YMMV / Life Among the Savages

• Values Dissonance:
  • Ah, the 1950s. Jackson casually mentions slugging down a cup of coffee and lighting another cigarette while in labor with her third child. Corporal Punishment is constantly threatened (though never actually depicted), with Jackson's husband going so far as to suggest a local eight-year-old bully be horsewhipped. The kids are put to bed with a glass of grape soda or fruit juice every night and are described as climbing all over the backseat with nary a seatbelt buckled. When Sally gets the chicken pox, her mother encourages her baby brother to play with her so he'll catch them, too.^note The chicken pox vaccine wasn't invented until 1995; up to then it was considered easier to let them catch chicken pox and get it over with than to hope they would somehow avoid getting sick. And the kids enjoy a lack of supervision that seems almost insane by today's standards: five-year-old Sally and her three-year-old brother disappear into "Pudge's tree" for an entire day, while the eldest son acquires a chemistry set powerful enough to drive the entire family out of their home.
  • Reading between the lines of the infamous "Charles" story, it may be surprising to hear about a kindergarten teacher spanking students and washing out mouths with soap.