running through the house with scissors
My mother-in-law sent this to me. It made me think again, as I often do, about a risk management class I took back in college. It made me laugh. I hope it makes you laugh, too. Laughing is good.
This is dedicated to those Born 1930-1979! TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED 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 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 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 infants & children, we would ride in cars with 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 koolade 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 O.K.
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.
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, CD's or Ipods, no cell! phones!, no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms.......
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.
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 put 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!!
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.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as
kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
5 comments:
Hi Tim
Those were the days of playing outside and what great memories I of them, like playing hide n go seek in the dark.
Thanks for the article.
Robin
I did many of those things growing up in So. Cal. plus rode my bike 4 miles to the beach and hung out there all day without adults at 14! Walked on 8 foot high cinder block walls down the backyards of our "new in '66" housing development when I was 9. Rode in the back of my dad's pickup (but only on surface streets) after working in the yard on Saturdays when he took us to the fairly new "fast food restaurant" we called "the Golden Arches". Memory lane.....
Joe, I think it is a bit of the world more dangerous and a lot of society worshipping safety.
Here is my theory. May or may not be valid, but ... Too much violence on TV, lawsuits, and media feeding on crime has made us paranoid. It has also numbed people such that they are more willing to do these things. So, they happen more often and we create a downward spiral for ourselves. Punishments that don't rehabilitate don't help either.
I also think that our kids grow up in a bit of a bubble, so they don't learn to think before they act. They get babied too much to learn to watch out for themselves. I can now easily see how this happens now that I am in the parent shoes.
Those were the days!!! Amen!! Being able to play in the street with friends and go to the park to watch games without worries. All my friends' parents welcomed us into their homes and they all took care of us and watched out for us. Lots of respect then. I used to sit on the curb and said "Hi, I'm Robbin Baker. I live in this house." Wouldn't do that now, of course. But this article was excellent and like Lisa said, memory lane...And, yes, it made me LOL.
Tim,
The best was we were out side. Exploring our world. Somtimes we went to far, and were punished, spanked and we learnd form our mistakes. There is a right and a wrong way of doing things, we had to learn to survive. We had good mentors too, our parents, freinds parents, teachers and and our freinds :O As others have said GOOD MEMORIES...
BW
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