time where we didn't have much choice at all.

Because when one has fewer toys and little choice it makes life easy.

We had a choice even for our daughter's primary education. Should we go private, alternative, or unquestioningly send her to the school we were zoned for but, gee, the last choice would have been far too straightforward. And besides, we want the best for our children and thus needed to exercise our right to investigate options.

The chosen school is too far away for her to bike or walk (not that I would let her do either without secretly kerb-crawling to ensure safety), which means that we now join the throngs of parents who do the school run as a matter of course. And I think back to a time when to see my parents' car outside the gate was a surprise bonus.

Last week, in a vain attempt to recreate and celebrate the simplicity of a bygone era, I thought I'd try baking a cake.

But when I asked our 20-something nanny to buy some Betty Crocker cake mix, she looked puzzled - "Betty who?"