...Kids That Survived (Born 1930 -1979)
To all the kids who survived the 1930's 40's 50's 60's and 70's!!! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overwweight because..... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! 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. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride 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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer ! s, no Internet or chat rooms.......... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!!! If YOU are one of them....................CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, BEFORE LAWYERS and the GOVERNMENT regulated so much of our lives............ FOR OUR OWN GOOD. And while you're at it, forward it to your kids so they'll know how brave (and lucky) their parents were. written by Will Tinsley (per the email I got) Regulation ...."For our own good"- I call that a loss of freedom and choice, a little at a time. Just stop and think about all the "personal" regulations that have come about over the last few years reguarding raising our own children! Government is slowly taking child rearing OUT of our hands and controlling it themselves. That's why your child can look you in the eyes and say, "I'll sue you for that!" That's why your child is NOT learning in school. They teach what they want, to further regulate a more WILLING generation. jmop |
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| I've seen this email a few times, and it always makes me sad that my own kids cannot enjoy the same freedoms we did.
It is a dangerous world now in every sense of the word. |
| I agreee with Willowsprite. I can remember being outside until 11:00 at night. |
| I really didn't read this being about anything being "dangerous" now. It's mostly making fun of that the fact that children now are treated with kid gloves but people born in those eras survived just fine without the "necessities" that kids expect today-- with the exception of the hitchhiking and some of the basic safety stuff. I guess I wouldn't consider that to have anything to do with losing freedoms. |
| It's still safe in most place late at night. Just like it was back in the day. The same crimes happened then, we jsut didn't know about them, or hear about them, or have them shoved into our faces 24 hours a day. There was only 1/2 hour for the national news, and only 1/2 hour for the local news, so only real news got reported. There was no emphasis on sensational stories and ratings at all cost.
Crime statistics in the US are WAY DOWN. WAY down. Not that the local news would have you know. We've always lived in a dangerous world, now we're just more aware of the dangers. You could always fall off your bike. You could always get hurt in a car accident; in fact cars were so less well designed than today you were much more likely to be hurt, wearing a seat belt or not. Clothing always had drawstrings, and playgrounds always had slides and other devices that could catch them. Of course it was a local tragedy when some child was hurt; but does it really require a federal regulation to remove all drawstrings from all clothes? Life is dangerous. People are going to die. In fact I hear the Federal Government is about to outlaw marital relations as it might lead to a child who could get hurt. |
| I don't agree on that one Ron... to a point, yes, it is a lot of media shoved in our faces night after night on the news... however people in general are different IMO.
When I was in school it was unheard of for students to have weapons for example. |
I think you just didn't know about it, because they weren't searching kids with metal detectors and locker searches. When they were caught, you never knew about it because they were jsut moved to another school or expelled. Heck, I got busted with 20 packs of firecrackers in elementary school. I didn't even get a day off (but I did get a very stern talking to.) Nowadays, I'd be branded a bomb-making terrorist, planning on destroying the school. (Actually, I was just looking to sell'em.  )
Certainly there have been some spectacular school events, (and copycats thereof) and certainly I believe that the country and children are desensitized to violence. There have always been guns in the US, (especially in places like Denver!) but the desensitization has somehow made it acceptable to shoot your classmates and teachers. But I feel that is really the exception rather than the rule in what is going on; the streets are safer, crime is down. Some of the crime that's still around is exceptionally violent, but in general it seems to be happening in a small subset of neighborhoods, and it receives a ton of media when it does. Heck I was mugged 3 times back in the 70's; twice in my hometown and once because I stupidly rode my bicycle with my friend into a bad section of Boston. None of that even make the local paper. It wasn't newsworthy. Now there's a saying that you probably don't hear much anymore in the newsrooms. "Is it newsworthy?" Joan and I travelled the continent in our motorhome, frequently sleeping in rest stops and in Walmart parking lots and in campgrounds. Only felt nervous once, and were glad when some other RVers pulled into the rest stop alongside of us. Just my opinion, so we don't have to agree.  |
| When I was in high school (mid 70's) it was pretty common for kids to have pocket knives in school. In fall, there were quite a few that had rifles for hunting (they came to school right after hunting or were going hunting right after school). No one thought much about it then. Showing off or playing with said items would have gotten you in trouble - or at least a stern lecture but that's about it.
Now - last year a local kid received a 3 day suspension from school because he had a butter knife in the back of his truck. He didn't bring it into the school, it was just that someone saw it in the bed of his truck! It got there because he helped his grandmother move and it fell out of a box. It seems as though common sense has died in many circumstances. Jennifer, Baxter, Cassiopia and Sharkey |
| Well, my mom's a middle school administrator and because of the few highly publicized events of the last couple of decades (school shootings, student suicides, etc) and because of the highly litigious society in which we live, they HAVE to take all things seriously.
Like if a students comes to her and says that a kid on the bus said he wanted to kill Joe because he's a dork, instead of this being ignored and brushed off as a silly 13-year-old's comment, she HAS to question him about it. Because, if the kid actually did something about it and it came to light that yes, she had heard from another kid that he had said something, they would get sued. |
Ron wrote: Heck, I got busted with 20 packs of firecrackers in elementary school. I didn't even get a day off (but I did get a very stern talking to.) Nowadays, I'd be branded a bomb-making terrorist, planning on destroying the school. (Actually, I was just looking to sell'em.
)That's the question - why did kids start thinking that they could stab or shoot their classmates, or teachers? When did they start thinking about making bombs? When did teenagers start "cutting" - to me that's horrifying and it's a big problem in middle and upper class areas. Teenagers in mainstream homes and neighborhoods are capable of violence to themselves and to others in a way that didn't happen when I was a kid. |
| It started when TV cowboys shot to kill, not just to shoot the gun out of the bad man's hand. Don't laugh.........this about the time Roy Rodgers et al were replaced by those who shot to kill......granted you didn't usually see blood, that came later. |
SheepieBoss wrote: It started when TV cowboys shot to kill, not just to shoot the gun out of the bad man's hand. Don't laugh.........this about the time Roy Rodgers.........
I'm not laughing. I partially agree with you. I think that was a start, but I think the topper was eliminating the toy guns. Kids had the opportunity to experiment with something fake, and at the same time they were taught lessons about the difference between real and play. While parents taught that real guns would kill, the kids learned first hand that plastic bullets hurt. Kids were taken out to hunt more often, and seen first hand what guns could did. Not just the tv version of aim, shoot, and watch, as the villian gets up holding the arm he was shot in and is then taken off to jail. Like you said, the tv version has gotten worse. Everything is violence, tv, movies, and video games. We were never exposed to that much. They also lack the same sort of supervision we had as kids. More mother's have either chosen to go to work or had to because of finances. Why does a 2 year old need a tv in its room? (It's a baby sitter) Why does a 12 year old need a phone of their own? (Because they want one.)There use to be "ages" that parents sort of went by when buying things for their kids. It was sort of a maturity level thing. Not any more. |
| I graduated from high school in the mid '70's and I remember all of the stuff in the original post. With a great deal of glee, I might add. Add in swinging from grape vines, climbing around in abandoned buildings and other things my mother would have died if she had known, and yep, I had a typical childhood. Heck, instead of vaccinations I actually got measles, mumps, rubella and pertussis! And a nice smallpox vaccination. I survived, relatively unscarred, although my mom told me they almost lost me to pertussis because I was so young.
I am grateful beyond words for antibiotics and tylenol 3 for children with earaches (had earaches, just not the antibiotics when I was a kid). I am grateful for much better medical care available for children, and adults. I had many years with my parents that I otherwise wouldn't have had; I might easily not have survived my first childbirth. And the pendulum has swung to make it more socially acceptable for mothers to breastfeed their babies. My mother was just a poor country girl, but my mother in law was a city girl and she told me that the big city hospitals encouraged bottle feeding over breastfeeding, and even administered shots to dry up the mothers right after birth, whether they wanted it or not. She and my mother both smoked during pregnancy. My largest sibling weighed in at 5 lbs 15 oz. I weighed 4 1/2 lbs. My mother inlaw's 4 sons were all premies; she lost one to SIDS. Smoking was encouraged to help pregnant women keep their weight down. There were always terrible crimes, but they weren't spoken of. To my everlasting shame, I refused to believe a classmate who described sexual abuse at the hands of her aunt and uncle with whom she was living. I couldn't imagine such a thing. They moved after a few months. I was much older before I realized that such things were possible. I hope she survived and found better help than her sheltered 10 year old friend gave her. A classmate lost her sister to a serial rapist/murderer when we were in high school. It wasn't the only one in the area--rural Indiana in the '70's. It didn't make national television but it did tear apart a family. I realized only in retrospect how many of my classmates had parents who drank or who took a lot of little pills. And we were a very working class/barely middle class community of mostly farmers and first generation off the farm. My parents grew up in the depression, each with one parent who was disabled/chronically very ill, requiring lots of hospitalizations. No insurance, no social services to provide much needed assistance. They raised themselves, more or less. It wasn't very pretty, but it was the best anyone could do. My grandmother acquired a collie to protect my mother who had to be left alone for long hours while she worked. At the time, my mother was deathly afraid of dogs. I remember kids at school with pocket knives, guns in the back of cars. Heck, as recently as 12 years ago, gun safety classes were held in our local high school. I think the biggest problem is the fear of lawsuit, fear of liability and the fear of actually thinking and making decisions, especially hard ones. And too many parents my age and younger do not really want the day to day responsibility of raising children, at least not if it means giving up toys and television and video games and shopping trips and fancy vacations. Or, actually being a grown up. I see too many parents simply throw up their hands and say they can't control the kid (who is 2, 4, 9, 11, pick an age). When one coworker, a young mother of 2 talked about how badly her son behaved on a shopping trip, I told her that when my son had behaved badly on a shopping trip, I told him we'd go home if he didn't behave and then, we WENT HOME. Yes, it was a big blow to me--I didn't get out as much as I wanted, and I actually had some items for purchase in my hands. Never mind, I put them down and home we went. No yelling, no shouting, no hitting or pushing. And any shopping trip after--no bad behavior. My coworker's response: Why should she be inconvenienced because her son was misbehaving. I didn't have the guts to ask why the whole store should be inconvenienced because her son was misbehaving. I don't blame the govt. for telling people how to raise their kids. I blame parents for refusing to raise their kids. And for refusing to accept reasonable responsibility when bad things happen, as unfortunately, they do. |
| Great stories, everyone! |
Quote: My coworker's response: Why should she be inconvenienced because her son was misbehaving.
BINGO!!! The 70's (or was it the 80's?) was the "Me" generation and look what is spawned? Good manners, consideration of others, etc are all rare indeed. Selfish parents spawn selfish, self centered brats. If it wasn't so uncomfortable for the rest of us, I could just smile at the parent's problems. ONTH, my heart goes out to parents who really do try but are undermined by today's society. |
| I feel that my generation had good parents overall (grew up in the 80s). When I was in high school and college (late 90s) I worked at an elementary school and it was amazing to me the difference between how my parents and all my friends parents were compared to this new generation of parents. There were some that were good, of course, but so many were just horrible. I'm hoping that my generation that is starting to have kids will be better, since we saw this in between group go through... |
barney1 wrote: .........I'm hoping that my generation that is starting to have kids will be better, since we saw this in between group go through...
You're part of the generation that my generation is still trying to figure out. 
You may have a chance if you throw away all the "time out" books and go back to what actually works. Don't cater to your kids every whim. Don't feel bad when they say, everyone else "has one" or "gets to do it". Kids are only brats because they get away with it. If I took mine shopping and he acted up it was, "HEY! That's enough!" If he didn't stop, I'd grab his arm and give him a good swat on the butt with my hand. He was embarrased, cried, and it was over! I continued my shopping and he knew the only attention he was going to get was NOT the kind he wanted. Now, he has 3 brats of his own. My oldest grandson, who was 6 then, told me one night while I watching them, after telling him he had to do something, "I don't like you." I told him, "Well, that's ok, but you have to do it anyway..." So he did.
Afterwards we talked, and I let him tell me what he felt and thought about the situation, as I explained why what he did was wrong. He brought up his other grandma and what she "don't make him do". So I asked him, "Well, do you like her (the other grandma)?" He says, "Yes." I said, "Well, that's good, but why do you like her and not me?" His answer was, "Cause, she don't make me mind." Of course after our little talk we were buddies again. Later he says his other grandma makes him do it too, and that he still likes me. It was hilarious! ................... |
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