A Tribute to my Childhood

As many of you know my parents are hippies. Well at least when we were growing up they were. My mom's hair is short now and the part isn't in the middle and my dad keeps his hair nicely trimmed and only on occasion does he pull out the star shaped design (but I know that in their hearts they are still hippies… just grown up a bit). Well because of the hippie influence the soundtrack of my childhood can be thanked to Mario Thomas, my childhood hero and the person to blame/thank for why I am the way I am.

Free To Be You and Me.
The first vinyl I owned – or at least the first vinyl I shared with my sisters. We had this album memorized by heart and I was reminded of it a month or so ago when we watching Half Nelson and to my utter surprised Its All Right to Cry came on. The memories all came flooding back as I looked it up on the internet and started to review the songs and lyrics and my life finally started to make sense again. The album was released in 1972 and was created to teach children individuality, tolerance and self confidence. I can directly relate each song, poem or story to some aspect of my life now and after thinking in detail I can honestly say the hippie brainwashing worked.

Let me just highlight a few.

When We Grow Up Video
For the majority of my life I haven't felt like I've had to change for people to fit in. "We don't have to change at all" has been echoing in my head since I was young and defining how I felt about myself. For the most part its helped in instilling a confidence in myself I wasn't sure where I got until I started piecing my life back together through this tribute.

Parent Are People Video
I have often wondered why there is something inside of me that wants to be a therapist and I have concluded its Marlo Thomas & Harry Elafonte's doing. So I figure at the Pearly Gate if they come down on me about working while being a mom I will just have to say it was my parents fault for playing songs like this while growing up. Mommies can be almost anything they want to be. I just want to be a therapist and a mom cause there a lot of things a lot of mommies can do. Best of both worlds for me.

Brothers & Sister Video – Still, after all these years, I truly love Lisa, Shan and David so much I would dance like these people in the video and do rolls off the slides because I am so lucky and I am so happy to have them in my life. Marol - bringing the love to the family!

William's Doll Video – We love androgyny in my family. We tends to have males in the family that don't fall into the stereotypical male roles. I like this. I'm sure the message of William's Doll has everything to do with it.

So as you can see, Free to Be You and Me, has greatly shaped my character. Thank you mom & dad for incorporating this into your already excellent parenting skills.

What I wouldn't give to have one more listen to this album, dancing with my sisters, as a kid again.