Conditioning...

I don't like to sweat. My skin doesn't like taking showers twice a day. I get sick of water easy. I fatigue easy in the heat. My hair frizzes like crazy too.
And yet, I do not believe in Air Conditioning.  I never have.

I grew up for years without it and suddenly in my teens my father decided it was time that we had a unit stuck in every window in every room in their house. I protested. I fought. And most of the time I won.  My room as a teen had only one working window. There were two, but the other was huge and didn't have a screen, so I never opened it. Then after I graduated HS, I moved to a room in the attic that only had ONE window. I would often come home from school or work to find an A/C until shoved in my one working window and my bedroom a frigid temp. I always shut it off, unplugged it, pulled it out, put it out in the hallway, and proceeded to put my box fan back in. We argued relentlessly about this. He was angry because my room was leaking warm, humid, awful air into the rest of the cool house. I said that my room was full of fresh real air and that he should just keep my door closed. Eventually he got tired of hauling it back into my room and window. Especially when he realised that I was younger and could literally keep this up all summer.

One of the things I have come to love about my husband is his love of hating A/C.  We have been criticized for this of course. We're crazy with the heat. My dad made comments that he did want grand kids someday. (Yet somehow both of ours were convived in hot late spring weather without it.lol)  Our reasoning is simple, our bodies can be trained to deal with it. Not saying that in winter we go without heat, but we do keep ours set at 62-64 all winter.  Yet when the weather gets sweaty and hot, we just turn on a fan and down the liquids. The first day is always the worst. The second is better and by the third you're fine. I even turn on my oven in 94' in the shade, heat. Doesn't bother me anymore.
What does bother me is when people tell me I'm a bad parent for subjecting my children to it. I make sure they are hydrated as well. I buy electrolyte drinks and give it to them diluted. I want my children to be able to regulate their body temperature's naturally. What good are we doing our children if they are always in an environment that is the perfect temp? Then I hear about deaths and hospitalizations in the news during a rolling blackout. Yes, most of them are elderly, but some are adults who just didn't know how to hydrate themselves.
I have gone through two summer morning sickness, pregnancies this way too. Never once begging for A/C. In fact we sold the unit my dad bought us when we moved into our apartment. Brand New still in the box.

I know it seems like such a silly argument, but people are very emphatic about their A/C. To the point that they state "I can't live without it." Which really is total crap. People lived without it for decades. To have A/C was a sign you were rich. Then central air became that sign. Now it is everywhere. People have shut themselves up in their homes with recirculated indoor air blowing cold in their faces. Some people have it on so cold they need a blanket along with sweats and a long shirt. You can claim it is for comfort and in some places I understand. Yet in those places, people don't have A/C in their huts or tents. I find it funny that people who live hundreds of miles from the equator cannot handle or will not handle what it takes for their body to naturally regulate itself. Yet the people who do live close to the equator, don't need it. They wear long pants and shirts in 100' sun.  Water is life. Same goes for people who live near the poles. 75' hits and they are sweating. They are conditioned to their environment, not the other way around.

I worry that down the road several generations, we may suddenly see people who cannot regulate their body temperature at all. People who must live in climate controlled buildings. Also who knows what kind of illnesses will come about from people breathing in recirculated air and not fresh air?
Most of this is speculation. But I prefer to do what my ancestors did. Drink, eat, play and live while my body does what it is designed to do.