Customer Reviews

Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture

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As a mom who raised two children partially within hippie culture, I am intensely curious about how other kids raised similarly turned out. Wild Child didn't completely sate my curiosity, but it whetted my appetite to go out and read more books on this topic (they're coming fast and furious now).

One funny thing about "being a hippie" is that many of us feel like we weren't *real* enough, compared to, say Wavy Gravy or the Deadheads. Sure, my kids went to alternative schools, witnessed more sex than shrinks would advise, and loved riding around in our beige VW bus, standing on the seats so they could wave to passers-by from the open sunroof. But I only lived communally for three years; I held down a respectable office job; and at one point I even cut my hair.

Wild Child quelled my feelings of being a fraud by showing that there were a lot of different ways to be a hippie. One girl's family traveled back and forth cross-country in a mail truck bought at auction; another spent time working the sugar fields of Belize. About the only thing they all had in common was being embarrassed to reveal the contents of their lunchboxes to classmates-and having a lot of strange people wandering around their homes, whether they lived in a house, bus or teepee.

For me the most powerful piece was the editor's: "Welcome Home," in which she describes attending a latter-day Rainbow Gathering. Having already lived the real thing, the gathering's painstaking efforts to replicate hippie life cannot possibly impress or move her.

Only one contributor is angry about her childhood: she is furious about the omnipresent sexuality she was exposed to almost from infancy. For the most part, though, the contributors enjoyed their childhood and still love and appreciate their parents and what they were trying to do. Interestingly, none of them have chosen to adopt the hippie lifestyle--though many have retained its core values of peace, love, and self-sufficiency.

I recommend Wild Child to anyone with a vested interest in hippiedom-for instance, parents seeking validation for their child-rearing methods. It's also a fine antidote to hippie-bashing, considered sophisticated now even by those who once embraced the lifestyle. The truth is, it was a brilliant and optimistic moment in history. If it didn't transform the world completely, well, it did affect future generations-as Wild Child eloquently testifies.

This is a deeply felt collection of essays with the single unifying theme of what it was like, for several girls, to be raised by parents that embraced the values and lifestyles of the American counterculture. Most of the essays are episodic, briefly exploring specific experiences. All of them are well written, combining personal histories with an easy narrative flow. I was very moved by one essay in particular -- "Free Love Ain't," by Elizabeth She -- a heartbreakingly honest and brave account of a girl's exposure to the frank sexuality of the free love philosophy of the sixties and seventies. She's description of her experiences and the subsequent psychological repercussions of the free love legacy is a true example of what makes a good memoir. Brava to Chelsea Cain for assembling these stories. The Adult Children of Flower Children have a powerful voice.

Wild Child is a well written collection of short essays which remind us that the hippie generation cannot be put into a single category. Some were loving, caring parents who found greater meaning in life through simplicity, and an idealistic dream for a better world. Others were abusive, addicted jerks whose parenting was disastrous. But the question remains, how does this differ from any other segment of society?

The suggestion in the synopsis that children raised by hippie parents endured anything more than children of straights simply because they "endured" tofu, communes, nudism and protests, rather than roast beef, suburbs, ruffles and Sunday school is preposterous. As the essays make clear, children are children. They all endure the influences of their parents, and they all rebel. And, if they are lucky, they eventually find their own way. Chelsea Cain does a nice job of pulling together an assortment of writings which provide an excellent mirror for parents of all generations to reflect upon the values they instill, be it through their words or their deeds. This book should be of particular interest to those young adults who thought their parents strange and longed for more convention in their lives. Likewise it should appeal to parents who themselves were part of the hippie generation and struggled to raise their children with values which transcended the dominant American culture.

As a thirty-five year old self-described Adult Child of Flower Children, I was pleased to finally see a book like this published. The writing in all of the essays is eloquently honest and amazingly free of judgements. The experiences of the counterculture from a child's perspective is a difficult one to communicate, because so many "hippie" children have turned away from their past in order to fully integrate into mainstream society. Fortunately, the women writers in this collection have chosen to share their childhoods without either condeming them nor sugarcoating them. One essay, in particular, stands out as an example of the hippie lifestyle gone awry. Elizabeth She's, "Free Love Ain't" is heartbreakingly candid in its description of the psychological repercussions that she experienced as a result of having no sexual boundaries as a child. It strips away the romantic veneer of "free love" and reveals just how damaging sex and sexuality can be when it isn't tempered by love, understanding and responsibility. Brava to Chelsea Cain for bringing these stories together. For those readers interested in a boy's account of growing up in the counterculture, look for my own book, "Huck Finn on Acid," to be published this year.

Wild Child is a well written collection of short essays which remind us that the hippie generation cannot be put into a single category. Some were loving, caring parents who found greater meaning in life through simplicity, and an idealistic dream for a better world. Others were abusive, addicted jerks whose parenting was disastrous. But the question remains, how does this differ from any other segment of society? The suggestion in the synopsis that children raised by hippie parents endured anything more than children of straights simply because they "endured" tofu, communes, nudism and protests, rather than roast beef, suburbs, ruffles and Sunday school is preposterous. As the essays make clear, children are children. They all endure the influences of their parents, and they all rebel. And, if they are lucky, they eventually find their own way. Chelsea Cain does a nice job of pulling together an assortment of writings which provide an excellent mirror for parents of all generations to reflect upon the values they instill, be it through their words or their deeds. This book should be of particular interest to those young adults who thought their parents strange and longed for more convention in their lives. Likewise it should appeal to parents who themselves were part of the hippie generation and struggled to raise their children with values which transcended the dominant American culture.

Goats milk and free love. Traveling cross country in a mail truck and tempeh in the bathtub, "Wild Child" portrays numerous essays of young girls exposed to the counter culture of the late 60s and 70s. I had half expected a cold analytical study of young girlhood, another example of the growing tend to categorize life to a shallow limited cultural studies perspective. But thankfully the book did expose some valid truths and portrayed the revolutionary time and the extraordinary women,(the girls mothers)who influenced their daughters, in many ways that would effect the following generations, especially in the women's movement.

While I enjoyed this easy breezy read, and found each individual essay interesting, I couldn't help but hope that there would be more of a synthesis between these young womens' stories of their childhood during this culturally explosive time. For instance, all the girls were white( except one who was half chinese), and parents that had come from middle class backgrounds. And I didn't really enjoy the end essay on Rainbow Gathering, especially the way Chelsea Cain "reports" what goes on at them. I feel like she never made the effort to really get to know what these Gatherings are all about, and in doing so keep the dream positive.

So all in all an interesting read, but not a great one. Perhaps it was because of the shortness of the book, I finished it in a couple of hours. But if you like the hippie era and want some more knowledge about it and have the patience to read each account, then I do recommend this book. If not, then read better accounts of the sixites, like a bio of Jerry Garcia or the Hippie Handbook.
peace.

What a great book to read!!! People who were not around the counterculture of the Hippie Generation (like me.. a product of the 70s and 80s) would really appreciate this book because it speaks honestly about the individual experiences of the women who lived through it. And they are not all happy experiences, which makes the essays more three-dimentional. I am sure that everyone who reads this will enjoy it!

A wide variety of experiences of what it's like growing up with hippie parents are described here... very interesting reading.

I just found this small gem in my local library. Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture, is a collection of memoirs written by women who grew up in hippie families.

"Tofu casseroles, communes, clothing-optional kindergarten, antiwar protests -- these are just a few of the hallmarks of a counterculture childhood. What became of kids who had been denied meat, exposed to free love, and given nouns for names? In Wild Child, daughters of the hippie generation speak about the legacy of their childhoods."

The stories, collected by Chelsea Cain, describe a winsome existence, all too often underpinned by insecurity, neglect, and even outright abuse. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the childhoods of the current 40 - 50 somethings who grew up in the counter-culture of the 70's in California and elsewhere.

This review was also published on my Ethno-Psychology blog, at [...]

Nothing captures the spirit of a social movement more than stories told in the voices of those who were there. And in these essays from "girlhoods in the counterculture," we can visualize what it was like and hear the songs and the beat of this unique subculture.

With a foreword by Moon Zappa and essays from various daughters of the "hippie" movement, such as Chelsea Cain, Rain Grimes, Diane B. Sigman, River Light, and others...we can almost experience their lives along with them.

In the case of Chelsea Cain, she had the opportunity to revisit that time period by attending an event touted as one of the last bastions of sixties-style counterculture years later: the Rainbow Gathering. What she discovered, of course, is that you can't really go back.

This is what she shared in her story:

"In 1972, I was a naked flower baby on a farm commune in Iowa. My mother spent that summer sanding sixty years of thick white paint off the kitchen window frames...By fall the four frames were natural wood again and she began another project: sewing my father a green felt Robin Hood shirt (I have pictures of him smiling sheepishly in it). My parents were both on the run: my mother from society's expectations for women at the time, my father from the draft and the war machine. My memories of this period are pure and sweet: love and music, dogs and garden vegetables, sunshine and songs....

She describes occasionally meeting someone named "Summer" or "Star," and after an exchange of words that identify a common "hippie" childhood, knowing right away that there is some basic part of each other, some true thing that connects them.

She goes on to say: "When I first heard about the Gathering, I expected it to be like that--a big family reunion, a living memory--something like those half-remembered evenings listening to the Dead through kitchen speakers on that Iowa farmhouse porch.

"But it wasn't like that at all. Like so many holidays, the celebration itself has evolved into a celebration of a celebration rather than anything specific." She details how many of the people who attended were not part of the core group from that long ago time. They were just there to party.

The other women share similar experiences, but mostly we can see how each woman's unique situation formed her into the person she is today, with the core values born in a unique time in history.

And no matter what each woman's story is, the bonds of that time connect them and inform their lives in the present.

I can relate to some of the stories in Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture, especially the ones about people living the "counterculture" lifestyle in suburban homes, rather than on communes, with food coops and organic gardening to show our ideals. Shared values connect us all, despite the surface differences in how these values are expressed.

I enjoyed reading and feeling the beat of a time that is no more, but that will always be a part of me. For me, this was a five star read.