Not to be a rude but, have you seen what kids do with rollerblades and bicycles these days?
You wanna teach them, you gotta show them.
I suggest hollowing out their Nerf toys and filling them with rocks.
When I was a kid, there were no seat belts or airbags in cars.
We used to play with the mercury from broken thermometers.
All paint had lead in it. So did all the gas in our cars.
We always had a vegetable garden in our back yard . . . and sprayed everything with DDT.
Most adults smoked, even around their kids. Nobody knew how dangerous it was.
A kid in our neighborhood shot his eye out with a BB gun.
A girl in my class cut off the fingers in her left hand. Paper cutters didn’t have that red guard on them.
Any kind of cancer was an automatic death sentence.
Dentists’ drills were a lot more painful and noisy than they are now.
Foods didn’t have a list of nutritional contents. Nor expiration dates.
You could burn yourself from Christmas tree lights (or the tree could catch fire).
There was no fine print on medicine packaging. No warnings of any kind.
One more: People got “healthy tans” on the beach. No such thing as sun block.
A lot of these are pretty good examples of days gone by, but kids still do this today. They’re just called Airsoft guns now.
But you really don’t even have to go back to 1900 to show the dangers of how we all grew up. I was born in 1981 and was given a metal dumptruck for my third or fourth birthday. The thing weighed more than I did and it started rusting almost immediately (which created some nice, jagged edges on the dump). My parents never took it away from me even after I dropped it (accidentally, I swear) on my cousin’s head.
Are you me?
I was just over 15 when I started to work in the machine shop in a chemical factory. I could find my way through the warehouse with my eyes closed and get to the Scott airpack and get it on and functioning within 2 months. The shop was located between the ammonia filling area and the shop that had the huge vats where bleach was manufactured. Leaks in either location were not unusual. When I was 17 I was taking a nap in the ‘vault’ [room we stored the more expensive metal stock and finished pieces] when the boiler in the room 1 room over exploded. I was back at work the next day helping sort all the crap in the vault that got tossed around, I shrinkwrapped my cast to keep it clean.
We had a thingmaker - my brother had the plates with the worms and spiders and bugs, I had a couple that made little dolls and those 60s hippie flowers. We never had the vacuform, not sure why as it seems like something my parents or a relative would have gotten us at the time.
We also had the chemistry set, the wood burning set, we both got taught to shoot at about the age of 8 and got given a gun, carried pocket knives, roamed from after breakfast until the 6 pm bugle from the YMCA camp just down the shore a bit, and pretty much no helicopter parenting.
“Fun Flowers” - I still have the flowers and the molds used to make them. I remember one of my friends owned the “Incredible Edibles” and I was envious.
My brother had a soldier making kit that used LEAD. Also, he owned a elaborate chemistry set.
Roller skating down the middle of roads on steep hills. (the traffic was much less back in the 60’s) Ice skating on lakes that were -maybe- not completely frozen.
Standing room only on the school bus as I was the last stop. About 15 kids standing in the aisle holding school books in their arms since book bags were not in existence in the 70’s. (sometimes a boy would be pressing against the length of my back for 2 miles - I didn’t mind if he was cute.)
Yes, healthy tanning using baby oil with iodine added for that nice reddish-brown glow!
My father still has the hand axe he was given when he was 4 years old. Still uses it occasionally, too! That would have been… let’s see… around 1938 or so. So that’s REALLY pre-nerf generation!
Born in 1971.
The nearest we had to an integrated baby seat was putting me inside my pram in the back of the estate car. No straps, just relying on the brake on the one wheel.
When I was 9 or 10 we did a project at school on flight. Our Deputy Head was a WWII fighter pilot and he decided to take our group to the nearest small airfield. There were 8 of us plus him in his 5 seater car. Nobody wore a seatbelt as the law was yet to change.
Talking of no seatbelts, I was allowed to ride in the frontseat if I’d been good from about the age of 6. I remember one time trying to wind down the window and I pulled the door handle by mistake. I rolled out of the car at about 25MPH, but we all bounced in those days.
Playgrounds didn’t have that lovely soft material or even bark chippings. They were usually surfaced in hard concrete that the local teens would take delight in smashing bottles on.
Yes, the entire purpose of going to the beach was to soak up the healing rays of the sun to get a nice, healthy tan… the stores were stocked full of suntan lotion, and “sunscreen” was just that stuff you made fun of your 4 year-old brother for having to wear (and, iirc, the only reason it worked was because it was this white gunk that was slathered on very heavily).
In 1970 my Dad moved from Chicago to Atlanta with four kids: two girls, 10 yo and 8 yo, and 2 boys, 5 and 3. His solution to peace and quiet on the 13 mile drive? He put me (the 3 yo) and my brother in a playpen, and loaded us into the back of the station wagon.
back when there were also:
glass blowing kits (soft glass and a propane torch). hot glass (when not molten) looks the same as cold glass.
electron tube electronics as kits or build your own from scratch. tubes needed voltages as high and higher than the AC electrical mains. often things would be constructed (or prototyped) open on a bread board.
casting figures and items with molten lead. this is far older though kids would have the molds from their parents childhood and lead metal was available.
Yep. Back in my day fights at school were run like hockey fights by the teachers/monitors. We were allowed to go at it until somebody fell over.
Snowball fights were allowed in winter, and given a set aside place to hold them inside a baseball diamond.
There was a huge hill that was closed off in the winter because it was too tough to plow, so kids were allowed to sled/ski on it. We used to lay down and shoot under the “road closed” sign as fast as we could. Into traffic. Now that I think of it, I saw my first snowboard on that hill.
In the warmer seasons, it was pine cone fights. We used to hoard the good hard green ones.
In hunting season, kids were allowed to bring their rifles to school on the bus and store them by their lockers so their dads could pick them up as soon as school was over.
Student in my english class gave a presentation speech on how to reload shotgun ammo, live ammo and all.
Used to play a game called “jaywalking.” You had to run across a swing set while kids hurled metal chain swings at you.
I was born in 1960.
Let’s see. First .22 rifle at 10. Shooting shotguns at that age too. Had a mini bike at 9 and then a Yamaha LT2 100cc enduro at 10 (I was a big kid). You carried a pocket knife because it was a tool and you needed it.
Operated a 195? Ford tractor when I was 11 or so. Used it to mow the lawn.
We owned a mobile home park and I was a maintenance man of sorts. I was driving pickup trucks around through there when I was 12 or so. Fun times, but it became very routine.
I really think todays kids are missing out. One of the best things my folks did for me was teach me to drive when I was very young. Getting my license was a snap.
I was born in 1972.
I regularly babysat my sisters and baby brother from the time I was 9 years old. Actually, 10 because when I was 9, I celebrated my first babysitting gig by lighting pieces of paper in the stove:eek:. I left a little of the evidence so my parents felt another year of maturity was required.
Ditto on previous posts regarding bikes, no helmets and let’s see how high we can build the bike ramp. When accidents did happen - I can remember one involving a friend of mine and her bike where she fell so hard that she lwas bleeding everywhere - we got in trouble for not being careful but rarely were told that we couldn’t do that activity anymore.
We grew up in a fairly safe small town and walked everywhere from the ages of 5 up. I remember not being able to cross the street until I was 5 but other than that, we went everywhere. I sold girl scout cookies, door to door, by myself at age 10.
I had horses too, no helmet and ended up with a fractured skull and a concussion. I was threatened I would have to wear a helmet if it happened again :rolleyes:.
Lastly, in high school a friend of mine brought a small bomb to school and exploded his locker. He had also shot himself accidently earlier that same year. We all thought it was hilarious.
Born in ‘81. Used to sit in back of my ma’s van without a seatbelt on. Used to kneel on one of the backseats and bang my face, teeth etc. against the metal bar that separated the driver’s seat from the back. Aged 8-12 used to stay out until 10pm or later on summers’ days. Aged 7 I cycled a few miles (although I didn’t tell anybody about it til years later) to the nearest town and back.
Maybe this is still standard on farms but my cousins were driving aged 8, rarely/never on public roads however.
I mapped out how far I used to walk or bike to school every day. I can’t believe how far it was and I came home for lunch, too. I was walking to school alone or sometimes with a friend when I was six years old.
We kids roamed all over the neighbourhood, including the nearby woods with the creek.
My family moved into Toronto and my brother and I would take the streetcar by ourselves to go downtown to wander around Eaton’s and Simpsons and check out Yonge Street. I think we were about 10 - 11 when we started doing this.
I had a woodburning kit, too.
No microwaves or toaster foods back then, so I used the stove to cook for myself - usually just eggs or grilled cheese.
My Mom worked, so I was home alone for a few hours after school, starting when I was about 9 or so.
Seatbelts were optional and my brother and I fought about who got to ride in the front seat.
In highschool there was a sheltered student smoking area just outside of the cafeteria. The teachers’ lounge was foggy with cigarette smoke. The girls’ washrooms were another good place to go for a smoke.
Around 1972 or so I got a Hot Wheels factory that involved heating blocks of plastic and injecting them into die molds to make cars. The truth is that it made really crappy cars, but it was fun to heat that sucker up and try. And it’s funny that it was hot enough to melt plastic, but the caution labels were about it being an electric toy.
I also started shooting .22 rifles and a .410 shotgun around 12 or 13 with no supervision.
Cigarette machines were all over the place! All you had to have was five quarters and you could buy yourself a pack of Pall Mall’s, and never interact with anyone!
We made our own bike jumping ramps. Not plastic-bought-from-the-store-wimpy ramps like today, we used bricks or cinder blocks and a piece of plywood (sometimes an old car hood). Then pedaled as fast as we could, and jumped Evel Knievel like for 10-20 feet, and if we were good enough and lucky enough, didn’t fly over the handle bars into a faceplant.
I had a Sears Gremlin bike, very much like this one, which was great for ramp jumping.
And I too, had a woodburning set.
I was just trying to explain to my kids yesterday how dramatically things have changed just over the course of my lifetime, and safety came up. At age 4, when my father was building a workshed, I was up on the roof with a hammer and nails. Ditto when we re-shingled the house three years later. It was perfectly common for Daddy to load all available kids into the back of the pickup and take us swimming at the creek or pond. (Usually those excursions involved anywhere from 6 to 15 kids.) I fired guns from ages four and up: .410, 38 revolver, Colt 45, 22 rifle, etc., and got knocked on my ass the first time I fired the 12 guage. I loved sitting out by the fire with Daddy, melting lead to pour shot. We drove tractors and farm trucks when we were tall enough to reach the pedals, went walkabout over thousands of acres of (snake, alligator, and wild boar infested) swamps and woods - found someone’s moonshine still once (probably my cousin Jeff’s) and a marijuana crop another time. The mj belonged to the sheriff. He got busted by the feds around 1980.
The one I find most appalling now: my aunt would load the gang into her car to go places. Three or four in the back seat, and two or three in the hatchback area… of her Ford Pinto! Oy! (Another babysitter had a '76 Corvette Stingray. She thought nothing of putting the little kids in the teeny cargo area behind the two bucket seats, plus two kids in the passenger seat. I closed my sister’s fingers in the door of that car once… still remember the line of bruises and the crease across those four chubby little fingers.)
I learned how to use rifles and shotguns in an eighth grade hunter education class, in the mid-eighties. We poured bullets, too; I still have the .45’s I made. I had a woodburning kit when I was five. My playgrounds at that time were a lake to which we just walked to, the junkyard across the street from my house, and an abandoned fishing boat in the yard of my sister’s school (Uranium City was as small-town as small towns get). I grew up in a house with a .30-30 rifle propped in a closet and the cartridges in a drawer. Also, lawn darts.