Simpler times.

[lizabu]

I agree! What on earth goes thru a parents mind when they say "here's a gun, go and have a good time". Of course it varies depending on where youre from. This sort of thing isnt a big deal in the south. But further up north (canada for example), you'd get thrown in jail!!

Canadians aren't allowed to have handguns but hunting rifles etc are allowed. I'm a city kid though so I don't have personal experience. Hunting is allowed.

 

[PrncessA]

The sad truth in this is that although we survived our youth (luckily), if we allowed our children to do many of the things that we did, they wouldn't. DH and I often say, "When we were young we use to stay gone then entire day. I wish our kids would just GO OUTSIDE!" Unfortunately we can't let them out of our sight without constant worry. Ever look at the site Family Watch Dog? You'd never let your kids out of your sight either.

Were there just as many weirdos out there when we were children? Probably.

As a previous poster said... ignorance is bliss. And a lot more dangerous as well.

Also there are lots of "normal" things that I would not want my child to experience from my childhood...

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Don't own one of those, either! I'm an strictly urban person.

I couldn't even begin to list all the things I wouldn't need to own if I lived in an apartment

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Canadians aren't allowed to have handguns but hunting rifles etc are allowed. I'm a city kid though so I don't have personal experience. Hunting is allowed.

And times are a little different too. I bet middle of farm country in say Saskatchewan in the 70's wasn't all that different from rural US.

Oh, and interestingly enough, it's easier today to get an AR15 in most of Canada than it is in most of the Northeastern US.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

The sad truth in this is that although we survived our youth (luckily), if we allowed our children to do many of the things that we did, they wouldn't. DH and I often say, "When we were young we use to stay gone then entire day. I wish our kids would just GO OUTSIDE!" Unfortunately we can't let them out of our sight without constant worry. Ever look at the site Family Watch Dog? You'd never let your kids out of your sight either.

Were there just as many weirdos out there when we were children? Probably.

As a previous poster said... ignorance is bliss. And a lot more dangerous as well.

Also there are lots of "normal" things that I would not want my child to experience from my childhood...

To be clear, lots of folks like to reminisce. Nobody says they want to go back though

 

[NotUrsula]

Don't own one of those, either! I'm an strictly urban person.

That's a funny observation -- if you had lived in Atlanta back in the 60's you probably still would have had a shovel or rake even in an apt., because there would almost surely have been a small communal yard.

I'm not from Atlanta, but I can remember when the first elevator-access apartments were built there in the late 1960's. It was big news, and those of us around the rest of the South thought the developers were crazy and that no one would ever live in them. (We had fairly good reason to think that at the time. Remember that A/C was not yet ubiquitous then. An un-air-conditioned highrise built around elevators would have been an oven in summertime.)

 

[Gumbo4x4]

That's a funny observation -- if you had lived in Atlanta back in the 60's you probably still would have had a shovel or rake even in an apt., because there would almost surely have been a small communal yard.

I'm not from Atlanta, but I can remember when the first elevator-access apartments were built there in the late 1960's. It was big news, and those of us around the rest of the South thought the developers were crazy and that no one would ever live in them. (We had fairly good reason to think that at the time. Remember that A/C was not yet ubiquitous then. An un-air-conditioned highrise built around elevators would have been an oven in summertime.)

My dad grew up in a four-floor flat in STL pre-air conditioning. He said in the Summer, nobody ever went inside before 1 or 2:00 am. Too hot!

 

[soccerdad72]

To be clear, lots of folks like to reminisce. Nobody says they want to go back though

I tend to agree with this. It's easy to say that things were easier or better in the "old days", but I doubt few would want to necessarily go back to those times.

 

[Robinrs]

I couldn't even begin to list all the things I wouldn't need to own if I lived in an apartment

I actually do live in a house but I don't do yards and outside stuff... don't know how and my allergies are insane!

I have a guy... it's easy to find a guy around here.. who does all that stuff. Love that!!

I also take care of my elderly uncle who was raised on a farm and loves the outdoors. He does stuff I don't understand but it looks good!

 

[Squirlz]

Generally speaking, it's probably more a rural vs urban thing than Southern vs Northern. Relatives of ours in IL, MN, KS, and MI all had guns growing up just like me.

Right. I was in Ohio.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

I actually do live in a house but I don't do yards and outside stuff... don't know how and my allergies are insane!

I have a guy... it's easy to find a guy around here.. who does all that stuff. Love that!!

I also take care of my elderly uncle who was raised on a farm and loves the outdoors. He does stuff I don't understand but it looks good!

You're probably just as well off paying for services if they're not overly frequent. The cost of equipment, maintenance, and storage of said equipment is pretty staggering when you add it all up. I'd pay someone if that were an option

 

[FINFAN]

we would physically go get kids to play, pick up games were the norm. We didn't have to set things up on a cell phone and be able to exclude anyone. If you were playing kickball or whatever on the street it was fair game for anyone to join in. Today , if I dare to hang laundry out on a clothesline in my back yard my neighbors would complain. I miss the "way-back" of the station wagon I miss things taking time and people appreciating and using stuff 'till it's worn out , not until the next version comes out.

I am a big fan of Miranda Lambert's new song "Automatic"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jntvWC-1gwA

oh yeah...WDW was more affordable to my family in the 70's than it is now. I miss that BIG time

 

[pigletgirl]

I grew up in the 90's. I have vivid memories of playing outside until we were called in. Even during the hottest times, we played hard. Most days we walked alone to the pool. We often chased down the ice cream van for a fun tweety bird ice cream bar.

Life then was just so darn fun. I am sad for my own DD that she won't have the same type of childhood because of the world we live in. It's very depressing to think about.

 

[Colleen27]

And the great mystery?

How the heck did we survive it all?

Someone said we were the baby boomers now being replaced by the whimps.

Plenty didn't, enough that it effected how your generation parented when they had children of their own. The same generation that likes to wax poetic about riding in the back of pickup trucks and running wild in the woods pretty much invented helicopter parenting.

 

[Colleen27]

Generally speaking, it's probably more a rural vs urban thing than Southern vs Northern. Relatives of ours in IL, MN, KS, and MI all had guns growing up just like me.

I was going to say the same thing. I grew up in a close-in suburb of Detroit, and my one friend who went hunting with his dad was quite a curiosity because none of the rest of us had ever fired a gun other than the Daisy BB rifles at camp. Now I'm about an hour away from the city in a small rural town and all the kids shoot. Many own guns and even those that don't (two of my three included) know how to shoot.

 

[jrmasm]

Plenty didn't, enough that it effected how your generation parented when they had children of their own. The same generation that likes to wax poetic about riding in the back of pickup trucks and running wild in the woods pretty much invented helicopter parenting.

I was a child of the 70's and I honestly don't remember ever hearing about a child dying accidently. Obviously kids did die and still do, just not anyone I knew.

 

[NotUrsula]

Colleen, not all of us changed how we parent, except insofar as we have to follow the local laws. The only thing that I do differently that my parents did not, other than carseats and seatbults, is to hover too much over making sure their schoolwork gets done. (I do NOT ever second-guess teachers about their work, though. They take their academic lumps when they screw up.)

I'm pretty free-range with my kids outdoor activities.. Lots of their peers' parents are horrified, but then, most of them are much younger than I am. I mostly trust my kids to use their heads to keep from ending up dead. If they break an arm, well, that's childhood. DH is much more of a hoverer, but that's just his nature; he's a what-if kind of guy. My kids latchkey, and the 16 yo supervises the 6 yo and picks her up from the bus. They fight, but so far both of them are still alive.

The only kids I ever knew who died accidentally drowned; though one of them might have been decapitated -- no one was ever really sure, because the dummy was swimming in a shipping lane and was found in two pieces. He might have already been dead when the boat hit him (he was 12.). Drowning is still a major cause of accidental death, and is the one area where my father was insane about safety, because we grew up fishing commercially and spent a lot of time on open water. We handled gaff hooks and razor-sharp boning knives from a very early age, but we always did it wearing a PFD! I also knew a couple of kids who were severely injured in car wrecks, but they all eventually recovered. OTOH, casts and stitches were a rather common sight at my grade school, and in the sub-tropical South, ALL of us knew the first aid routine for snakebite.

 

[kathie859]

I grew up in the 90's. I have vivid memories of playing outside until we were called in. Even during the hottest times, we played hard. Most days we walked alone to the pool. We often chased down the ice cream van for a fun tweety bird ice cream bar.

Life then was just so darn fun. I am sad for my own DD that she won't have the same type of childhood because of the world we live in. It's very depressing to think about.

I so agree with you! I'm older than you--grew up in the 50's & 60's--I remember disappearing on my bike after breakfast, stopping by for a sandwich for lunch and then, going off again until dinner---then when there was no school (between Memorial Day and Labor Day ALWAYS) taking off til there was no more sun.

There were woods across the street, too, and we kids would play there in the stream and never gave a thought to possible "danger".

I also was a dare devil on wheels with my strap on roller skates---I would skate for hours at a time.

I tried to give my kids lots of room for creative play--we were lucky to live in a neighborhood with a bijillion kids--but I had rules about "checking in" times.

I feel badly for kids who haven't learned to use their imagination or who don't know how to amuse themselves and will never have the freedom to run wild and free in play.

 

[Robinrs]

I was a child of the 70's and I honestly don't remember ever hearing about a child dying accidently. Obviously kids did die and still do, just not anyone I knew.

I know of plenty.

I also know of many children who were murdered, molested and many women who died of botched abortions. These are things I was unfortunately privy to because my parents took in lots of lost souls. Every week I'd wake up and there was another stranger living with us because my Mom would never let anyone be homeless, in pain or alone.

None of these things ever made the news. Lots of tragedies I lived with in the inner cities weren't newsworthy back then.

When my Mom died hundreds of people contacted us. People who thanked her for being there when no one else was. I couldn't believe how many people treasured her, but I did, too.

They made sure we were safe and nurtured but didn't hide us from the underbelly of the world. It was like a lesson of what NOT to do. Some of us listened, some of us didn't. All I know is I'm glad my son is growing up in a BETTER world.

Go back? NEVER. I like NOW.

 

[msjprincess]

The sad truth in this is that although we survived our youth (luckily), if we allowed our children to do many of the things that we did, they wouldn't. DH and I often say, "When we were young we use to stay gone then entire day. I wish our kids would just GO OUTSIDE!" Unfortunately we can't let them out of our sight without constant worry. Ever look at the site Family Watch Dog? You'd never let your kids out of your sight either.

Were there just as many weirdos out there when we were children? Probably.

As a previous poster said... ignorance is bliss. And a lot more dangerous as well.

Also there are lots of "normal" things that I would not want my child to experience from my childhood...

There isn't much that I did as a kid that I don't allow my own kids to do. The world isn't any more dangerous than it was in the 60's and 70's. There's just more media coverage.


Yes I do check that website, and I still let my kids out of my sight. I'm more worried about them not paying attention on their bikes and getting hit by a car.