Can't Believe You Made It!

[SuiteDisney]

If you lived as a child in the 50's, 60's or 70's. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...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. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!) 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 cell 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. And you're one of them. Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

[WDWHound]

Amen

[aahmom1]

All so true, and all so different from the world our kids are growing up in. :(

[nativetxn]

I went trick or treating without adult supervision, received and <b>ate</b> home made treats. YUM, popcorn balls and candied apples and brownies and cookies (sometimes still warm).

Things are very different today.

[Lady M]

How true this is! It's amazing we survived it all, isn't it?

Marie

[grinningghost]

100% true. We were definitely alot tougher as kids than kids today. And we didn't even know it. :D

[doxdogy]

Indeed the good old days. Staying inside during the summer was unheard of as a kid. I remember being told by my mom if you come inside one more time, your are going to stay inside. That would be a fate worse then death as a kid in the summer. Collecting coke bottles for candy and soda money. Walking to the five and dime and just browsing through the aisles. Parents never took you anywhere in the car. You walked or rode your bike. Playing with your pogo stick on Christmas morning.

[grinningghost]

I tell DD that all the time. "When we were kids, if we wanted to go somewhere, we walked or rode our bikes, nobody drove us all over". She can't believe that's true. She also can't believe that we left the house in the morning and came back (if we knew what was good for us) when the street lights came on. She thinks I'm kidding.

Which makes me wonder - maybe our parents really DID walk 10 miles in a snowstorm to school???;)

[Krisu]

All activities were within walking distance. When I show my DS the places we walked to he is shocked! We didn't think anything of it since most families only had 1 car anyway and if you wanted to get somewhere that's what you did. I also walked to and from school and home for lunch (grade school)!!:D It's funny you mentioned riding in cars without restraints. I've been cleaning our attic and found the car seat my in-laws used for my DH(he grew up here) just a seat that hooked on to the back of the car seat, usually in front!! Needless to say DS was surprised.

[CamColt]

Ahh the good old days! ;)

[Shannon G]

I've got to agree with most of this, except the child seat thing - some things we do now that we didn't do then, or vice versa, do represent progress. When we took our childbirth class a few months ago, I was amazed at the statistics - if I recall correctly, the mandated use of car seats has decreased child fatalities in car accidents by something like 74%. I get so steamed when I see someone allowing their child to climb all around the car unrestrained - if you choose to risk your own life by not wearing a seatbelt, so be it (I've yet to be able to convince DH to wear his), but I don't think anyone has the right to choose to risk their chid's life in that way.

Okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now...

[Shannon G]

I've got to agree with most of this, except the child seat thing - some things we do now that we didn't do then, or vice versa, do represent progress. When we took our childbirth class a few months ago, I was amazed at the statistics - if I recall correctly, the mandated use of car seats has decreased child fatalities in car accidents by something like 74%. I get so steamed when I see someone allowing their child to climb all around the car unrestrained - if you choose to risk your own life by not wearing a seatbelt, so be it (I've yet to be able to convince DH to wear his), but I don't think anyone has the right to choose to risk their chid's life in that way.

Okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now...

[RNMOM]

We have taken away our children's ability to "find" themselves. To test themselves. It is very sad.

[Cindy B]

I remember walking the neighborhoods, wandering around, playing with what we found, and we had fun.

There were no computers, cell phones, etc.. we walked to school, by ourselves, two young girls, ages 6, and 7 about a mile each way by ourselves! We also went home by ourselves as well, and stayed home for about an hour until my mom came home from work...

No one bothered us, or approached us, or followed us home.


We had no microwave or answering machine or VCR. So if you wanted to cook, wait for a phone call or watch a certain movie, you had to stay home!

I remember bobbing for apples, and homemade Halloween treats as well.

I remember not sitting in car seats, and many many times riding in the back of my dads pickup on the highway :eek: :eek:

I also remember clutching a dollar in my hand as a five year old child walking to the corner store, and getting a loaf of bread... try doing that now in Trenton, NJ.... won't happen, especially on our street.

I am only 31... this is memories of the mid-70's.

[cinlee3]

We also didn't expect our parents to entertain us. We rarely went out to eat - it was a real treat if we did.

I wish my children could experience growing up in a community like I did. We would ride our bikes down to the park and play all day. We had a ski slope near us and we would walk, skis and all, and spend the day there. My mom had no idea where we were but she didn't worry.

My sister and I often talk about being amazed that we made it.

One day when we were reading her baby books it said under likes - "She likes to play with balloons and plastic". This would have been like saying today "likes to play with broken glass" (yes I know balloons are very dangerous for young children) we just cracked up at how things have changed.

[Krisu]

And you never, ever said to your parents that you were bored:eek: Because it would be the last time you ever made that mistake:D

[grinningghost]

Yep. Saying "I'm bored" was a one way ticket to hard labor. ;)

[Saffron]

Oh how I miss "the good old days". Never again will it be the same. :( It was a much simpler time. Things were just as hard, but there was something so peaceful, so easy about those days that is missing today. Remember when we would gather around the TV set to see a rocket launched into space, or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving morning? That was a big deal then! Remember the 4th of July parades followed by a huge family or neigborhood picnics and fireworks? Remember lighting punks at night to keep the bugs away? Remember camping out in your friend's backyard? Remember sledding down the middle of the road in your neighborhood? Remember wearing rubber bathing caps in the swimming pool? :eek: :p LOL!! Remember having a secret call that only your friends knew and a designated place to meet, such as the broken down tree, or the mailbox on Johnson corner? Oh how I long for those days sometimes. :( :(

[Krisu]

I remember our family getting the first color T.V. among our friends and having everyone over to watch "The Wizard of Oz"!

[shep]

I miss the good old days..:(
No remote--Changing the channel meant possibly losing your seat..

[Krisu]

We only got 2 channels. That was BC (Before Cable):eek:

[CrazyBoutDisney]

And people didn't fence their yards--we ran from yard to yard all the time. We used to walk thru the field behind our house to the "crick" and catch pollywogs and play in our fort that we had "built" in the trees from old scraps of carpet and linoleum. We had a small ship's bell mounted outside the back door that mom would ring when it was time to come home for supper!! We could hear that sucker a block away! My favorite was catching lightning bugs in the summer, keeping them in a jelly jar with holes punched in the lid and putting it on my dresser as a nightlight when I went to bed.

A dollar for bread??? I used to get a quarter from my mom, walk up to the grocery store across the railroad tracks, and bring home a loaf of bread and change!!!

Yes, and we had to get up off our butts to change the channel on the TV! Not only that, but we used our imaginations to make our own entertainment. We didn't rely on electronics to provide it for us!

[Krisu]

Who remembers being able to get milk at a vending machine? I think they came in quart sizes and I think it was 25 cents:confused:

[annemariec]

Those were the days, my friends. :D

Reading this thread really flooded me with memories.

My family gathering together watching Disney movies every Sunday night. Love Boat. :D Neighborhood 4th of July parades that was put on entirely by the kids. Backyard baseball and football games. No fences (except for the house behind ours that had horses). Watching storms from our carport. Knowing all my neighbors (kids and adults). The favorite tree my friends and I would climb. Catching lightening bugs and June bugs. Riding my bike to the pool knowing my friends would be there. Pool parties, Marco Polo games, and homemade ice cream on a hot day....

Annemarie

[Boots]

I was born in 1953. Once of my fondest memories is sitting outside under a shade tree because it was cooler outside in the middle of summer instead of in the house even if all the windows fans were running. I loved to sleep with the windows open. We still do sometimes. But at night if you heard someone walking you weren't afraid, someone else was just up for some reason walking. We played kick the can at night and were all over the neighborhood. Yes I remember everything you said.

[abaldacci]

:( my childhood is just a distant memory now. It seems so long ago. It was the good old days. Thanks for making me take the time to think about it I rarely do these days.