Illustration by Victor Camba
At an early age, I learned that streaking gets a huge laugh. I’d be splish splashing, taking a bath and I’d hear my half-brother, Augie—imagine a blonde Marky Mark—in the living room with his 18-year-old friends. Living in a neighborhood without many kids, I was looking for any friends I could get. The sight of a naked three-year-old sprinting back-and-forth full-speed then bending over and spreading his butt cheeks as a coup de grace always made the room erupt with laughs. People loved me. I daringly spat in pedophilia’s face.
Being a product of the late 80s/early 90s meant that more toys, TV, movies, and merchandise were geared to my age demographic than ever before. Reagan was out, Bush Sr. was in, and the economy was booming. We were shaking hands with Saddam, and things were looking pretty. These were also the days of Jeffrey Dahmer. America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries aired weekly. There was an undercurrent of fear that permeated everything, making every trip to Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese’s a little scary and that much more frightening if you turned around and your mom wasn’t standing there.
Most parents turned overly protective, not only to shield their kids of any “stranger danger” but to shield from any of the negative experiences they had growing up. Mom and Dad were another case entirely; they took the other road of being more hands off. They trusted me, but only after I proved myself capable of not answering the door when a stranger came knocking. They encouraged autonomy in me through trust. They protected me by teaching me how to be aware of my surroundings, by not coddling me, by not spoiling me. Instead, they guided me and my interests.
I never had a baby sitter. Most of my parents’ “dates” included me. We would all go out for dinner and then head to the local arcade, the “Boardwalk,” and spend the night playing video games and pinball. I’d walk out with all kinds of prizes—mostly cheap novelties that stretched or exploded or were just slime. Whatever the case was, they all smelled horrible. My parents showed their love for me by including me. If I punched a kid at school after he took the first swing, they defended me. If I wanted to see a movie, good or bad, Jurassic Park or The Flintstones, we’d all get in the Subaru and head to the drive-in. They let me stay home by myself, they told the local video store clerk to let me rent whatever I wanted (except Natural Born Killers, that was smart of them), because they wanted to instill trust. And because of that, they knew I’d want to reciprocate that trust, because that trust and their love were one and the same.
Mom and Dad wanted to support my hobbies, even if it meant me spending the whole weekend reading comics and watching movies. At the same time they wanted me to go out and see the world, even if it meant cuts, bruises, or running from police after someone called the cops on my friends and me for skating (according to many T-shirts, it’s not a crime). Mom and Dad wanted me to make my own life, not shape it for me.
Thanks to that, I never had a teen angst phase!
