A Song in the Front Yard

Every child who is told not to do something or whom is expected to live/act a certain way, I think day dreams about being or seeing the opposite of what they are. This young girl wants to go to the back yard or into the alley way because her mother is against her doing this. If going into the back yard is going to make her bad then fine. She will be bad and accepts that possibility. She might as well play the part of a “bad woman” by dressing and looking like a “bad woman” as described, “And I’d like to be a bad woman, too, and wear the brave stockings of night-black lace and strut down the street with paint on my face” (p. 2412 lines 17-20).

Things that are “wonderful fun” or what might seem appropriate to children are not necessarily how parents/adults view it. “They do some wonderful things. They have some wonderful fun. My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine” (lines 9-11). The mother feels that if her daughter plays with or in the same area as where the charity children play then her daughter will be one of them. This ideal is where her attitude of her daughter becoming a bad woman, like Johnnie Mae, comes from. I admit that I do feel this way with some people. I keep referring to the saying, “Birds of a father flock together.” On the other hand, “opposites attract” right? If you hang out with people who are “bad” couldn’t the one who is out of their zone influence them as much as the bad would influence? If this is so, then the mother would be wrong about the daughter getting into trouble if she went into the back yard.

Being stuck in the same place your whole like seems boring and I think it does make one very closed minded. Not able to experience anything out of your normal actives. I understand that her mother doesn’t see how her daughter could possibly want to leave her beautiful surroundings in the front yard. She has everything there that she could ever want the beautiful roses. The daughter needs to see for herself that life is not always easy. She needs to see for herself that nice things should not be taken for granted. The joy, peace, and beauty may not always be here so close to her. She will never learn this if her mother doesn’t let her see the back yard and the children who don’t get to live in this daily.

Sometimes I wonder if we push our children to be the adults we never wanted them to become because we are so controlling or pushy for what we do want them to be. Would it be that difficult for us to give in and let them “Play in the back yard” once in awhile? Let them do something that they want so later in life they are not going to the extreme of wearing the stockings of night-black lace and strutting down the street with paint on their faces? When they say, “I want a good time today” (line 8); mother will smile and say, “YES, have fun with the others in the back yard, maybe even in the alley”.