Born 1930-1979

[Jennasis]

Yeah well, I can build a mean tree-fort, ride a bike with no hands, and can shimmy up the tallest tree in the yard without a problem BUT I'm lucky I can barely surf the internet, but my 12 year old nephew is a computer genius. So it all evens out in the end.

Times change, and thank God for it. I appreciate the good ol' days, but I appreciate the modern times too.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Well, yea...and you are lucky enough to be sitting here typing that. Those who were thrown through the windshield and instantly killed don't get a vote on this post, do they?

I'm not usually so snarky, I don't mean it personally, really. I just rode somewhere with my sister-in-law and she told my little nieces to take off their seatbelts to stretch out and take a nap. And she used that "we did it and we lived" line and it made me.... . That logic just makes NO sense to me. I accidently drove the wrong way on a road one time and I lived. Doesn't make it a safe practice.

Sorry in advance. I know it's a light-hearted post. I've just seen it a bunch of times and I don't really relate to the sentiment. I feel that by learning about and implementing health and safety measures, we are improving our quality of life.

I agree.

OP, I know you meant it in a light-hearted way, but those emails just rub me the wrong way. Thank goodness we know better now how to keep ourselves and our children as safe as possible.

 

[sbell111]

Well, yea...and you are lucky enough to be sitting here typing that. Those who were thrown through the windshield and instantly killed don't get a vote on this post, do they?

I'm not usually so snarky, I don't mean it personally, really. I just rode somewhere with my sister-in-law and she told my little nieces to take off their seatbelts to stretch out and take a nap. And she used that "we did it and we lived" line and it made me.... . That logic just makes NO sense to me. I accidently drove the wrong way on a road one time and I lived. Doesn't make it a safe practice.

Sorry in advance. I know it's a light-hearted post. I've just seen it a bunch of times and I don't really relate to the sentiment. I feel that by learning about and implementing health and safety measures, we are improving our quality of life.

 

[Morganpics]

Really miss those days, neighbor-helping-neighbor just because it was right.
Now it's a dadgum "entitlement" issue, thanks to many who wanted Gov't to protect & equalize us.

You are SO right!!

 

[C.Ann]

It should be remembered that it isn't the government deciding what's good for people and what isn't. It's the people going to the government and demanding they do something "for everyone's safety" that got the bills started to create laws about car seats, helmets, lead paint, smoking, etc.

Ditto for the lawyers. If people hadn't started suing each other and corporations for accidents and their own stupidity, some of these laws wouldn't be affecting the rest of us.

Not to mention all the people who think they're in the right by walking up to a pregnant woman who happens to be smoking and give her a lecture about how she's "harming her baby". Or the ones who want to call CPS because they see kids who aren't wearing seatbelts.

Before we bemoan the loss of our own civil liberties, it's best to make sure that we ourselves aren't the ones taking them away from others based on our standard of what's "right". Kids born from 1930 - 1970 lived in a society that knew how to keep it's collective noses out of other people's business. Sure, there were downfalls to that - the Sylvia Likens case comes to mind immediately.

But look at the tradeoff: for every instance of Sylvia Likens, there are hundreds of thousands of other children who learned how to be self-sufficient and aware of their surroundings; how to figure out their own problems; who learned to deal with disappointment; who had the basic tools to be able to go forward without any help from anyone.

Due to the mentality of "If only ONE child is helped, then it's all worth it" we now have childhood obesity, adult obesity epidemic, college graduates who expect to be given credit just for showing up at their job while not being able to write a grammatically correct sentence, skyrocketing taxes on tobacco products and new bills about taxes on food with high fructose corn syrup.

But hey! At least that ONE child was helped! Who cares if Rome is burning and millions will die. We saved ONE child! WOO HOO!

I wonder whether we are improving our quality of life. Yes, there are certain things we can do to improve safety (seatbelts, helmets on bikes) but at the same time we are restricting our children's exposure to many things. Just read the DIS . . . I see a world of organized playdates, not letting kids walk to school or play in the neighborhood due to fear of child abduction, and helicopter parents fretting about each and every perceived slight their snowflake suffers at school. I don't think our children are very good at solving their own problems.

I'll be 60 very soon and I'm still kicking.. My kids were born in the 60's and 70's and they're still alive to tell about it too..

Yes - some changes were actually needed because changes in our environment dictated them - but others seem to be the usual "special interest groups" that assume because they don't want things to go in a certain direction no one else should either..

Loved the list! I remember so many of those things..

 

[alizesmom]

Good old days? These will be the good old days to a new generation as the early 1900s were to our grandparents and greatgrandparents. Memory almost always focuses on good things and fogs out the bad. Um, remember polio, WWII, Korea, bomb shelters and a whole bunch of fun things like that?

 

[manning]

Sadly great old programming has bit the dust. The test pattern has been cancelled.

 

[C&G'sMama]

I don't think OP meant anything other than a light hearted post.

And in that vain. Jarts. I loved Jarts. There would be any where from 10 to 15 of us outside with the Jarts.

 

[MoonFaerie]

Well, yea...and you are lucky enough to be sitting here typing that. Those who were thrown through the windshield and instantly killed don't get a vote on this post, do they?

I'm not usually so snarky, I don't mean it personally, really. I just rode somewhere with my sister-in-law and she told my little nieces to take off their seatbelts to stretch out and take a nap. And she used that "we did it and we lived" line and it made me.... . That logic just makes NO sense to me. I accidently drove the wrong way on a road one time and I lived. Doesn't make it a safe practice.

Sorry in advance. I know it's a light-hearted post. I've just seen it a bunch of times and I don't really relate to the sentiment. I feel that by learning about and implementing health and safety measures, we are improving our quality of life.

I agree. And I just have to think anyone that has that line of thought just hasn't been in a serious accident. I was born in the 70s, and the only reason I'm here is because I was in a car seat. The same can be said about my children. We were in a bad accident at the end of May. I'm still recovering. DH took about 2 months to recover. The kids were absolutely fine, never even complained about any pain whatsoever, while I literally thought I might die. (And yes, dh & I were properly restrained.) The Taco Bell that was in the back seat between the kids? Flew out of the open sunroof while we were spinning in the middle of the road. I will NEVER understand why people don't always make sure their children are properly restrained.

 

[paintnolish]

Sadly great old programming has bit the dust. The test pattern has been cancelled.

I remeber falling asleep to one program and waking up to the test pattern and accompanying annoying sound!

 

[kaytieeldr]

Anybody else get carsick riding in the backwards seat of the the Station Wagon. I was such a wimp

Kae

We couldn't afford those fancy backwards-backseat station wagons. We had to sit on the plain old floor of the way-back. Nobody wanted to sit in the back seat. We'd fight over who got to sit in front with mom (when dad wasn't also in the car, of course) and who got to sit in the way-back. Oh, and does anybody remember the ersatz carseat that hooked over the back of the front seat and had its own steering wheel, complete with horn?

 

[EveDallas]

I don't think OP meant anything other than a light hearted post.

First off, I think a lot of people on here need to relax. It was a light hearted post, and IMO a lot of things were better back in the day. Of course, no one wants pregnant women to smoke or demands the return of lead based paint, but it's a shame that kids don't get to be kids anymore.

And in that vain. Jarts. I loved Jarts. There would be any where from 10 to 15 of us outside with the Jarts.

Jarts were great. I still have an old set that my DS and his cousins play with sometimes. Good times

 

[kaytieeldr]

I know what you're saying and I do agree with that. The list in the OP advocates pregnant mothers smoking, not using seatbelts, using lead paint, etc. and calls it the good old days. I do agree with the sentiment of children playing freely outside, but that didn't really relate to some of the other items on the list which were clearly NOT things that were better in the old days.

I don't see that the post (not created by the original poster, by the way) advocates the behaviors. Rather, it lists them and - correctly - indicates that we survived all this now-hazardous (real or percieved) stuff. We flourished.

I was born in the 70s, and the only reason I'm here is because I was in a car seat. The same can be said about my children. We were in a bad accident at the end of May. I'm still recovering. DH took about 2 months to recover.

I wish you well, and hope you heal fully. I would like to point out, though, that cars are smaller and lighter than they were thirty, forty, and more years ago. It's not that we didn't (or did) need carseats then - but cars were sturdier, speeds were slower, drivers were fewer (and more cautious/considerate, really), and so accidents frequently weren't as damaging.

 

[TCPluto]

I would like to point out, though, that cars are smaller and lighter than they were thirty, forty, and more years ago. It's not that we didn't (or did) need carseats then - but cars were sturdier, speeds were slower, drivers were fewer (and more cautious/considerate, really), and so accidents frequently weren't as damaging.

Actually, the data proves your assumption wrong.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/31/usnews/whispers/main3117851.shtml

 

[FireDancer]

I just made the cut (born 1978) and love the post. Let kids be kids. Sure, they'll get some scars along the way, I sure did, but I managed to make it into adulthood. The human race will not be wiped out if we let a kid climb a tree or actually go play some baseball in the empty lot with their friends. It would probably cut down on the childhood obesity epidemic a bit too.

The over-legislation of childhood and parenting is just one of many examples of the slow erosion of our liberties that has happened over time. "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."

 

[Took]

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 ...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




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 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 , CD's or Ipods, no cell phones! , no personal computers , 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


And 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?!

QUOTE]


I've said this for YEARS! I did edit the post to show those elements that I think we ought to bring back. I'm more "for" some of them (involving kids playing outside!) than others (moms drinking, although I think we go bananas about this nowadays).