Which Generation Are you?

Along with the birth of my new baby boy last year I got to thinking what kind of generation will he be living in...
Here are a few moot points I have shared:

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who where kids in the 50's,60's and 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cots were covered with brightly covered lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottle, or latches on doors/cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just thongs (flip flops for the non aussie) and flourescent clackers on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passanger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.

We ate dripping sandwiches (remember them?), bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we never gained any weight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink between four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we'd forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles, and after many broken limbs time after time we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.

We did not have playstations or X boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no internet chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and street rounders ( I used to love that game), and sometimes that ball really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again. We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it.

We WALKED to friends homes.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore coats by only the hood.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine THAT!

This generation has 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 to deal with it all.

I am proud to be one of them.

Chris

So they say..........

I remember those times!
But i guess one gets older!

My teenage years went through the 80's ...
My dad was pretty strict...so i never went to the 80's concerts(never been to one )or those 'parties'' that kids had when parents were'nt home....I dont miss them though.
But i do miss the days when kids played outside and came in for dinner...and watched one show on tv...hmmmm ,i remember watching '''Lost in space''' with Dr Smith...''blubbering idiot'' or the android .......''Crash Kill, Destroy''
Those times are gone ,not only from me,but for many of the kids today....
All kids want today, is to play 'video games' or Play station 1,or playstation 2 ,or x box or something New that seems to surface every year!
Kids are different today, because society in general has changed things......and not for the better in my opinion...
I worked with kids for awhile(child care worker) and it seems that the things we did.....go out into the playgrounds and play a game of cricket,or ''cat and mouse'' are gone...sad, but things have definately changed ...
hmmmm it does bring memories back....Thanks Oz Chris.

Glad someone other than me appreciates "The good ol days"

Chris

Y

Quicksilver post SHORTEST POST EVER...

Ats moderators from all over the world are baffled tonight after the one who calls himself QUICKSILVER posted just one character in a post..


"It's outrageous after all we did to try and prevent this from occuring" ATS forum spokesperson William said to OzChris news tonight...

Details at 10...chhhhhhhhhhhhh

I don't know what I am. not gen x, and I don't know what gen y comprises. child of the '80s, maybe?

I guess the new generation will be called generation 9/11. Well, according to newsweek anyway

Originally posted by OzChris

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just thongs (flip flops for the non aussie) and flourescent clackers on our wheels.

Well, I'm a *non aussie* and I know what are thongs. But I didn't know what were flip flops.

Good topic.

Originally posted by MorningtonCrescent
I don't know what I am. not gen x, and I don't know what gen y comprises. child of the '80s, maybe?

I've heard we are called the "information generation".

I say we, but I am sort of in between gen x and gen info. 1976, born on the bicentennial of the U.S.

_____________________________________________
Be Cool
K_OS

Generally the generation after X is called y, i have heard child of the 80's (wish i still had the forward about that one ) and the Information generation

whatever it's called im part of it, 1984 born

[Edited on 28-5-2003 by KKing123]

Matures are those born between 1922 and 1946.
Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.
The infamous Generation Xers (majority of us here, I think) were born between 1964 and 1980.
Generation Y, The youngest generation, born between 1980 and present are also known as Nexters.

I'm a gen xer, born in '73.

The differences i see in kids today and my own childhood include:

I walked, rode my big wheel, was always playing outside (running around playing war or baseball, freeze tag, spud, rover red rover, etc, etc. From my own perceptions, I have notices 2-4 year olds riding around on those electric cars, teenagers riding around on electronic powered scooter bikes. These kids are getting used to having everything taken care of for them. All the parks that used to be filled when I was growing up are empty or torn down now. i have also noticed that forrest preserves are getting more and more packed with Boomers and Gen xers, maybe a link to our childhood, I know I'm drawn there.

another thing that upsets me is the fact that kids nowadays can't seem to learn a lesson, only because parents want them to feel good and try to fix the blame on someone else. It truly is amazing, when I did something wrong my parents actually assesed the situation and if i was to blame, then I was punished accordingly. When I had acne in grade school (yes, grade school) I was tormented daily. Eventually I got so upset i punched a wall and broke my hand. My parents did not feel sorry for me that I was in pain and almost in tears, however, they did comfort my emotional pain to the insults. I have never hit a wall since and I think it's because I received no special attention from them, they actually taught me not to look for negative attention subconciously.

I guess I'm a gen Xer born in 1968. Although I think the greatest difference in generations was between the mature and the babyboomers. My parents were the matures , my father being born in '34 and my wife's parents are babyboomers.

I see a great deal of difference in the way we think. She's all about emotion and the short term, "What I want right now!! I'll worry about how to deal with consequences later!" I was taught differently..to look at what you might need down the road and plan for the future. Not to sacrifice credibility for mere material gain and always get something for my money. This being my teachings, I view credit cards as a way of building credit and emergency only but my wife and her parents view them as free stuff because they really can't see far enough to wonder what to do when the statement comes.

After over 8 years of seeing their way cause us more grief than she cares to remember, she is now turning away from that. Her Dad told me his idea was, he could always make more money and now he's seeing that age limits us to only a certain amount of time we can do that. They placed no value on things that didn't get them high or weren't pretty and shiny like health insurance and higher education when my wife was a child. They were partiers. Now he's pissed cause he wants socialized medicine while driving SUVs and having palm pilots and cell phones. I told him it was all a matter of priorities. He's even more pissed now.

I can remember being a small boy and seeing the old outhouse being taken out in lu of new plumbing. I can remember old oil lamps and only having 1 TV that you had to get up and turn the channel by hand which did no good as we only picked up 1 channel. Those were the days. It makes me really appreciate today's technology.

This makes me think this generation catagory is really way too broad. They may be good main headings but I think each can be broken into different eras spanning like 10 year periods. Example X-A, X-B, X-C.

Oz. Boomer here. LOL Geez, its funny how we are alive today with so many ways to go huh?!...the good ole' days live on in the mind.Ya.
Treat the kids like you were and u shouldn't have any probs.

I'm part of the digital generation (1986) or maybe the information generation...
*goes to think up more euphemisms for todays world*

I captain a tennis team called the Ageing Adolescents.

For all the Gen Y people who have abandoned books in pursuit of the ultimate video game, I recommend you take a short detour to help in your takeover of the world from the evil ones:

Hire and watch a copy of Logan's Run...

Logans what?
Is that some kind of sports show?

y or info generation?? i dont know what to call it but I was born in 1906.

Sorry i mean 1986. I'm not 97!!

WOOHOOO!!!!!

I'm a Nexter!

15th Jan 1983!

Funnily enough....those who know my name, i was born on the day that scotland saw one of its most frightening thunderstorms!