Survivor?

For You

For all my surviving friends out there.
It’s funny how the worm turns.

Here’s why…………

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 70’s 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.

Let’s not mention the extreme risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars without 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, not from a bottle.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda 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 times, 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!!!!!

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. No emailing or instant messages! We were fit and trim because we exercised outside all the time! 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.

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.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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!

People under 30 are WIMPS!

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Posted by rainy on November 13th, 2006 under Do you remember, General Jokes

One Response to “Survivor?”

Kate Says:
December 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 am
Dear Rainy,
I suppose you would consider me an under 30 wimp but more of the things you listed apply to me than not. Sure I can remember in preschool putting yucky face stickers on stuff I wasn’t supposed to touch (it was never locked up or put out of reach); and my brother did have an Attari that we rarely played with. But that is where the safety and technology ended. We all had bikes and the only helmets were those used for football. Our favorite game was Pac-Man, and not the video game, but a version of the game tag played in the dark. Kids were still spanked by the teacher or principle at my elementary school (which would have been followed by a second in my house). We may have watched Seasame Street and a few Saterday morning cartoons, but rainy days were spent reading or doing puzzles and every other day from sunup to sundown was spent in the great outdoors, out of sight and hopefully out of the minds of any nagging grownups (there always seemed to be less chance of being asked to wash dishes or take out the trash this way).
If kids (those under 30) are too soft it’s only because their parents (those over 30) have made them that way. You may say it’s regulators, bureaucrats,the media, but who really takes the sharp stick out of the childs hand, tells them to slow down, tells them to drop whatever germy thing they’ve picked up, dissinfects everything they touch, keeps them in on every cold or rainy day, involves them in 45 overly taxing after school activities, tells them who they can and can’t be friends with, examines every bite they take like the FDA for it’s nutrition benefit and possible hidden contaminates, whines and cries more than a two year old if their kid is left out, hurt or gets in trouble, parks them in front of some media form with an endless supply of juice in sippy cups to avoid any real parenting or anxiety about letting their kids out the front door. I suspect it’s the parents and probably a number of guilty grandparent. You know, the Baby Boomers, that great adventurous generation who discovered so many wonderous things (like the internet that you berate my generation for using,) somehow became the generation of free spirits that were terrified to let their children out of their sight for two minutes. A generation who managed to entertain themselves for entire summers and smart enough to be great problem solvers even as children, suddenly found themselves breeding a whole generation of kids, who without their parents’ constant direction and left to their own devices, would be found a short time later banging their heads on a wall.
Did you ever stop to consider that maybe the reason your generation was so great was because your parents’ generation got it right and the reason our generation is screwed up is because your generation got it oh-so-wrong!!!
Thank goodness my mother chose to parent more like her parents and neither she nor I fit into this category.

-Insulted Child of the 80’s