For those born between 1920-1979

I had to post this. I was born in 1971, and with my b-day coming up in 4 days...I was just transported back in time.
I remember swearing that my kids would have a better childhood than I did.
Not so sure if I have, or society has, provided that.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or 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 child proof 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.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with Rumbel seats no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
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 Kool-aid 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 OK.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ridedown 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 or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chatrooms……. And guess what, we were not bored!
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. But then, we only had 10% of the lawyers we have today.
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 poke 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!! There were honest to goodness, real disappointments.
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. Some of the more recent liberal ideas have set us way back.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

SOURCE:
www.nugget.ca...

1977 child here!!

Thanks for the artical!!

Zy

hehe thinking back now.. When I was younger we didnt have internet either!!! LOL I feel so old now...:0
My first video game I played was PONG!! Oh man.. They are going to be like grandpa.. You played Pong??? Whats that?
Oh that game sucks grandpa!!! LOL

We were encouraged to run to a strangers house if we were ever approached by another stranger,who we percevied as a threat.

I remember those days!!! And you knew which houses where safe becasue they had a blue star in the window!!!
You and I are the same age.. Im guessing we went through much of the same generational type stuff!
You know G I Joe, Transformers.. And Robotech!

I use to have all the auto bots, and shockwave, and megatron.. With all the little tapes that went in shockwave..
Man I wish I still had all my old toys..

But as a boy.. I loved fire, and firecrackers, and pretty much blew up and burned all my toys..
My parents then stopped getting me toys, and told me I would have to get a job and buy my own if I wanted to burn them..

So I did.. I worked in a corn field in Iowa.. Doing something called Detassling.. Hell work, for a 9 year old kid..

And they didnt enforce child labor laws at that time either..lol
And they still used mercury in tooth fillings..

[edit on 10-1-2009 by zysin5]

reply to post by AccessDenied


Ha! 1970 here. I saw this a while back and couldn't agree with the sentiment more. In 70's parlance, people today are such pussies.
Get some sack.

ColoradoJens

I was born in 1977.
Thanks for posting this,I,as many I imagine can relate to most or all of this.

It took me back to when I was a kid,and i came across a few more id like to add.......

When we were growing up.....

We had metal/steel,wooden playground equipment.
With Cement and a little sand greeting us as we went crashing down.
Along with the fun we had playing on them,we risked the ever fun splinters and wonderful metal slide that we all went down.
Of course on a hot sunny day,that same slide would reach tempatures of 100 degrees plus!

We had Trick or Treating on Halloween,at Night!

We had lawn darts,called Jarts.And the hours of fun we had throwing the metal pointed tipped darts into the ground from half way across the yard.

We were encouraged to run to a strangers house if we were ever approached by another stranger,who we percevied as a threat.
But we could only go to these houses if they had a big green hand posted in the window.

We had the wonderful,non child proof EZ Bake oven for our Shrinky Dinks.
Only problem was that it got very hot,due to its flood light like bulb it had.And of course every kid ventured to put there hand inside to see just how hot it was.

Medicine cabinets were using green faced Mr.Yuck to ward away us children from all the potential harmful medicine lurking inside.

We kids had actual kids cereal.
Laced with all the sugary goodness and toys at the bottom.
Now theres adult cereals with "multi-grain" being advertised as a kids cereal.

Ahhhh the memories.......

[edit on 10-1-2009 by Black_Fox]

Well... there were video games in the form of Pong and Atari, my mom smoked while she was pregnant with my brother and he was born underweight and has asthma, I got a concussion wrecking my bike without a helmet, knew a kid who had a BB permanently buried in his forehead because it was too close to a nerve to remove and I was bored all the time.

Ah, the good old days

Its funny,when I think of my childhood I laugh at how illegal everything was.So many laws now.
We played with pellet guns and had forts in the woods.No we didn't know who owned the land and yes we slept there and had fires.That was between 10 and 12.
Smoking was done everywhere regardles of kids and other patrons.People even smoked at gyms.LOL
We also didn't have to lock our bicycles either and they never got stolen.
Instead of a google search we had to read a book or ask an adult.
It made me think about how little freedoms we have and how many more laws there are.
I also really see it everyday how overweight and lazy people are as well.

I hate to admit it but 1958 here...anyone remember lead tinsle for the Christmas tree.

Ah, blogstalker. I was waiting for a fellow old fogie to post.

J/K. Nothin' but luv, man. I'm from 1957 myself and yes, I remember the lead tinsel. Glad to get oranges and underwear for X-mas presents too.

If we ever complained of getting "bored" our parents made us mow the one acre lawn, rake it, bag it. Of course we had to sharpen the blades on the non-electric mower first. (God! I'm older than dirt!)

We went door to door selling girl scout cookies or magazines for school fundraisers. Strangers were not a threat. On the rare occasions where strangers were a threat, all the men (fathers) in the neighborhood got together and paid the inappropriate gentleman a visit which solved the problem and police were never called.

Police were our friends and we were instructed to go to them for help if we got lost or needed help. (Those days are dead and stinking).

White kids went to white schools and black kids went to black schools and we remained blissfully ignorant of the gross disparity between the two.

Women kept their biscuits in the oven and their buns in bed and their mouth shut. (We've come a long way baby!)

Children were expected to be seen and not heard, allowed to be beaten by teachers, neighbors, parents and anybody that thought they needed "some manners".

Nothing was "childproofed". If you were stupid enough to mess with something dangerous and got hurt then you were expected to have learned your lesson and not do the stupid thing again. The world did not change to accommodate you.

High school chemistry sets rivaled post graduate labs of today and we had books in our high school on how to make '___', bombs and anything else that the budding scientist might fancy. No one worried about it and we had no high school shootings (or bombings).

It was a kinder, gentler nation and some aspects of that child-like innocence are sorely missed by those of my generation today. Some things are better, IMHO (integration, equal pay for equal work, etc.).

Our technological adolescent phase is scarey, dangerous and unpredictable but if enough people from my generation survive it, I think we'll all come out better for the transition. I think most of us turned out ok.

reply to post by whitewave


Old fogie huh....lol.

Yes always an orange in the toe of your stocking. I certainly remember selling GS cookies door to door and everything you say in fact. Somethings better today some not. But all memories.

Haha, I saw a comparison a while ago between life in 1977 and 2007 and it reminds me of this. Seems like life might have been better back then, but of course I wouldn't know.

p.s. u guys r old.

Originally posted by sc2099
Haha, I saw a comparison a while ago between life in 1977 and 2007 and it reminds me of this. Seems like life might have been better back then, but of course I wouldn't know.

Where did you find this comparison?I want to know if the negative aspects outweigh the positives.
I bet it does because I've noticed the difference between the past generations and the current generation.

I was born after 1979 BTW,but my parents were born in the 1920-1979.
So luckily I was able to see the comparison pretty darn well.

They didn't experience much sickness because they knew how to take care of themselves.They didn't need to take a lot of medicine or vaccines or any pharmaceutical drugs.They did a lot of physical labor and ate lots of healthy food and some junk food in their lifetime.
Plus they're 1000 times more hard working than I am.

One BIG difference I've noticed is that my generation have less control over their emotions.My college Psychology professor agrees and said that we are "an emotional train wreck".He also said that the generation before the baby boomers had near perfect control over their emotions,while the baby boomer had a little bit less control.
How DID they control their emotions anyway?

Originally posted by sc2099
p.s. u guys r old.

Quick! Someone hand me my glasses so I can look for my cane to beat somebody. Oh wait! Alzheimers kicking in....can't remember who I'm supposed to beat.

I'll have you know, you whippersnapper, that I still have all my own teeth, my hair (in it's original, natural color-no Loreal), was able to sit up and take a little nourishment this morning, move my bowels unaided and tie my own shoes. (Admittedly one of my better days, lol)

Which brings us to another difference between the generations: elders were respected. As my grandmother used to say in her most ominous tone: "honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the earth". (translated: respect your elders or die!)

All tongue-in-cheek, guys. Imagine what the next generation will say about this one in 10 years or so?

reply to post by whitewave


I was born in the early seventies, but my adopted parents were born in 1924, and 1928 respectively.
I had some extreme manners drilled into me early on. Not only that but throw any hard situation at me, and I find a way to cope with it, emotionally and financially.
This generation needs to remember "Waste not, want not."

Great topic OP.

1973 for me.

I pretty much agree with everything in the original post. It will be interesting to see the differences in another 30 or 50 years.

Nice
Star on this one.
67 for me.
Don't forget giving a 9 year old an axe to split firewood, a pocket knife - because ya gotta have a knife and lawn darts!


[edit on 12-1-2009 by badgerprints]

reply to post by AccessDenied


Good Article.
Made me remind of my childhood.
Yes, We HAD Friends in those days.
Now, we have become so coccooned into our own lives and Nuclear families that we barely keep in touch with our friends and families.We have grown selfish, very much.

Those were the days of finding Joy in reading Snail Mail, reading old issues of Readers Digest, Playing make believe games -cops and robbers, Pirates,blah blah.

Hell, I really do Miss my Childhood.

I got a son 7 years old. I force him to be as much active as possible.
He gets active by playing out WWE wrestling moves with his friends ...which ends up in a hell of wailing. So i had to put an end to it.
Then comes the PS2, PSP, PS3 & X Box craze (even i play the PSP once in a while)....but when you see kids sitting in front of the TV playing for hours...i put a stop to that also....

Well...life was so different in those days.

In my childhood i could climb a tree like a monkey...now i cant even lift my leg and climb a ladder, fearing it would break.

Hahaha!

Aw the good Ole days. Born in 1966 here and the seventies & eighties were my glory days. I remember staying out all day until the sun was on the horizon and then it was walking home in the twilight zone. Days of full court basketball at the park and the sound of the ice cream truck three miles away gave us all enough time to get change from each other so that we all could cool off to a ice cream cone. Riding our bikes out to the creek for a swim and then back to town. That was about an 8 mile ride there and 8 miles back but it didn't seem to take that long to get there or back.

Weekends of roller skating to Disco and a late night movie. And those summer nights up at the football practice field with my girl working on our night moves. Softball, baseball, dirt bike riding, tag, hide & seek, football without pads and cross country hiking just because we could. The only TV I watched was Saturday morning cartoons. Concerts were big and KISS was my first and then bands like Foreigner, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger. My parents new where I was but not what I did. The weed, whiskey and women. Oh yes those were the good ole days.

Lets see, Grandma was born in 1867 and passed on in 1965. She didn't like me and the feeling was mutual. Dad was born some time around the turn of century but there wasn't any record of it until 1912 and I showed up in 55.

Planes still had props, taking the train across country was cheap and you could buy a house for 5k - 10k. I remember laying in a field of alfalfa and asking Dad what the star moving across the sky was. He told me it was Sputnik, I had no idea what a Sputnik was. Boy, have things changed!

Kids today have no clue. We had to make our own fun and use our imaginations, it was called play. Today if the toys don't have lights, bells, whistles or come other fancy gadget they are not interested. We were our own sound effects machine. If you wanted your bike to make a sound we put playing cards on the frame so that they hit the spokes as the tires turned.

Roller skates had 4 wheels and not inline and tied to your shoes. Baseball was played with a hardball and not some mush ball. Harley was King and Honda wasn't even in sight. Cars had muscle and gas was 25 cents a gal.

Yep, things have changed!

rememner if you got a cut or a scrape as a kid mom would whip out the mathialate and rub it all on it?
this stuff burned like a mofo

I was born in 1953,I remember when seat belts were an option on cars,people on TV all smoked,we drank water from the tap,we could make a baseball field on a vacant lot without anyone worrying"we might get sued"kids got in fights,no cops were called ended up friends after,didn't have to lock doors at night,neighbors would chew you out if you were doing something wrong and parents thanked them,people of different races lived in seperate areas,and racial issues were on TV in the south,and yes remember mowing lawn with a push mower and edging with a flat shovel,only time we watched TV was when parents made us come inside,we used to make racks out of old buggys and 2x4's to bring our surfboards to beach,be gone all day parents weren't worried,I wouldn't change my upbringing a bit