Here is a picture of my kids climbing a tree. I was not allowed to do this as a child.
You've probably seen this email floating around the internet. I got it the other day and started thinking about how my parents were way, way ahead of their time.
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/or drank while they carried us.
Don't know about that one. I'm adopted.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
ditto
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
Plain little brown crib, from the pictures.
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.
I was allowed to ride my bike on my street only until I was FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. I was warned that hitchhiking would cause me to appear on "Do You Know Who This Decapitated Skull Belongs To?" posters. Medicine was locked in the highest cabinet in the kitchen.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
I remember seat belts from childhood on!
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
BWAHAHAHA! My parents once refused to let me attend a birthday party when this was on the agenda.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
My mom has a BS in Biology and a MS in Public Health. My dad had a BS in Chemistry, MS in Public Health, a MSSE (Master of Science in Sanitary Engineering) and PhD in Epidemiology. Guess how many garden hoses *I* was allowed to drink from?
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. Soft drinks? NEVER. Ginger ale whenever sick. that was it.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......
My mom was a devotee of Adele Davis "Let's Eat Right To Keep Fit" and we ate whole wheat bread, used only margarine, and drank plain white milk.
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
Not me. I wasn't allowed to play with the kids in my block because they played in the street. I was allowed to go on occasional play dates in "nice" neighborhoods--we lived in student housing neighborhoods most of my early childhood. I spent my entire childhood sitting around reading. I never played one minute of sports, either organized or street games. NOT ONE MINUTE!!!!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
See above!!!
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
My mom could reach me at all times. "Lorrie, put down the book ..."
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.
What is a go-cart?
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no movies, no surround sound, no cell phones. We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
I never climbed a tree in my life. NEVER. It was not allowed. My Dad was a doctoral student at UNC-Ch and one of my classmates had a 3 inch tv in 1965. Her dad was an engineering professor and they were developing it. I was absolutely blown away.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
Any worm that dared to think of taking up residence in the body of a child whose parents had 4,545 degrees in Public Health would have died from sheer intimidation.
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.
What is a BB gun?
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Nope.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
Nope.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
True dat.
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13 comments:
Yup. The "idealised" past may not have been.
Generational assumptions. Humph.
I did almost all of that! My parents car didn't have seat belts and there were 3 of us under three! This was 1972 in rural NC, but those were the days...
Not that I would dream of letting my own kids do half that stuff these days...its not the same world at all.
I was born in the late 30's so I can identify with much but not all of this. My folks were quite protective for the times.
It was nothing like today even so but as k&m said, it's not the same world. Not necessarily worse; I remember the fifties well, but different.
I was born in 1961 and grew up outside of Seattle. It's funny now because this is where Microsoft is these days. In those days it was woods. Much of that little essay is very close to how I grew up.
We do our best to provide this kind of life for our kids too. Not the blatant disregard for personal health and safety, but the playing outside in the neighborhood part for sure. We've lived in the same house for 20 years. Oldest son is graduating from high school this year. I know all the people who live on our street by name, 9 families. and a good number of people that extend on beyond that. Go outside and play.
Ahhh Nostalgia...always wanting to assume all the good stuff and forget some of the bad.
so says the child who was born in he 80's but still got to bike around her neighboordhood, eat white bread, climb tress but also had a nintendo back at home to play with.
I did all that stuff. My parents were way too permissive. I can't imagine my kids doing what I did at that age.
The difference is that people of my generation got injured, killed, molested, arrested, poisoned, addicted, etc etc. Thats why we are stricter with our kids.
Some of my favorite memories are those of riding in the back of my grandfather's pick-up truck, usually at night, with my cousins. My grandfather was almost always drunk which made it extra-fun.
But they forget to mention "Bobbing for Apples" on Halloween? We loved that slobber-sharing game until we were old enough to discover games like "Spin the Bottle" and "Post Office" and going "parking."
No one seemed aware of germs, but yet, every time we went to the doctor, we got a shot of penicillin.
And what about spankings? There were even paddlings in the schools back then. Lots of us got regular spankings at home and no one ever called Child Protective Services. Now, if I yell at my child in public, even for doing something dangerous, the onlookers are appalled and some nut is writing down my license plate number.
My cousin burned down our elementary school building because he had a fight with the principal (cousin was dyslexic and was not being taught anything) and he didn't get arrested or anything. I'm not saying that's okay, but now, 8 year-old children are hand-cuffed for bad-mouthing their teachers. If a child misbehaves, it's not because of a lack of discipline (which is no longer accepted anyway) it's because their medication levels need to be higher.
My mom allowed me to drive the family car, alone or taking my friends along, when I was 15. I had no permit or license, no experience driving and she never said anything if I came home with some other car's paint on the bumper.
I did get worms once, as a small child, because I dropped an Oreo cookie in the dirt and ate it anyway. It looked clean. I remember the albino worms vividly and will never forget the taste of the worm medicine. It was chartreuse in color.
Is this all too much information?
It sounds like you had very loving parents. Maybe a little over-protective but now see what a great parent you've turned out to be!
After my childhood, I am, decidedly, not okay.
What Miss Cellania said really rings true with me. There were a lot of really bad things that happened to people of my age, back then, and later, as adults, as a result of our upbringings.
There was a boom in AA by the time my generation finished their twenties and I think they developed SSRI's (and "mood stabilizers" just for us.
I'm so anxiety ridden, as a parent, that I once took my child to the emergency room for a mosquito bite, if that tells you anything about my state of mind.
If I go see a shrink (I've seen a few), they hear me talk for a bit and get out their presciption pad and ask "What's worked for you in the past?" Well, except for that Amish shrink I went to once.
Oh, sorry I didn't mean to write a whole essay here.
Hi, Sis,
Don't you love it that I've started invading your blog? Okay, maybe you paved the way and maybe we just lived in different houses but I did: stay out til dark; make mud cakes/pies (even raiding the bathroom cabinet for cool frosting ingredients!); climbed trees; and rode my bike all over the neighborhood. And our 82 year old mama who banned you from climbing trees, was caught red-handed by moi not 2 years ago CLIMBING A TREE to instruct my children in how to do it. Go figger. Must be generation-skipping.
That tree is flamable! You must be an awful mother!
Ignore that deluded woman who claims to be my sister. Oh, well, except that she IS my sister. Yes, my sister is 3 years younger and got to enjoy many more freedoms than I did. I paved the way! hmmmmph!
Do you remember when Becky & I sneaked down to the 7-11 on our bikes when I was 13 and I was GROUNDED FOR A MONTH? 3 blocks away.
Grounded for a month? Lawsy, my folks were sending me to the store for things when I was four or five.
My brother and I pretty much did most of those things! My parents were pretty naive. To this day when she tells stories about when I was a kid I always ask "where were you????" Her answer is always, those times were different (I guess it was okay then to let your 2 year old run the neighborhood until another neighbor found her, right????)
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