Doesn't fit everyone, but it makes you wonder

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dun

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According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

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.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes..

After running into the bushes a few time, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day , as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations,Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends! We went outside and found
them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt .
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.They were accidents. No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

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

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home 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.

Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.
Horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own.
Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a 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 how to deal with it all. And you're one of them! Congratulations!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good !!!!!

People under 30 are WIMPS
 
AMEN!!!

Amazing how things have changed with the seriously overprotected kids since then (as well as the parents who make every attempt to protect their kids from "normal" everyday "harm").

Also amazing that these (us) "naturally grown kids" have lived as long as they have and have accomplished the many things they have.

I will also be amazed if these "new crop kids" who have been overprotected, over-regulated (with safety things), fed sterilized food and water, and lived pre-programmed scheduled lives live to be as old as some of us old-timers, who (among other things):

1. Ate a sandwich resting on top of a corral fence post.
2. Took an occasional drink out of a running creek.
3. Washed the grease off our hands with gasoline or diesel fuel.
4. Got frequent cuts from working around the farm and just licked the blood off or washed off our hands in the stock tank (or, let our dog lick our wounds).
5. Put "Blackleaf 40" (a toxic poison) on wasp, scorpion, & bee stings.
6. Spent lots of time outdoors, doing physical chores, etc., and never seemed to be seriously over-weight (except a few).
7. Made up our games and seemed to be capable of amusing ourselves without mama or daddy "programming" all of our leisure time.
8. Used motor oil for hand lotion.
9. We stood in the fields and flagged for crop dusters to spray pesticides in our fields.
10. We did have to wash our hands before we SAT DOWN at the dinner table, though...

And, the list goes on and on.

Am I missing something here? If so, then why are so many of us living to be 60, 70, 80, 90 if all the "hazardous" things we did were that hazardous? We didn't have AIDS, Allergy Problems, Attention Deficit Disorder and all the other modern diseases--we just lived "clean hazardous lives" in an era when Work was sacred and the tune of the day...leisure was only considered after all of your chores were done...if you still had the energy.

We shot rabbits, squirrels, coyotes and not each other as kids. We respected our teachers and parents. And, we even got another whipping when we got home (if we got one in school).

By "modern" over-protective, ultra sanitary kid raising standards...hey...I should have died 30 years ago...LOLOL.
 
Thanks Dun. Kinda makes you take a step back and re think some things.

One of our friends has a step son that hardly even leaves the computer or the video games on the tv. He is over weight. And when we took him hunting with us during youth deer season...he could not even hold up a little .410. He just didn't have the srtength. Not to mention the terrane that we walked just about did him in.

Is is with out a doubt a shame.
A shame that a man's word and a handshake are not good enough.
A shame that an arguement cannot be settled with a good scuffel.
A shame that my kids will not know what a VHS or a casette tape is.
A shame...
OK I'm done...now I am depressed!!
 
My father had a saying. He said 'There's no sense having a dog and doing the barking yourself', which roughly translated means that I spent my weekends working and doing chores when I was a kid while my Dad did whatever he wanted to do. Now that I'm an adult, I spend my weekends working and doing chores while my kids sit around playing computer games and watching TV. I don't know how that happened.
 
I'm probably not qualified to comment on this subject but I wasn't exactly raised by the "diaper dopers" a lot of kids are raised by. It's a shame what goes on these days. Makes me wish I could knock some sense into some of these kids but it's no use.... even as a peer I'd get thrown in jail for assault or abuse...
 
Surprised I haven't been arrested for child abuse yet. I spanked the daylights out of mine when they deserved it. Strangely they get the best grades and the highest remarks from their teachers, and are highly respected among adults who can't believe how they can work right next to a grown man and carry their own. Go figure. Strangely they never took interest in video games and telephones because they'd rather be banding calves, hunting something, catching fish or checking out the territory on the 4-wheeler. The little rascals just got in a heap of trouble because Mom caught them with a secret can of snuff hid in their boot. Strange kids huh!
 
D.R. Cattle":23g39ppl said:
Surprised I haven't been arrested for child abuse yet. I spanked the daylights out of mine when they deserved it. Strangely they get the best grades and the highest remarks from their teachers, and are highly respected among adults who can't believe how they can work right next to a grown man and carry their own. Go figure. Strangely they never took interest in video games and telephones because they'd rather be banding calves, hunting something, catching fish or checking out the territory on the 4-wheeler. The little rascals just got in a heap of trouble because Mom caught them with a secret can of snuff hid in their boot. Strange kids huh!

Sounds like good parenting to me on this subject we are in total agreement. My baby 24 just went home after coming to visit us, its still yes mam and no mam.
 
I'll freely admit to wacking my daughters butt when it was required, holding her responsible for her own actions, etc. After an unfortunate experience at 16 she went on to become a very highly regarded and succesfull adult. The way she responded to the unfornate experience made me really respect her, and I grew to admire her even more.
Sounds strange I guess that a parent would admire there child, of course she's 40 plus now.

dun
 
Just goes to show that everybody, no matter how good, is capable of dropping the ball or having bad things happen. But with God's help the character that was instilled in them by their folks will come through.

Craig-TX
 
I spend a lot of time with today's kids and I don't think things are as bad as they are always made out to be. Most of the kids I deal with are just like the kids I grew up with, the just dress a little different and listen to different music. Of course I only deal with kids who's parents' actually are involved with their kids lives by taking them to church or getting them involved in youth sports.

Of course there are a few that drive me nuts, but looking back I remember some of those kids when I was younger also. I also remember kids that were overweight and never went outside to do anything, mostly because these great people that grew up in the 40's, 50's, 60's didn't know how to be a good parent and be involved in their children's lives at all. I remember my parents loading all the neighbor kids up in the back of the truck and bringing them to ball games, church, swimming, etc. Their parent's could care less what they did, now the kids kid's I grew up with are raising their own kids, some the same way they were raised and it shows.

I know Dun's message was just meant to be amusing, but I think today's kids as a whole are great, just the few bad apples that give them all a bad name.
 
It isn't as much a commentary on the kids a it is the state of a society that's sue happy and don;t want to take responsibiilty for their actions.

dun
 
Thanks for the memories Dun.
The one thing that I remember about staying away from the house all day. If you hung around the house too long in the morning Dad would find something for us boys to do.
Something about "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop". If he didn't line us out the night before we sure didn't hang around the house waiting for him to think of something that needed to be done. There were horse & bikes to be rode, fish to be caught, rabbits & squirrels to hunt, and lots of swimming holes to spend time at.

;-)
 
Running Arrow Bill said:
We didn't have AIDS, Allergy Problems, Attention Deficit Disorder and all the other modern diseases-


You forgot " Bi -Polar" , Used to be when some one was really mean,,got mad all the time, we called them a mean S.O.B.!!

Now we have to say "Oh my , I do believe that person is "Bi Polar""
The ones with A.D.D. got over it or they spent the next year in the same spot!
 
And heartburn is called "Acid Reflux Disease". Used to just pop a roll of Rolaids and go about our business. This one get's me...used to a couple that lived together out of wedlock were looked down upon and called "shackers". Nowadays it's an accepted practice but mutual respect between the sexes has gone to pot as a result.
 
D.R. Cattle":367i2b6b said:
used to a couple that lived together out of wedlock were looked down upon and called "shackers".

We used to refer to married guys as "brown baggers". Your "shackers" were referred to as "Class B brownbaggers"
But that was long, long ago, in a land far, far away.

dun
 

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