This has been going around via email but it makes me smile everytime I read it. Our children today may have everything in the world.. but they sure aren’t having the fun we did as kids!
I also added a bit of personal experiences to this too.
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.
- (My mother got the full experience of the 60′s)
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-base paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
- (Did they make helmets in the 70′s?)
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 truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
- (How else would Grandpa get the 15 grandkids to town and back.. we didn’t have SUV’s?)
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, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight. WHY?
Because we were always outside, playing…that’s why!
- (We played from the minute we got out of school until after dark every night!!)
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
- (In Western NC, we didn’t have streetlights)
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.
- (My first bike was built by my Grandfather out of other bikes)
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
-(My parents didn’t get cable until I was in high school..because there wasn’t cable in Franklin!)
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.
-(Riding white pine trees was fun because they are really elastic.. well mostly of the time!)
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.
-(I had a BB gun at 7 and a .410 shotgun by 10)
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.
-(I didn’t make the midget football team because I was too small.. good thing, my buddy broke his arm first game.)
Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
-(My father told me, you get arrested, don’t call me!)
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 the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it ?
