Here’s the excerpt I referred to last post, from Carmen Machado’s brave and moving memoir about a passionate lesbian love that slid confusingly into abuse, that left her disoriented and doubting herself, the experience exacerbated by the silence around the topic within the LGBTQ community. I recommend the book for many reasons (among them that it’s stylistically gorgeous, and the fragmented structure refuses the reductiveness of a linear narrative; it expands representation — and thus understanding — of lesbian relationships and also of abusive ones, whether hetero- or homosexual).
But I’m quoting from Machado’s memoir today for one reason only: the last sentence on the page I’ve screen-shot and included below. . .
I was arrested by that analogy. Had I, as a child, sensed and longed for the power and the satisfaction of a monetary transaction; could I remember achieving either for the first time?
I do remember engineering the experience for my kids, believing it was important for them. The oldest two especially, big sister 6 or 7, walking down the hill with her three-years-younger sister to the corner store (owned by our next-door neighbour in a small northern town). Saturday morning, whatever candy they could buy with a single quarter each, taken from their allowance. I set the amount very deliberately, wanting to minimize candy consumption but still allow them to sense the power of the transaction, to experience some autonomy, some choice amongst abundance.
Fossicking more deeply in my memory bank for my own first purchase, I retrieved some images that made some sense of my dubious parenting, helped explain why, rationing sugar carefully most of the week, did I not just allow, but actually facilitate, my children’s candy-buying Saturday expeditions?
I don’t remember a single precise first incident of buying something with my own money. I know that very occasionally, my siblings and I would hover over the open cartons of “penny candy” at the small corner store. A dark and crowded space, in my memory, and one we never entered for the miscellany of basic groceries it stocked. Those shelves were irrelevant background to us, then, indiscernible for me now, although I know they would have held canned peas, corn, Campbell’s soup, probably cans of Spam. There was probably a small dairy case, a freezer (those popsicles!), a shelf loaded with bread. . . We didn’t care. Our path took us through the glass front door that jingled when we opened it, and four or five steps across the worn linoleum floor to the boxes of candy strategically placed right below the cash counter,
We’d have stopped there on a summer day, heading home from the neighbourhood park where we’d spent a few hours moving from the wading pool to the crafts tables to the blanket we’d spread under a tree. . .
I’m not sure if those corner-store stops were allowed or not; I don’t remember trying to hide our candy necklaces or our jawbreaker-stained tongues when we got home. Perhaps we were given a nickel each as a special treat once or twice.
I do know that this kind of discretionary shopping was strictly regulated by the time we were 8 or 9. If, as we walked together to the swimming pool, we found a few empty pop bottles, for example, we were expected to bring them home where they would be added to others until there were enough to return for cash. We were not expected to “cash them in” for a couple of popsicles that we would then break in half to share
. . . .ah, popsicles, their two halves each on its individual wooden stick, so nicely divisible. All that sticky, sweet, orange or green or purple or blue “juice” melting on our chin, our hands. and the added thrill of reading the sticky, soggy paper wrapping to see what we might buy or win from Popsicle Pete if only we collected a silly number of points . . . Whoops, excuse that nostalgic digression. . .
In fact, we had firm instructions from our mother that if the shop owner refused to give a cash refund for the empty bottles, we were to use our credit to buy something of household value. Her suggestion in my memory of one particular incident was that we could have exchanged for a package of seeds. (The memory not only suggests the eclectic inventory of those small corner shops, but also the creativity that accompanied my mother’s strictness.)
The candy purchases of my childhood obviously hold some mixed emotions, memories of strictness and permission and disobedience and conspiracy and the pleasure of (commercial, iindustrial) sweetness. When I try to remember a specific first purchase made with my own money, those images arrive first, but quickly followed by a sense of myself at 7 or 8 holding a ruler. A corner of the downstairs of the Army & Navy Department Store (while this chain began in the 1920’s with army surplus, it was “Canada’s First Discount Department Store” by my childhood) had been converted to feature school supplies. In late August, I vaguely remember that my brother and I had been told we could choose whatever we could buy with our weekly allowance of 25 cents. The ruler smelled lightly of freshly planed wood still, was pristine, unscratched, its thin strip of metal sharp (how were those allowed in classrooms?). . . But could it compete with the smooth, lined pages of a new scribbler? Or a novelty eraser? What to choose? The autonomy was exciting, even if the purchases seem prosaic in hindsight.
These are all composite memories, though, the ones I’ve so far described of childhood purchases. But there was one specific day, the story of a quarter that wanted to be spent . . . A memory that illuminates both the strictness and the indulgence I might see within my mother’s monetary monitoring. . .
My (maternal) Grandpa picked me up, along with my year-younger brother, for an outing to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition, a classic Fall Fair held in the city, but with its roots firmly in agriculture). I have no idea why–it’s the only time I remember going somewhere with Grandpa on his own; no idea either what Grandma was doing or why she chose not to come along. If it was the summer I was 6 though, my brother 5, our new sister would have been six weeks old — and the sixth child in the family. Perhaps Grandpa was trying to help out by reducing the numbers for a few hours. What I remember about the day is vestigial, fragmentary. Excitement, certainly, but tempered, I think, by what I (and my brother too, I think) saw then as Grandpa’s gruffness. A hot day; crowds lining up for rides or various shows; the enticing, pervasive smell of onions caramelizing; asphalt sticky in the sun; hay spilling out of stalls, its musky, sweet fragrance mixing with the funkier scents of cow and horse poop, chicken manure, rabbit pellets and the sharper ammoniacal tang of their urine; coming out of the long barns to blink at the sunshine. . .
And the quarter we had each been given to spend. On a ride? No, Grandpa didn’t seem to think that was worth wasting money on. Could my brother try throwing a ball at a target to win a prize? Grandpa curtly explained how rigged that game was. When we hoped to buy a hot dog, Grandpa stopped to hand us a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich he’d brought from home. We had no luck, either, convincing him that we could share a cloud of cotton candy. I vaguely remember that my brother wanted to try his luck in the stocked fishpond. I even think that Grandpa may have yielded to this suggestion. There was, perhaps, a reasonable chance we could have gone home with something to cook for dinner?
After Grandpa dropped us off, I remember sitting outside on our newly paved patio, my brother and I telling Mom and Dad about our day, about all the ways Grandpa hadn’t let us spend our quarters. But my clearest memory of the day is of the helium balloon that he’d finally agreed was a reasonable exchange for that round piece of silver with a caribou stamped on its back. Not the memory of holding or showing off the balloon, but the memory of it soaring over the Loughlins’ house next door, probably released by a younger sibling who’d begged to hold it. Perhaps Grandpa had known that the lesson I’d learn from that transaction would last me a lifetime. (by the way, I just looked it up, and apparently, the “melt and minimum value” of a 1959 Canadian dollar is $5.36 today.)
Your turn now, if you’d like to add your own memory. What can you remember of being “a child buying something with her own money for the first time? . . . And, of course, any other comments related to this post are welcome. . .
There were no small corner stores in my large urban city growing up. Life in the suburbs meant everything had to be reached by car which certainly restricted childhood independence. But I was so shy that I don't remember wanting to spend my own money. Perhaps it was the size of the counters at Woolworths that seem to go on for miles to a small child or perhaps it was the anonymous clerks or the lack of companion as an only child, but I was an early teen saving money for records before I remember being excited about spending my own money. Then I do remember hoping my mother would take longer with errands so I could go through the racks for just the right record and then hurry home to listen to it.
Lynn: I was shy as well, so it’s interesting to think about what I would have been like without my younger siblings’ company. Curious: did you play those records on a family stereo, or have one in your room perhaps?
I grew up in an inner-suburb of Sydney, made up of 2-storey, Victorian-era terrace houses, and there were plenty of corner stores. My younger brother and I didn’t get an allowance but our working-class parents were generous within their means and we were often given pocket money for discretionary, small purchases. I can recall the pleasure of buying “cobbers” (caramels covered in chocolate) from the corner store next door. A stronger childhood memory is of our day-trips with mum and my brother, by bus and ferry in the summer holidays to Manly, a beachside suburb known for being “7 miles from Sydney and 1000 miles from care”. I enjoyed the beach and the fish and chips we usually had for lunch but the greatest pleasure was being allowed to buy something special as a memento from a variety store in the bustling main street. I always chose a book. “What Katy Did“ was an early choice and these purchases fuelled my life-long pleasure in reading.
Somehow, I love what you say of your parents, “generous within their means.” (My father was; my mother in her own way, but it came harder to her.) I wonder if you’ve saved any of those books—almost all my childhood and teen reading came from our public library.
Oh those penny candy purchases linger in my sensory memory. Burt Waterhouse’s store down the street from my grandparent’s house. Spending my quarter on a tiny brown bag of small squares of fudge, and jelly strawberries, and marshmallow bananas. My grandparents lived in Devon, a suburb of sorts in Fredericton, a place with sidewalks and corner stores, and a short bike ride from the swimming pool. While we lived in a much more rural area. So it was heaven to spend a week of my summer at Grammy and Grampy’s. I can still close my eyes and conjure up the room where I always slept, the smell of Grampy burning bacon for our breakfast, and evenings on the veranda with Grammy while she rocked and crocheted and greeted every single passerby on the sidewalk that ran close to their front door. So many summers ago.
I remember those marshmallow bananas! Ha, from Coast to Coast… I love those memories of your weeks at Grammy’s (Grampy’s burnt bacon and all)
Try as I might, I cannot remember the first time I bought something with my own money, but I certainly remember the corner store of my childhood: Mrs. Mac’s on Interurban Road in Victoria, halfway between our house and the school I would eventually attend for Grade One. Every Saturday my older brother would take me there to buy penny candy and in the summer, Fudgicles or Revelos (I always chose a Fudgicle, my brother a Revelo.) Another monetary memory of mine is that of eying my bachelor uncle’s pockets whenever he came for Sunday dinner. He usually, but not always, produced a coin or two for us and I remember thinking I shouldn’t really expect anything, but still those eyes strayed to his pockets! Thanks for stirring the memory pot!
Frances in Sidney
Frances: Lucky memories, those. And you’ve reminded me that our uncle (both as bachelor and then as newlywed until he had his own kids) would sometimes bestow a magical 50-cent piece. I guess those aren’t in circulation anymore….
I can't remember a specific first purchase, but I feel certain that it was at the TG&Y at our neighborhood shopping center. To get there from our house we had to cross two "big" streets, so I'm guessing I was with my oldest-by-5-years brother, who was often tasked with riding herd over my middle brother (14 months older) and me. As an adult, I can see that the store was a smallish 5 and dime, but to this little girl it was a huge place of magic, with not only candy and school supplies, but yards and yards of fabric (my mother often bought material there for the dresses she sewed me) and the many-hued, sheet paper-sized pieces of felt that were perfect for making clothing for my troll dolls, and were, in fact, my initiation into my own sewing avocation. I think those sheets cost ten cents each, which was the sum total of my weekly allowance at 6 years old, but oh so worth it to have the best dressed trolls on the block!
Oh, those five-and-dimes! We had Kresge’s and Woolworth’s, and I think I was at least ten before I was in one. Intoxicating!
I’m anachronistically imagining your “best-dressed trolls” in an Instagram grid….
I'd never guess….. 🙂
My fathers first job as a GP was in a little village near Zagreb (and now it is part of Zagreb, but than it was very rural ) – he's got a praxis and we had a flat above it. There were a lot of flats for school teachers as well, young families with a lot of children-we were free, almost all the time together outside-it was a wonderful childhood. The only car in the village was my father's Fiat 750 (we used to go to the sea with friends, also three members family-I think the whole car is the size of today's luggage) , so, no danger for us kids. I can clearly remember that the village shop was across the "main street" and there were glass jars with "a lot" – maybe 4 or 5 different sorts – of sweets….and first chewing gums in a form of a caramel( One of the kids from the building got chewing gums in form of cigarettes from US – it was like a paradise place for us- and has shared it with us). I remember buying sweets there, so I have to got money, but I didn't remember was it in a form of allowance (later it was, my mother was a believer in early financial education) or not, because the huge thing was to cross the street alone
Dottoressa
Dottoressa: thank you for sharing these memories. I wish we had more examples from different countries, economies, and political systems. Yours is a wonderful example of how Less can be More. And yes, crossing the streets. I’m astonished, looking back, at which ones I crossed quite young…
We had very little discretionary income and very tight restrictions on expenditures. We weren't allowed unwrapped candy which made it seem more exotic to us. We rode our bikes beside ditches as broad as canals to the corner store. My first purchase was probably one of the quickly melting popsicles as they were just 6 cents and could be shared. I'm not sure how I rode the bike home with the sticky treat but somehow I managed.
Mme: that’s what I remember too: “little discretionary income and tight restrictions.”
And that’s the price I remember for Popsicles as well, and that they could be split. Creamsicles were even more delicious but not shareable and cost twice as much. Only three pop bottles for a popsicle😉
Cannot remember a specific first purchase, but likely it was in a "sweet shop" near our house in London. A tiny shop with walls of shelves ladened with large jars of various sweets (candy) that the owner would take down when I pointed out the one I wanted. An English penny or perhaps a tuppence for a treat. In the UK, the cold treat was a Walls ice cream with a (Cadbury) flake–also known as a '99'. It would set you back a thruppence.
Mary: I love this comment especially because it reminds me of being taken into the sweet shop down the block from my Grandma’s in Middlesbrough so that as “our Ken’s daughter, visiting from Canada,” I could be introduced to Dot. That was late 60s so 20 years after my dad had moved away and more than 30 since he’d been a regular sweets buyer (a ha’penny still had clout then)….and I remember enjoying an ice cream with a flake as well. “Thruppence” is such a lovely old word…
Not a first purchase, I don't think, but a regular one…
Comic books…which were 12 cents and allowance was 10 cents. So my brother and I made up the difference by hunting pop bottles, as a team. Then we each had one comic book to own but two comic books to read.
This memory is more about reading than money. A similar excitement was had when visiting the library. I should see if I can recognize that thrill when I meet my next potential lover (ha ha no but I felt I should tie in to your exerpt)…
I have a teeny weeny memory in a similar vein, except it's the one and only time I ever shoplifted anything. I was probably 8 years old? We weren't allowed to have full pieces of candy ourselves, they always had to be shared. And no gum. Standing in line with my father, I don't remember how, I guess I put a back of gum in my pocket. But I think I told him I had done so, about 3 minutes later, and so then I gave it back.
This is making me smile. Ah, the ways our parents build us and never suspect. <3
Frances – so many triggers here. Living in a small Scottish village in the mid 1950s, I must have been allowed to walk home from the bus stop on my own (I was six or seven). I called into the little sweet shop and bought – forbidden! – bubblegum for a penny or so. Ten minutes later I reached home, and was challenged by my mother about my purchase, which I denied, but obviously couldn't swallow the offending gum – we all knew that swallowing gum would kill you! How life has changed,,, Elizabeth
I think your comment at 10.37 am was to me, thank you. I kept the books for decades but when it became clear that my daughter wasn’t going to read them I let them go. But I can still see the cover of that first book very clearly in my mind’s eye. And the love of reading remains very strong.
Maria: yes, that comment was for you—thanks for responding. I’ve a few things as well I’ve let go after saving them for decades, for the same reason. The memories stay strong, though. And the love of reading, yes.
I loved "In the Dream House," and you have chosen such a wonderful passage.
I remember the corner store near our house in Kerrisdale and the same open containers of penny candy: wax sticks with a sweet goo inside, banana chewies, and then the chocolate bars of which Pepchews were the bargain, as they were only five cents (but they were not loved), candy cigarettes, and Thrills, the soap flavoured gum. We were allowed a quarter to spend as well.
When I was 12, my parents gave me the child allowance from the government; i can't remember the name of it. I think it was 25 dollars a month. I was to buy my shampoo, deodorant and sundries with it. The first thing i bought was Jean Nate deodorant. I didn't really like the smell, but it was my first real purchase. Thanks for the memories. Brenda
I cannot remember any particular purchase as being my first. Nor am I quite sure when my parents started to give me a weekly allowance of 50 Pfennige. Tthat was half a Deutschmark. In the early sixties the USDollar was equivalent to four, the British Pound to eleven Marks – just to give you the idea.)When I was about eleven, I changed to a school which was further away from my home. I was given tickets for the bus ride in the morning, but was supposed to walk home (about 1 hour) after classes. On the way I passed my hometown's best ice cream parlour (called Agnoli, they were real Italians!), where one scoop in a cone cost 10 Pfennige. (If you took a big portion of three scoops, they would give you the better cones, made of freshly baked wafer.) On the other hand, I could decide to take the bus home, a bus ride costing me 25 Pfennige. So for two long summers I had to decide every week how to allocate my allowance.
My mother used to limit our sugar intake (bad for the teeth)so there were no sweet soft drinks in our house. But every day after lunch my sister and I were allowed to go to my mother's desk, open the "sweets drawer" and take out one sweet each. That could be a piece of chocolate or one of those hard boiled fruit flavoured sweets that rasp your tongue.I loved the ones in the shape of tiny lemons and with that strong (artificial) lemon flavour.
Hello Mary, I, too, remeber Walls icecream with the Cadbury flake from the time I spent In London in 1970. At the time I was working for Amnesty International as a volunteer without pay, but I was given luncheon vouchers at the value of 3 shillings sixpence which would pay for a sandwich or a plate of vegetable curry with plain rice.
Sorry, I forgot to put my name to my ramblings.
What a beautiful post!
Georgia: I'm envious — comic books weren't an allowable purchase, at least not in my memory. I like the sharing solution you and your brother arrived at. And you're right–a library offered that same pleasure of an autonomous choice made from abundance — every week, for no charge!
Lisa: This is a great contribution! All that temptation and wrestling with conscience. . . and you 'fessed up 😉
Elizabeth: Yes!! Everything you write here echoes powerfully in me. . . as if I also lived in a small Scottish village 😉 (and thank goodness you knew not to swallow that gum — we might not be reading your anecdote today!
Brenda: Thanks so much for recommending it! I borrowed it from the library, but it's one I'd buy to force on other readers . . . I'd forgotten those wax sticks with that sticky goop inside – and Thrills, which really were not. So weirdly soapy.
And now I'm imagining spending my portion of the Family Allowance at the drugstore — oh, the possibilities. . . (I think my first perfume, also bought at a drugstore, but when I was almost out of my teens, was Carven's Ma Griffe. . . then O de Lancôme. . . advertising was so very different then, wasn't it?
Eleonore: That's a powerful example of having (getting) to make choices about money in childhood. I suspect the few ice cream cones you enjoyed that summer were much enhanced by the scarcity and the sacrifice.
K.Line: Thanks!
Ma Griffe, the favourite perfume of Yoko Ono! The Family Allowance, that's what it was called, thank you! I love all the candies everyone remembers. Brenda
I didn't get pocket money (as an allowance is called in the UK) as a child. There was nothing much to buy in our small village. There were sweets aplenty in the little village shops – we lived right next door to one on the High Street. As well as the big glass jars of soor plooms (sour plum boiled sweets), caramels, jewel-like boiled sweets and black and white striped peppermint balls, I remember a ha'penny tray and a penny tray – big wooden trays filled with a jumble of sweet for a half penny or a penny. But I was never really interested in sweets – mine were green peas eaten fresh from the pod, strawberries, raspberries and honey-sweet plums in season, and the exotic delights of peanuts, hazelnuts and brazil nuts in their shells at Hallow'een, and tissue paper and foil-wrapped satsumas at Christmas. If I wanted a book my parents bought it for me, and then of course there was the treasure trove of book tokens for birthdays and Christmas. I don't think that not having pocket money harmed my financial education. I was well aware of the value of money and my parents bought second hand furniture on many occasions, and instilled in me the value of saving. I still have trouble spending rather than saving money to this day!