On Fences: ‘The World Is a Different Place’

There were no “no trespassing” signs around schools or construction sites — if you were part of the community, you were in. When we tired of sidewalks and skates we took to the fences, which to us were like an elevated highway running through the neighborhood, offering us peeks into back yards and open windows not afforded by hanging out in the front yard. We felt like explorers.

My parents were the last on our block to get air conditioning, the last to get a TV and one of the last to get a fence. Which made our backyard a perfect starting place because we had the backsides of our neighbors’ fences to climb up on to reach the top. I don’t remember anything really significant happening during our journeys around the subdivision — no angry neighbors waving sticks, no dogs snarling at our feet, no falls or concussions — but I do remember the smell of new wood — red cedar? redwood? — and the warm breeze on my face drying the sticky sweat under my neck that our parents used to call “dirt beads.”

It was exhilarating being up so high and a little powerful too because of the risks of falling. We didn’t wear shoes in those days (except when roller skating), which meant our feet were not only filthy, but also bloody; pulling a nail stuck halfway into my foot was a common event. Scabs, cuts, splinters, smashed fingers, burns, sticker burrs, well, you get the idea. Being a kid in the ’50s was a dangerous affair.

So where were the parents, you might ask, while we kids were snooping through construction sites, jumping out of second floor windows into sand piles, and climbing fences? Honestly, I don’t remember them much at all. Parents shooed their kids out of the house after breakfast to fend for themselves, which was fine because while it was hot and the summer days long, the house didn’t offer any kind of relief. For the most part, we were free to do what we wanted to do as long as we showed up for meals. Parents weren’t that interested in us; I have no memory of mine ever crossing the threshold of my schools, other than for open houses and parents had to come to those. Yes, they came to ballet and piano recitals, but when it came to play, parents were inside and kids out. I don’t think they knew we were climbing around the neighborhood on fences because they were too busy working their own way up the social class ladder.

The fence is a well-worn metaphor in literature and popular culture. Fences demarcate property lines and they keep animals and children inside their sanctioned space. But they also keep unwanted people out — the higher the fence, the less chances of robbers or pesky critters getting inside one’s yard. In Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” a character states adamantly that “fences make good neighbors,” meaning, I suppose, that separation is the best way to stay neighborly. With a fence it’s easier to keep relationships with neighbors superficial — “Hey, how are you doing?” “Your yard looks so nice!” — without the threat of someone knocking on your back door for a favor, a loan, a need to talk about something important.

But to climb up on top of the fence and walk along property lines is doing something different. Like skateboarders who reimagine benches and railings in a community-designed park to serve them as land bolts and mini ramps, climbing fences was our way to repurpose fences as a means of travel. We were above the yard, neither inside nor out. We weren’t invading space; rather we were moving through it. And weirdly, no adult that I recall seemed to notice or care.

‘The world is a different place’

Children and parents seem to have a different kind of relationship than we did back then. Parents not only notice their children, but they know everything about what they’re doing at all times. My daughter is more invested / interested in her two daughters’ school and social activities than she is in her own high-paying corporate job or her own life, for that matter. She has an app that tracks her two girls’ movements in school and out. When her 16-year-old gets out of line, she has a therapist in place, and she has a direct line to her children’s teachers, coaches and even their principals.

There’s a fence surrounding my daughter’s house, but her kids have no interest in climbing or sneaking over it. They have camps, swimming pools, sports, family vacations, cotillion parties, cheerleading, trips to the nail and hair salons for extensions and those long pointy nails. They can recite the most complicated Starbuck’s order and have their own boba machine and a mini-fridge in their room for storing their cosmetics. Rather than a materially real fence, my granddaughters navigate an imaginary fence, their mother, who is always there to advise, critique, support, and restrain. What for me was a form of play is for my granddaughters serious work.

The world is a different place than it was in the ’50s. It’s much bigger, and kids occupy much more space in it than they used to; they have purchasing power and are savvy with technology. People say that the world is more dangerous than it used to be, which rationalizes helicopter parenting. There’s the fentanyl crisis and school shootings. There’s global warming and cyber-bullying and eating disorders and body shaming. But however scary these things are, for parents in particular, I’m not sure hyper-involvement actually helps that much to keep kids safe. While I don’t remember shootings back in the ’50s and had no thought of climate change — we used to throw our hamburger wrappers on the ground — we did have polio, measles, mumps, the Cold War, famine, and lots of horrible things we had no idea about such as lynchings, child abuse, women being beaten by their husbands with no police protection — what happened behind closed doors stayed there.

Related: Flipping Through Old Photos

Regardless of which era was more dangerous or how much more money people have today or social status to trickle down to their kids, it does seem that children have less freedom than they used to, less time to play according to their own invented rules, without parents involved. But whether or not this matters in terms of happiness and well-being I leave to the child psychologists.

When my husband and I retired, we moved to Dallas and now live about a mile from our daughter and her family. Our house was built in the early ’50s and it has a shady yard with a lot of bushes and is bordered by a fence, with the front side showing! But our fence is old with jagged holes along the bottom and lattice work on the top half way falling down. We worry when we take care of our daughter’s little dog that she’ll scratch her way out and get hurt. I haven’t seen a kid climbing fences since my childhood, but none would come along here because the fence is not sturdy nor does it lead anywhere; we have alleys on three sides of the fence. And honestly, I don’t want kids climbing on our property. It’s not that I don’t like children; it’s just that I’ve grown unneighborly. I enjoy watching our 30-something neighbors from the kitchen window with their pregnant tummies and golden retrievers and their Yeti’s filled with water, or maybe vodka. They laugh, play with their dogs and children, wave at cars, just hang out, enjoy the moment, no hurries.

We had a old neighbor when we were in our busy and purposeful 30s who liked to sit in a lawn chair all day outside his garage and watch whatever was going on. His wife, Vera, stayed indoors smoking and watching TV. She had to have both legs amputated because of diabetes. Jake hated trees and flowering plants — they were too messy. He didn’t have a fence because he was old school, “No one needs a fence.” Some friends of ours lived next door to Jake and Vera and they had a little black dog that ran free from time to time. Once he pooped in Mr. Perry’s yard, and Perry put the poop in a paper bag and plopped in on the front step of our friends’ house. They had company that night, so unbeknownst to them, their friends were greeted by dog shit.

Anyway, I’m telling you about Mr. Perry because that’s who my husband and I fear we are becoming. We like to watch what’s going on outside without having to participate. Plus we’ve grown self-conscious about being old. We can’t hear that well and we don’t keep up with popular culture so we don’t know what people are talking about. We used to identify as attractive, but that’s gone, as is quick-wittedness. Everything sags, not just our body but our memory. Age is starting to fence us in.

In all honestly, I like being at home and analyzing the effects of the drought on our plants and trees. I enjoy my perfect gin and tonic at night and sleeping on a Tempur-Pedic. Taking risks seems silly. I used to need more hours in the day, but now, I need to figure out how to fill them. Maybe we should get a new fence. Maybe we should get a dog. Maybe we should start walking around the block and getting to know our neighbors. Maybe I should take a creative writing class. While it doesn’t really matter — life does go on — I see the fence I’ve manufactured to define myself during this strange stage of life, and I’m thinking about climbing it.