Comparison essay

When I was a kid, winter time was a very busy time during the week. All week, everyday meant going to school, doing homework, doing my chores like feeding cows, pigs, chickens, eating dinner and filling the wood box for our wood stove, and if I did everything I had to do I could watch TV from 7:00 to 8:00 and then go to bed. The weekend was different and we had three different traditions that I would look forward to every weekend. Now that I am a father and have two little girls, we have adopted the same tradition for the weekend. All though the tradition differs because of the time we live in, they all are still the same, and I think I enjoy them as much now sharing them with my kids as I did when I was sharing them with my mom and my sisters and brother.

Our first tradition was on Saturday mornings, and Saturday mornings meant getting up and watching cartoons. My dad had to work every Saturday because he drove a van full of milk samples bound for Ithaca NY, so Saturday was for getting up and eating breakfast while we watch cartoons, and that was a real treat, because my dad would have never allowed that. With my kids, they get up and eat breakfast and they get to watch their Saturday morning cartoons. I work second shift and sleep in on Saturdays, so I don’t get to enjoy it just like my dad couldn’t. The cartoons that I watched were Looney toons, tom and Jerry, and all the cartoons had orchestras doing the music and the animations was the flip book style. My kids watch computer animated cartoons in HD. The content of the cartoons are very different as well. When I was watching cartoons, the worst thing you saw was a little violence, some of the toons on now have jokes targeted more towards adults and seem to be a little crude with all of the body noises. We don’t let the kids watch some of that stuff, and we probably never will. Of course most of Saturday is spent doing things until I have to go to work (if I am working) like playing games or maybe sledding.

The other tradition I had when I was a kid was on Sunday nights when my mom would make dinner and for the most part we always got to pick what we wanted. Now I find myself wanting to do this with my girls, but we are not always able to because all they would want is pizza or tacos, so my wife and I intervene and pick for them, I think it will be different when they get a little older. We would help my mom cook, and set the table and get it all ready for the feast. On these nights is where I learned to cook and by the time I was eight years old I could make an awesome grilled cheese. I have just started now to get the girls to help me when I cook, and my wife works with them as well, right now all they can do is stir everything but to them it is cooking with mom and dad.

Now for my favorite tradition was every Sunday night we would pop some popcorn, at first in a kettle with some oil and we would melt butter and poor it all over the top. Then we got an electric popcorn popper and life was much easier. We would get some blankets and put them on the floor, with our popcorn and sometimes my mom would let us have soda, what a treat that was, we would turn the TV on just in time to watch the Sunday night Disney movie. With my girls now we do the same thing but I use a microwave to pop the corn, and it comes with its own butter, and instead of a Disney movie we sit down and watch Americas Funniest Home Videos. I love watching my girls lay on the floor and laugh at what they are watching, my favorite are the videos of people walking into sliding glass doors, I just can’t get enough of that.

When look back and compare the little traditions that I had when I was a kid, I wonder if the girls feel the same about the weekends as I did. I remember I couldn’t wait for Sunday movie night with the popcorn, and I see my girls doing the same, when they are asking every ten minute if the show was on yet after we eat. I can’t wait until they get a little older so we can start some summer time tradition like going camping, and fishing. Having kids was the best thing I ever did, well next to marrying my wife, and as I watch them grow and experience things for the first time that most of us take for granted, I think back to my childhood and all of my first times I had and how much fun they were. I just hope the girls feel the same and maybe someday when they have kids and they will have these little traditions and remember how much fun they were with mom and dad.