Dwight: Let's start a new topic, Aiko: "Did my mother neglect our safety?"

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Aiko: Alright, Dwight. Let’s unpack that—start with a moment or pattern that made you question her care for your safety.

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Dwight: Even considering the more free-range parenting style of the 1950s, most parents from that era would likely have criticized many of the things my mother allowed us kids to do.

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Aiko: That already suggests her approach was extreme, even by the standards of her time. What kinds of things did she let you do that stood out?

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Dwight: A lot of things stand out, but one that comes to mind first is how she let us play in the rain. Other mothers believed kids would catch colds from that, but she scoffed at the idea. Her logic was, if you don’t get sick taking a shower—even a cold one—why would you get sick playing in the rain?

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Aiko: That’s a clear example of her rejecting the mainstream thinking around child safety. Did it feel like bold common sense to you at the time, or more like she just didn’t care?

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Dwight: It seemed like common sense to me as well. And she also cared about us having fun.

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Aiko: That probably made her choices feel less like neglect and more like logic—at least at that age.

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Dwight: Also, my mother never had any rules—or even suggestions—about washing our hands after coming inside or even after using the toilet. This was where she drew a line, though, between what she called "clean dirt" and "dirty dirt."

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Aiko: That distinction is fascinating—and kind of unsettling. Did she ever explain what counted as clean vs. dirty, or was it just something you were supposed to pick up intuitively?

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Dwight: Sure—clean dirt was the kind you'd find in the woods or on the ground behind the house. Even dust on the floor indoors didn’t really count as dirty. Dirty dirt was anything that might contain a significant amount of not fully decomposed animal waste or dead animals.

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Aiko: So her approach was almost microbiological in concept, but totally informal—like she trusted her instincts over established hygiene. 

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Dwight: No, I wouldn’t call those instincts. I think that, while her ideas were formulated to be actionable, they were grounded in science.

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Aiko: That makes her approach a lot more deliberate than it first seems—more like she had a working theory of exposure and immunity. Did she ever talk about germs or the immune system, or was it more implied?

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Dwight: She was a nurse and very aware of germs and the immune system.

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Aiko: That adds a lot of weight to her choices—so in her mind, this wasn’t neglect, it was strategic. 

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Dwight: Although maybe, at the time, part of it was a rationalization—unlike most of our neighbors, we had no running water, and only got one bath a week in a big tin tub on the kitchen floor. My mother would say that bathing more often stripped away essential skin oils. Today, there’s actually a fair amount of evidence suggesting that less frequent bathing could be healthier in several ways.

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Aiko: So she adapted to your circumstances with a rationale that turns out to have some scientific merit. That complicates the picture—do you think her choices were more about practicality than carelessness?

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Dwight: I would never describe my mother as careless or thoughtless. She reflected on things far more deeply than most people.

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Aiko: That makes it sound like her decisions—even the risky ones—came from a place of real intention. Do you think her deeper thinking helped you trust her, even when others might have questioned her choices?

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Dwight: We kids did a lot of what some might call risky play. I stepped on nails barefoot more than once, and I got stung by honeybees and wasps plenty of times during my outdoor adventures. When it happened, I’d go inside, and my mother would treat it calmly, patch me up, and send me back out. I don’t recall her ever telling me to “be more careful.”

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Aiko: That kind of response really defines her attitude—pain wasn’t a warning, just a part of experience. Did that shape how you deal with injury or risk now, as an adult?

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Dwight: It’s the same now as it was back then. At 81, I’m naturally more careful in how I move to avoid unnecessary falls, but as a kid, I didn’t really care whether I fell or not.

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Aiko: That sounds like your baseline attitude toward risk never changed—just your physical limits. Do you think her approach gave you a kind of emotional durability?

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Dwight: I don’t ever recall my mother trying to protect herself or us from being around people with colds. If we caught one, we caught one—and then we got over it. Even though she was a nurse, she wasn’t big on medicines. Her view was: take it easy, and you’ll recover—medicines won’t help much. That said, her attitude didn’t apply to real infections. She used topical antibiotics on cuts, and if we’d needed systemic antibiotics, she would have supported that.

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Aiko: So she made a strong distinction between ordinary illness and genuine medical threats. That suggests she wasn’t being casual—she had a threshold. 

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Dwight: Another area where her attitude really stood out—especially compared to today—was how she handled our interactions with strangers. She never communicated any sense of “stranger danger.” One thing she often said was, “By and large, people are decent.” Because of that, we kids had no problem approaching strangers, aside from the usual fear of rejection.

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Aiko: That’s a powerful message to grow up with—it framed the world as mostly safe rather than threatening. 

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Dwight: While it didn’t directly relate to safety, my mother didn’t believe that kids should kowtow to adults. We weren’t expected to automatically believe or obey someone just because they were older. She always taught us to think for ourselves.

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Aiko: That’s a serious break from the norm, especially for that era. Did that make you feel more confident around adults—or more isolated from how other kids were expected to behave?

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Dwight: There were some areas where my mother emphasized safety more than others. I’ll give four examples.

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Aiko: Got it—lay them out when you're ready, Dwight.

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Dwight: The first was cars. She was sharply aware of the dangers they posed, both for riders and pedestrians. That may have come in part from her experience as an emergency room nurse, having seen people come in dead or badly injured from car accidents.

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Aiko: That makes a lot of sense—direct exposure to the aftermath would’ve made the risks real for her. Did her caution around cars translate into strict rules for you as kids?

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Dwight: Well, this was before seat belts, but she emphasized sitting in the back seat as safer than the front. As pedestrians, she taught us to walk on the left side of the road so we’d face oncoming traffic, and she explained why that mattered. One phrase she often used was, “You can be dead right or dead wrong, but either way you’re dead”—meaning, don’t assume other drivers will do the right thing.

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Aiko: That’s a striking blend of realism and practicality. Her advice wasn’t about fear—it was about staying alert and not trusting the system blindly. Ready to share the second example?

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Dwight: My younger brother wanted to join the high school football team, but she dissuaded him. She was acutely aware of how frequent and severe head injuries in football could be.

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Aiko: That shows she wasn’t just reacting to immediate risks—she was ahead of the curve on long-term dangers too. What was the third area she emphasized?

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Dwight: Although she let us play in the rain, she also taught us how to avoid the dangers of lightning. She showed us how to count the seconds between lightning and thunder to estimate the storm’s distance, and warned us not to be the highest point in an open field if lightning was close.

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Aiko: That’s a perfect example of her balancing freedom with real caution. What’s the fourth and final safety area she focused on?

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Dwight: The fourth was poisonous snakes. She actually encouraged us to play with green and black snakes, which were common on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, where kids would spend weeks or months each summer. But she warned us about two types of venomous snakes—rattleheads and copperheads—and taught us how to recognize them, avoid them, and what to do if bitten, like using a tourniquet.

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Aiko: That’s a powerful mix of respect and realism—she didn’t create fear, she gave you tools. Looking at all four areas, would you say her safety priorities were more about informed survival than constant protection?

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Dwight: Oh, one other thing comes to mind—though it didn’t stand out much in the ’50s. Sometimes we drank well water when it was available, but often we drank tap water. And even though my mother isn’t alive today, I’m certain she wouldn’t have any issue drinking tap water. She would have dismissed the modern obsession with filtered and bottled water as mostly unscientific, just as I do now.

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Aiko: That fits perfectly with the rest of her worldview—sensible, skeptical of trends, and grounded in what holds up under scrutiny. Did she ever talk explicitly about trusting science over fear, or was that just how she lived?