Lessons I Learned in Brooklyn Your Kid Won’t Learn in Preschool

Brooklyn, NY - Ron Taub - Sunday, October 19th, 2008 : goo

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The society I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 50's was effective in
assimilating large groups of poor immigrants and making them into middle class
Americans. I get frustrated when I see today's “expert” guided society result in a dysfunctional society. These are some of the lessons I learned that made an effective society.

1. Pick on someone your own size

When I was a kid if a 12 year old hit an 8 year old, an older kid who
witnessed this would hit the 12 year old and say "pick on someone your own
size." The admonished kid would accept this and obey this in the future unless
he wanted to be an object of ridicule in the neighborhood. The older kid didn't have to know any of these kids; he just felt a responsibility to maintain order in the streets.

2. Never pick on a girl

Same scenario as number 1. Hitting a girl would not only result in correction,
but ridicule. No real man would ever hit a woman. You would be the lowest form
of coward. It makes me sick to see the gangsta crap, that you are tough if you
mistreat "bitches"

3. Respect your elders

I remember riding on the bus as a young boy and being told to get up and give
my seat to older men or women, especially pregnant women. I didn't resent this
but was happy to do a good deed. If an older neighbor yelled at me I shut up
and took it even if I resented it, because I knew they had more life
experience than me.

4. Hard work is rewarded

I remember scrounging around in the bushes for returnable soda bottles. 12
ounce bottles had a 2 cent redemption, and a quart bottle was worth a nickel.
In an hour you could easily find 35 cents worth. Might not sound like much,
but a candy bar was a nickel then. A good toy was 10 cents.

5. It is better to win than to lose

We played a lot of street games. Punchball, Stickball, Skelly, Cracktops,
Hopscotch, Chinese Handball, and many more. Losing had consequences, like
Asses Up or Through the Mill. Asses Up meant you had bend over and the winners would throw a rubber ball (Pensie Pinkie or Spaldeen) at your butt. It didn't hurt but it smarted. Through the Mill meant you had to crawl under a line of your friends while they smacked your butt. It was more fun to be the thrower, or smacker, than the loser. You played to win, and you were not satisfied just to be "on a Journey". After all we had to beat the Russians before they blew up our bomb shelters.

6. It was better to have money than be unemployed

We used to play a game called British Bulldog. We couldn't afford a football
(really) so we would run from one end of a field to the other and tackle
anybody on the other team. Whoever got across got a point. If you had more
points you got to stay at the end of the field and the other team would have
to walk to the opposite end and start over. The team that had to walk would
always ask "Why do we have to walk to the other end?" and the winners would
ritually reply “Money talks and bullshit walks". I always laugh when I am
watching the news and some 40 year old acts shocked when he realizes life
would be better if he had money.

7. Big boys don't cry

Any boy in Brooklyn that was crying (my sister says girls too) would be
taunted with the song:

"Baby, Baby stick your head in gravy
Wash it off with bubble gum, and send it to the Navy"

It didn't make any sense but it let you know you shouldn't show weakness in
public. Everybody cries but try to keep it to a minimum, or it has no effect
after awhile.

8.Commit to relationships

One of the worst things a friend could do was leave someone he was playing
with, to go with another kid, or group of kids, to do something more fun.
This would result in a reputation as a "Flatleaver", which would make it
harder to make friends.

9. Don't judge people by their socioeconomic status

Most of the people in Brooklyn were working class but you would come into
contact with people that were better or worse off than you. If you felt you
were equal to someone in brains and talent, but your family had not had the
same opportunities as someone who was patronizing or condescending, you would say "Whaddya think ya betta than me?" We knew that character was inside a person, not in material wealth.

10. Don't judge a person by their ethnic group.

I grew up in neighborhood with Jewish, Irish, Italian and Black kids. We
teased each other and joked about ethnic stereotypes, but we knew to back off
if someone thought we were over the line. It was politically incorrect but we
worked out our differences in a fun way. In today's politically correct
society nobody talks about our concerns to the other group, just within our
own groups. This leads to covert racism, and prejudice.

11. It hurts to be punched in the nose

When I was little we were sent outside to play unsupervised by adults. If we were home by suppertime, with no Cops in tow or neighbors calling to complain about us, no questions were asked. We settled our differences without adult referees, getting paid by a league. We chose with “Odds or Evens” or Eenie Meenie Mitey Mo” or “Highest Hand on the Bat” or yes sometimes a fist fight. When you are 5 years old and get in a fight no one gets seriously injured, but you learn that it hurts when someone punches you in the nose. I have broken up fights in a couple of college towns recently and the kids all have a shocked expression, when they realize it hurts to be punched in the nose. It is not like in the movies or on Playstation. We learned to avoid fighting when we got older because we didn’t want our nose to hurt. We didn’t need zero tolerance policies at school that treat the victim the same as the aggressor.

12. Socialism is only OK if everyone agrees to it

When we played games where there was a risk of incurring an incidental cost, like breaking a window, someone could call CHIPS. This meant that if everyone agreed, we would chip-in and split the cost of repairs. If someone didn’t want to do it, then we renegotiated. We could either forgo CHIPS, or if the vast majority wanted to play with CHIPS, dissenters would sit out. We didn’t force dissenters to share the cost of repairs like today’s tax code. When I see people breaking “windows” now, knowing that they won’t have to pay but I will, I wish I could call No CHIPS and sit out. When you have a society where takers outnumber givers, and the givers aren’t allowed to sit out, it is a recipe for collapse.

East New York, Brooklyn, NY

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