Those Born 1920-1979

[JimD]

Those Born 1920-1979

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 Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight 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 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?!

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

 

[ellissian]

Yay I survived too being born in 1973, its so true and funny in parts! I can relate to a lot of what was said but living in the UK we did things a little differently.

 

[Sealy]

I miss those days. Seriously. Remember how we would play in the ditches during a rain? Dirt clod fights, Climbing trees. Building forts. I would go all over the neighborhood and my mom and I had Walkie Talkies to stay in touch ( a girl in a neighborhood full of boys, Walkie Talkies were a good thing to have!)
But we got up in the mornings during summer and it was our full time job to hurry and eat breakfast and head out of the door as soon as we could and not come back until supper then back out till darkish to play Kick the Can, Red Light Green Light, freeze tag, Night Hide n Go Seek. And we slept great at night and didn't need to be on anti depressants at the age of 5.
Oh.. and the neighbor kid's parents had permission to tan yer hide if you misbehaved without fear of going to jail.

Good times. Good times. ( minus getting yer hide tanned- which I did , um. a few times. heh)

~Sealy
* feeling Nostalgic*

 

[NZminilops]

Hey! I can relate to about 80% of that and I was an 82'er . Growing up in NZ was always a rough and tumble outdoor life. I never saw a video game machine till 1992 , and never heard of a CD till about 95 :shock:.

 

[polly]

i was '79, and i agree it is so sad these days, kids can't survive without the latest gadget and sulk if they don't get it, they don't seem to have imaginations any more, and from the age of 6 they are more adult than child its horrid and scary and puts me off having them!! What really annoys me is the fact that so many people don't disipline their kids

The saddest thing i heard was a couple of years ago when i was told kids aren't allowed to sit on santas knee anymore for fear of sexual assault. and that when one parent wanted to put the glass of sherry , mince pie and carrot out for santa and Rudolph was calmly informed by their young child that santa is not allowed to drink and drive. I wish children could be children again. We used tro spend hours fishing in the burn and the streetlight thing really made me think what my childhood was like

 

[ellissian]

The thing is its not safe to let your kids playout all day anymore. Although it is sad that my children have'nt had the same childhood as me, I know nothing bad is going to happen to them. My daughter starts senior school next September and I am passed myself with this thought as I know I have to give her the freedom she deserves.....but it's going to be hard.

 

[polly]

To be honest i can remember that being said to me too though that the world wasn't as safe a place as it had been when my parents were younger, and i realise a lot depends on where you live but sometimes i wonder how much worse if any the problems are o ris it just that we hear about them more now than we used to because of telly and radio!!

I still think a lot comes down to dicipline its kinda sad to hear teenagers telling the police they can't do anything to them, its sad that if somone assalts you and you hit them you are the one that gets done for it. What sort of a world are we living in, and why are so many people having children they clearly can't be bothered with, where i stay the parents take the kids to Tesco on a saturday night buy the kids their carryouts (because they are underage) and tell them to disappear for the night??? When the police bring them back the parents do nothing in fact the police started taking them to a police station miles away to get the parents to get annoyed at coming to get them!!!



sorry for the rant but it really bugs my brains!!!!

 

[ellissian]

I'm certainly not one of those parents. Polly the world is'nt as safe as it used to be just look around.....

I'm now going to type what I was going to say why I choose to keep my children safe as young members on the board don't need to hear it.

 

[polly]

I would never assume you were, but there is a lot of it out there. its just sad

 

[ellissian]

I do know the type of parents you are talking about. I see kids left to roam the streets at say 3 years old, they will probably grow up to be tearaway teenagers as basically their parents do not give a dam. It does make me sad too.

 

[polly]

If every parent behaved like you (or me if i had them) then it would be a much nicer place.

 

[ellissian]

Probably, but I still make mistakes. :? I don't think I would be human if I did'nt. :biggrin2:

 

[polly]

Yeah but manners cost nothing and everyone makes mistakes, if we didn't we wouldn't learn

At least you are trying

 

[ellissian]

Ha, so true.

 

[Pet_Bunny]

Mojo's were the candy to have. Spearmint and chocolate were my favorites.

Pop came in glass bottles.

Shampoo came in glass bottles too.

Walkingdown the railroad lines for miles, only to step back when a train came by.

Built rafts out of logs and went outonto the ponds. Lifejackets was only for the Titanic.

Had my BB gun taken away (6 years old? don't remember) cause I couldn't cycle the lever.

Slingshots and pocketknivesfilled our pockets.

Carried mercury aroundin jars. :shock:

Sun tan lotion was never heard of.

We still stick our tongues to frozen metal poles.

 

[JimD]

Phones had dials....AND CORDS!!

You needed a can opener to open a can of sodapop....or take a bottle cap off.
Ever make badges by peeling the cork out of the bottle cap and then pressing your shirt between the top and the cork?

 

[stephiemarie78]

oh yes, we had to be home before my mom would close the curtains on the front window if we got home and they were closed we knew we where in for it. =) my fondest memory is when it would rain really hard our neighborhood didn't drain well and it would flood the streets, we would play in it.

 

[ellissian]

On a windy day I can remember we would use an old carrier bag, tie the handles with string and play kites for hours!:biggrin2:

We played really simply games like hopscotch, icecream, british bulldogs and polo etc, have a huge street competition were every kid in the street who owned a bike raced round the block......being the 2nd youngest i was virtually always last.

People left there door open and would pop to the shops!:shock: And I don't remember lots of kids having asthma and allergys like they do now.:?

*Sigh* it was fun back then!

 

[Bassetluv]

I was born almost on the cusp of the '60s (57), and must say that life, with all it's perils, mishaps, and mistakes, was great back then. We didn't grow up without our fair share of danger...I grew up in an abusive home myself, and the man up the street was a child molester...but you know, the memories are still great. Some of the things we used to do as kids:

Played outdoors - never inside, unless it was pouring cats and dogs, and sometimes not even then - and we stayed out until the streetlights came on. (If you were one of the younger kids, your older sibling inevitably watched out for you.) Games of hide and seek, double-dutch skip rope, hopscotch, Red Rover, tag...all the kids in the neighborhood played.

TV? We watched it only as an afterthought, when the weather was too miserable to be outside or it was past our outdoor curfew. And even then, until I was around 15 or so we only got 3 channels on the b&w set, and one of them was French.

I had my own personal mudpie shop under the front steps. I spent hours under there with my friend and my sister, mixing and shaping pies and then setting them on a board in the sun to bake. (We graduated to an Easy-Bake oven a few years later, and that was great until the day my sister made bubblegum in it and burned everything.)

On days where we were really bored, we'd follow our dog Charlie around the 'hood. He had his favorite haunts too, and one form of entertainment was to watch him sneak in the back door of the local Confectionary shop to steal the meat that he had hanging on hooks. Al would catch sight of Charlie and give chase, but Charlie always won, his prize usually a raw pork chop or a piece of steak.

We spent many a day just lying on our backs, taking in the sweet scent of freshly-mown lawns, or listening to the hum of the mower (and curses from our dad whenever the blade hit something solid). Cloudwatching was an art form, giving names and animal designations to the most distinctive.

I taught myself to ride a bike on my own when I was 13. No helmet, no safety wheels...I just took it up to the top of Francis Street - the steepest hill in the neighborhood - and coasted all the way to the bottom. Did that back and forth, back and forth, until I got my sense of balance.

There was barely a day that went by, from the time I can remember until I was probably 14-15, when I didn't have an elbow, arm, leg, or knee that with skin scraped off and pebbles embedded in the wounds. I became adept at hiding the evidence from my mom, because if she saw it, that meant a painful bout of antiseptic. No trips to the hospital emergency room though...well, okay, one...when I sort of tore the corner of my face open. But we learned that not every cut and scrape was a catastrophe...it was part of growing up.

We got popsicles from the local store on the day we graduated from school every year (same store our dog stole meat from); we presented our report card as proof, and each kid got a popsicle for free. And I don't know how many times we frequented that store as kids, but Al was the grumpiest, most ornery old guy...yet in looking back I now see he had a heart of gold under all his complaints.

I remember going to that store with a dime and coming out with a bag chock full to the brim of penny candy. That was certainly a highlight of a summer's day...as was hearing the refrains of the ice cream truck. We'd rush to our houses and beg for pennies so we could buy an ice cream, and then would follow the truck for blocks afterward, just for something to do.

I spent most of my days outside either searching for snakes, frogs, toads, and salamanders, or - on wet, drizzly days - sitting up to my waist in mud puddles. Why? Beats me now, but it sure seemed fun at the time. (My mother had other opinions about that one though.)

When we asked for an absolutely must-have, can't live without it, to-die-for toy or article of clothing, and we begged and pleaded for it endlessly, our parents actually were able to say, No...andstick toit.

And yet, for all the freedom we had to run outdoors and play, even growing up in an abusive home, I felt loved. I had a mom who was there when I came home from school, we had rules that were strictly followed, and when we did scrape our knees and come home crying (the times that we did admit to hurting ourselves) we got medical attention from mom, along with a hug and a kiss.

I wouldn't trade those days for anything.