Isn't this the truth...

[Tanya&Fritz]

Remember when...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no
helmets.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable. We played
dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame
but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight.... .....we were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this?

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cellular phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms, ............... we had friends. We went outside and
found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment..... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.....Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

[Logan]

Amazingly true, Tanya. Makes me real sad that life isn't like that anymore.

[ramanth]

That was my childhood. I miss those days.

[Tanya&Fritz]

Kimmy, I love your new signature!

[Cataholic]

You know, I am 'only' 36, and I so totally remember those times. I have neices, nephews, little friends, that have grown up so much differently.

I remember picnics with my mom, sliding down stone slides in jeans, 'having' to go to bed when it was still light out in the summer time, playing in the snow ALL day, never really feeling the cold! Today, I have friends that don't let their kids go outside because it is 'too cold'...WHAT? Too cold??? Or, licking out bowls of batter...I never died (at least not that I know of), never using the 'new' antibacterial soaps/wipes, etc..., eating a cookie that fell on the floor (I still do this, the five second rule applies), being afraid on Parent-Teacher night...

I would like to remind everyone that while things seemed siimpler, and maybe 'better' back then, remember all the advances that have been made- especially in the area of medicene, and social issues! Progress isn't all bad..and we can keep some of those beautiful things still with us!

[sasvermont]

Gosh, we, as children, were so trusted to use good judgement. I can recall going to the beach (I could swim) all day with my brother and sister and coming home at 5PM. There were never any adults with us. We were fine. We did get into jams every now and then, but we worked them out. We too would play outside for hours and hours. I remember taking an old army blanket and putting it over my Mom's clothes line (she hated this) and then we would take bricks and anchor the blanket so that it created a tent. We would play house all day in there. We would play with empty boxes and slide down the steep hills in them. We would play in piles of leaves for days on end. We were outside just about all the time. We were skinny. We ate sugar piled on our cereal each AM. We had whole milk. We ate lots of red meat. We had little TV time. No computer etc. to play on. We would clamp on stupid roller skates and ruin our shoes, and skate all afternoon on the sidewalks. We would ride bikes (sans the helmet) for hours on end....and follow behind the misquito spraying trucks. Yikes. We didn't care about much at all. We also only took a bath once a week. Can you imagine that? We had a well, and lived way out in the country - so we conserved. We had pets goats, lambs, dogs, etc. (never a cat)..... and we had a good time. We went to bed very darn early and got up early. We also had Sunday dinner (family) every Sunday, regardless. We were close, for sure.

[ChrisH]

Oh, the memories............ thank you all for awakening them!

[Tanya&Fritz]

Originally posted by sasvermont
We also had Sunday dinner (family) every Sunday, regardless. We were close, for sure.

My family too. My mom still wishes we could go over every Sunday night for dinner.

[luckies4me]

Having a baby I am soooooo relieved life is not that way anymore. It is too dangrous and I would never want to live in a time where my baby could be less safe. I am thankful for the things we have today such as baby proofed cabinets, safety approved cribs etc. Too many children died because of our failure to see that something needs to be done to protect children!

I know my child would be dead or halfway there now if we didn't have our house child proofed. My friends baby almost died the other day because he fell downthe stairs and there was no way to put up a safety gate! He's only 14 months old!

[Chinadoll]

Amen!
That's my biggest gripe about my little sister. I tell my Mother to make her get off the play station and make her go outside and play or walk the dog on the levee or go to her cousin's house around the corner. Anything other than sitting there. Thankfully my mother lives in a neighborhood on a dead end street where we can still send the kids out to play and not worry....but with the computer, tv, and play station they don't want to be outside.

I loved being outside with my firends. We climbed the neighbors tree, we roller skated(and not with those darn rollar blades...REAL roller skates!), we made a clubhouse in the old shed in the back yard, we went to the snowball stand by ourselves, we rode our bikes to the levee...pushed them up to the top..and had a blast flying down the levee on our bikes. If we fell, we slapped a bandaid on it and went back out to play.

As I sit behind the desk at work typing this, I realize how badly I want to go out and play now.

[neko1]

I'm only 26 and my childhood was just like that! I played outside all day, rode the bike without the helmet and wandered ALL over my town. I probably knew more little places around town than most adults! I loved having that kind of childhood! Nowadays these little kids are so disrespectful and disgusting and their parents are completely to blame because they don't do any parenting. It's a pretty sad world when elementary school kids are swearing and smoking and having sex.

[luckies4me]

I also grew up that way as my mom didn't care what I did. I was always out late past dark. Luckily I turned out ok, at least I think I did. lol

I don't understand how parents could just let their kids run around town, even then when there were less stupid heads inthe world. I was molested so many times when I was little it was ridiculous. If my mother would have been watching me instead of doing drugs then it wouldn't have happened. It bugs me when people say they want to go back where they are "free".

That is what is dangerous. Yes, I know it is nice to go outside and walk somewhere etc. but it's still dangerous. Me, I am stuck in this house even now all grown up because I don't know how to drive!


It's those times long ago when parents let their kids wander that has rubbed off on the adults now a days so that they do not watch their children, because that is how they were raised. My bfs aunt is 40 something and her daughter just dropped out of highschool, her other daughter is having sex in the house, and most of their friends are pregnant! She acts as if there is nothing she can do about it and it makes me sick.

I do agree that you should not spend all day inside etc. but some kids don't have a choice and some of their parents just don't care. My younger brother and sister barely go outside because they aren't allowed to. The neighborhood isn't too safe but it is the only place they can afford to live right now. They are bright smart teenagers with no problems, even though they are inside most of the time. Of course they do out with my family and their friends to places but to wander around the neighborhood is not safe.

Thank goodness my mother is a totally completely different person now thanks to my step dad and my siblings are being raised right.

Not all game playing etc. is bad. My older brother loves games, still plays them and so do I. It was pretty much all we had to do when we were little. My brother got so good he won the Captron contest for Nintendo and got to go to the finals all the way in Australia. That was out of 10,000 contestents and he got second!
I remember him playig centipede upside down in the mirror and not dying even once! now he developes video games.

But I must say this......
Look at all of us, we are onthe computer almost all day long talkingto fellow pet lovers. Is that bad?

[Soledad]

I think if people want to let their children run around town, walk themselves to school, play in water unattended...that's certainly their prerogative. What bothers me is when the inevitable happens they refuse to take any blame..."the government should do this" "someone should have helped or seen". The world does not revolve around your children, and if you want them safe you have to make decisions you can live with.

[sasvermont]

What I was writing about is how free wheeling life was back when I was a kid, not how irresponsible my folks were. They were not, they were very trusting and there were not a boat load of child molsters etc. out there. We were taught to be responsible at an early, early age. I would not say that my parents were bad, they just were very trusting. And we were good kids - we earned their respect.

Some of the replies to this thread seem so condeming.

[Soledad]

SAS - I mostly agree with what you've wrote. My childhood was very similar. And I think there is a danger in making things too safe.

I just get annoyed by each generation thinking that THEIR time was the best, and sighing and whining about these kids today. Look things were never perfect, and they're never going to be.

Progress changes each generation, and each generation has a new set of problems and solutions to create. I think that's quite wonderful, and shouldn't be made into something shameful.


But it is nice to get nostalgaic now and then!