I received an email forward from a family member a while back. It was all about how great it was being a kid in the "good old days" and how, since the 1980s, over-protection has robbed kids of classic childhood thrills.
Having grown up in the '80s, I feel like I had a good childhood, but I guess I'll never know first hand how it compares to the happy days, the good times, or the summer of '69. I've revisited the email below and made a few notes (in italic) about what it must've meant to grow up in the good old days.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cousin Nicole
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 12:39 PM
To: Nate Winter
Subject: To All Us Kids
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank while they carried us...
Swisher Sweets and Mint Juleps mean nap time. For baby too!
Our mothers took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Show me a person who got diabetes from aspirin, blue cheese dressing, and canned tuna, and I'll show you someone who has no clue what diabetes is!
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints... And we turned out fine!
Years later when you put YOUR kids in those same cribs with the tasty, old paint chips, that's when things got interesting.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets
Mommy needed easy access to her pills. Pregnancy was so stressful in those days!
and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.
There comes a time in every kid's life when he HAS to get to Berkeley before recess.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Note to self: baby boomers are not universally considered air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day was always a special treat...
Securing the rebel flag while daddy smokes his tires around city hall on Memorial Day must've been quite a thrill.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Yawn. If you've heard one old-timey sexual double entendre, you've heard 'em all.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
Why can't the DCFS just let those starving kids locked in the attic have their fun?
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it,
Breakfast looks great, Mom! And thanks for holding the blue cheese and aspirin this time. I'm watchin' out for that diabetes.
but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
According to Wikipedia, "playing" is a good old days euphemism for "throwing up."
We would leave home in the morning and play all day,
Lemme guess. Uphill both ways, right?
as long as we were back when the streetlights came on...
...we didn't have to worry about a lashing.
And we were O.K. if no one was able to reach us all day.
A win-win for you and your parents!
We would spend hours building a go-cart 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.
...by selling it to the new kids in the neighborhood.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, and no personal computers... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
And when ebay showed up, those "real" friends were worth how much?
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
But as a Doogie Howser-style kid genius with a J.D., you'd have made a killing!
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
Despite what the Diagnostic Medical Journal of Mongolian Shamans, First Edition might have you believe, ingested worms do not live inside you forever. (But sniffing the penis of a young boy is still the surest way to good luck!)
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.
With all that hullaballoo, it makes one wonder how many eyes there were to begin with.
We rode bikes or walked to someone's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Restraining orders are funny that way.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
Imagine a world with one more spoiled kid and no uni-bombers.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
Laissez Faire: A Parenting Style for the Poor AND Lazy!
Our parents actually sided with the law!
Who could pass up free babysitting?!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem-solvers, and inventors ever!
A 50-year generation!? No wonder they're so great!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility,
I'm pretty sure all those ideas were around before 1930.
and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And YOU are one of them!
One of the responsibilities?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Glad I could help.
You might want to share this email with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
That "lawyers and government" generation has always been trouble. I'd shake my fist if I wasn't typing so intently.
And while you're at it, forward this email to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Brave enough to send this insightful email, apparently.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
If I lived with my parents it would.
---------- End forwarded message ----------
-- Nate Winter
No comments:
Post a Comment