# Kid's Stuff: What Did You Miss? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613 "2013-05-17T18:04:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/21 "2013-05-17T23:47:06Z")
Never went skiing or learned to ride a mini-bike, did all the rest. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/22 "2013-05-18T00:36:44Z")
I did all those things. But I always wanted to learn to skip rope “double dutch.” I would see kids doing it in DC and it was a million times more fun than single rope skipping! Those kids were dancing and doing gymnastics between skips, it was amazing! An art form! I drove away a few friends trying to force them to learn how to skip double and turn the ropes correctly, but none of them were the least bit interested. :sigh: I’d still like to, actually. I may have to add that to my bucket list. . . ---
**Author:** ![R3d\_Anonymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aeb1de/32.png) [@R3d\_Anonymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R3d_Anonymous)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/23 "2013-05-18T01:12:30Z")
I can’t skateboard or roller-blade. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/24 "2013-05-18T01:13:47Z")
I did all those things. I was a suburban kid so all that stuff was readily available. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/25 "2013-05-18T01:24:31Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Everything but skateboarding. Skateboards weren’t popular in the late 60s through the 70s though, were they? > > Seems to me I tried a few times, but couldn’t balance long enough. I am also in the “everything but skateboarding” club. I remember trying a friend’s appropriately-yellow banana board in 1977, when I was seven. I fell, and spent most of my time riding it like a tiny go-cart down a hill, on my butt. I had a skate-punk girlfriend in the late eighties, and very quickly realized that standing on her board did little to help my aim of looking cool around her. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/26 "2013-05-18T01:25:25Z")
I did all of them to the extent that a nonathletic girl would be expected to–at least one who attended enough t-ball and baseball games to pick up on the infield fly rule . . . but I never went to Disneyworld or Disneyland. Which isn’t a big regret, but is somewhere on my bucket list . . . ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/27 "2013-05-18T01:26:27Z")
Er, I take that back. I didn’t do the skateboard thing. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/28 "2013-05-18T01:34:12Z")
Never learned how to whistle. ---
**Author:** ![Zago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecccb3/32.png) [@Zago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zago)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/29 "2013-05-18T01:34:34Z")
My daddy died when I was young - never learned about most sports. Growing up in Oregon, ice skating wasn’t on the menu. ---
**Author:** ![vix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a88e4f/32.png) [@vix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vix)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/30 "2013-05-18T03:11:31Z")
Everything but skateboarding. Of the others, the one I enjoyed the least was ball games. Despite this, I played on my school’s basketball team in junior high, because I was one of the tallest girls in my class. I also played volleyball, and that I was pretty good at. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/31 "2013-05-18T03:39:52Z")
Riding a bike, riding a skateboard, skipping rope are the three I didn’t do as a kid. Never have learned to ride a bike; it wasn’t that I couldn’t keep balance, I just couldn’t pedal the damn thing more than a few yards. I discovered I have the same problem on stationary bikes, too. Turns out I twist my right leg when walking or pedaling to compensate for various skeletal problems that were undiagnosed when I was a kid. When my internist a couple of years ago first put up x-rays to show me what was going on, his very first question was “you can’t ride a bike, can you?,” so apparently it’s pretty common. I’ve tried clip-in pedals, and _not_ being able to twist my leg turns out to be pretty uncomfortable… I felt vindicated after a childhood of being yelled at for “not even trying” and “purposefully screwing up.” Never learned to ride a skateboard. I don’t think I’d have the same problems on it as I do on bikes, just never had the desire to try. And jumping rope; tried but couldn’t do it as a kid, can do it now as an adult, so not sure what was going on there. As for roller/ice skating… man, I was a good skater when I was a kid. I could do all of the special skates – backward skate! skate race! – that local rinks would have, clearing the normal skaters off the floor/ice. Then I tried again as an adult, and while I could keep balance, making turns was suddenly hazardous. I guess having a higher center of gravity renders obsolete one’s former skills. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/32 "2013-05-18T05:07:28Z")
> [@Zago](#): > > My daddy died when I was young - Mine lived to be 81, but never showed me how to do even one thing on the list . . . mainly because he didn’t know how to do them himself. Never even played catch with me, because nobody played with him when he was a kid. They bought me a bike, but nobody taught me how to ride it. It stayed in the garage for a couple of years, until one day I said “Well, shit!” and got on the damn thing and rode. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/33 "2013-05-18T05:54:29Z")
Grew up in New Zealand, did all those things. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/34 "2013-05-18T05:57:12Z")
I did it all as a kid although skateboarding would be my severe weakness. Oh sorry, I never did ice skating until I was an adult… but eh it’s so much like rollerblading, whatever. I vote that I did it all. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/35 "2013-05-18T07:05:59Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Mine lived to be 81, but never showed me how to do even one thing on the list . . . mainly because he didn’t know how to do them himself. Never even played catch with me, because nobody played with him when he was a kid. They bought me a bike, but nobody taught me how to ride it. It stayed in the garage for a couple of years, until one day I said “Well, shit!” and got on the damn thing and rode. that is so sad. There was no adult roll models at all in your life? ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/36 "2013-05-18T13:08:42Z")
I grew up in rural southwestern Indiana and learned to do all that stuff, I think because my mom (single stay-at-home mom, circa 1970s/80s) wanted us out of the house and as tired as possible when we got home. I still remember an ill-advised trip down a neighbor’s driveway on my skateboard and mom having to pick gravel out of my butt with tweezers while I lay facedown on our kitchen floor with my pants around my ankles. And there was the time when our driveway was so covered in ice that I was able to ice skate on it with my sister. Ah, good times. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/37 "2013-05-18T15:20:07Z")
> [@Renifer](#): > > Never learned how to whistle. While I did eventually learn, that definitely should have been in there. Not so sure about **Magiver** ’s dancing. Most people don’t really seem to learn that. They just move to music. Skating outside of rinks just wasn’t a thing around here, and I didn’t go to the rink often enough to learn, and I never saw the point of skateboards since I had not desire to do the tricks. As for swimming, I just always hated the feeling of going underwater as a young kid, and an adult cemented that by forcing me to go underwater multiple times. That type of therapy of stuff only works if the subject is willing to participate. That is why the “flooding” technique is so dangerous. It can make fears worse. Please don’t throw your kids in the water to teach them to get over their fear of water. EDIT: note that I didn’t say I was good at ball games. I never did learn a proper throw in baseball or football. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/38 "2013-05-18T15:27:21Z")
Forgot to add: Then again, I can’t dance, even in the common sense. And not, like most people, due to a lack of rhythm. I feel the rhythm in what I’m doing, but the coordination seems to be off. My body parts don’t move in synch like other people’s. I also never was able to touch my toes without bending my knees. ---
**Author:** ![Rala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rala)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/39 "2013-05-18T15:46:25Z")
My mother and Girl Guides group tried their best to teach me to ride a bike, but it never came to fruition. I just could not stay balanced for longer than about twenty seconds once the training wheels came off. Eventually I decided “Screw it, I’m not enjoying this even a little, no more bikes”. I did all the rest of the stuff listed, plus dancing and whistling. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613/40 "2013-05-19T04:52:14Z")
Skateboards didn’t happen until I was a father and too old to get the hang of it. I never learned to skip rope either. That I did try, but I could just never do it. I think my record is probably three jumps in a row. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kids-stuff-what-did-you-miss/658613.md?page=3)