Our Parents' preadolescence

Their meeting place

The majority of our parents met their friends from their neighborhood in the street. Others went to a specific square, field or club.

What they used to do together

Almost all our dads played football and chatted when they were together. Sabrina’s and Franco’s dads went cycling all along the neighborhood.

On the other hand, our mothers would read magazines and gossip the whole day! Victoria’s mom would often have a picnic with her friends.

The Neighbourhood

All our parents agreed or confessed their sense of belonging to their neighbourhood was very, very powerful. Franco’s dad told him they even organized football matches between different districts.

Gossiping was an everyday business. Children paid attention to their neighbours´comings and goings, and even invented stories about them. Once, near  Sofia’s mom´s childhood house,  a little girl drowned in a cesspool. Children were so shocked that they were afraid of getting near the place in case her ghost haunted it.

How they kept in touch

Although our parents didn’t have any type of technology to message each other, they could find a way to arrange their meetings. Children would walk house by house in order to collect friends. Alternatively, Franco’s father arranged with his friends to meet with everyone in a corner so they would know where and when to meet.

In spite of the lack of technology (such as  cell phones) they always had a way to get together.

An important -and awesome- fact about our parents’ neighborhood friends is that they are still in touch with each other!

Information about sex and puberty

They didn’t have any information about these topics, and they mostly learned about them from friends. We've collected some anecdotes that illustrate their ignorance on the subject: Victoria’s mom thought that  she could get pregnant by kissing a boy. Similarly, a friend of Sabrina’s mother´s was once very scared because someone had touched her bottom and she was afraid she would get pregnant. One of the girls in our class told us that when her grandmother had her first period, she was very worried because she thought she had hurt herself. Obviously, they didn’t have any sexual education and because of this they were scared about these things or built up false hypotheses. In conclusion, they had very little information about sex and puberty.