Take a look at the other side of the coin!
I had:
FUN
Time to do things that kids today don’t have time for.
Friends to play with outdoors in good weather, indoors in bad…
MADE more than a few of my own toys and gained valuable skills in the process.
(Ever hear of the two volumes of “The Boy Mechanic” a how to on practical toys.)
Delivered papers, earned and SAVED money.
Listened to late afternoon radio (audio only) programs and developed my visualization and imagination to fill in between the lines as it were.
Read lots of books, and still do.
Sold magazines door to door.
Went to the woods with a friend and two .22’s. “Horrors” you say? We were well aware of the consequences of acting the fool. Disobedience, talking back, sassing, etc. were not well tolerated. Responsibilit was taught and expected.
After HS worked as an apprentice for less the 1/2 buck/hr. Paid school all expenses and lived at home.
Didn’t do drugs, although every vacant lot had a good crop of mj.
The chicken pox vaccine. I missed almost 2 months of school when I had it
Also in some ways I wish we’d had the internet. It would have made school assignments easier and also showed me that there was a world outside of the tiny town I grew up in.
One things kids don’t have today that I wish they did was Saturday morning cartoons. Oh, to get up at 5am and watch the Smurfs!
Another thing kids no longer have is decent TV. Prime time is nothing a kid should be watching, and that’s a shame. Yes, families need to spend less time in front of the TV and more time interacting, but sometimes it’d be nice to sit and watch a show.
Thank you. I was worried when I opened this thread that I’d get shouts of “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” and even though I know I’m right, I don’t have the debating skills to prove it. Not to mentione the patience or fortitude.
I know. And if my name were Hermes or Archimedes, I’d’ve complained about it then too.
Refer to post #17
The one thing from the past I could have done without is the Whooping Cough.
Of course I’m prejudiced, but I think I had a far better life that kids today.
There are many things I wish I had that kids today have. The biggest one is word processors. I have a hard time with handwriting, always have, but also have always been a writer. My hand used to cramp painfully, I have a finger that is permanently deformed because of the way writing hurt me. I had a typewriter, but when I was a kid, I didn’t type very well. When I got my Commodore 64, things got a lot better, but Microsoft Word has increased my productivity one hundredfold.
The internet: I am the kind of person who, when I want to know something, I need to know it ASAP. Having the internet to help me find out what I need to know, or what I’ve forgotten, is so great, I can’t begin to say how much I love having it.
Someone mentioned braces: mine were like a medieval torture device. Damn, I still have scars inside my mouth from those things. I’d love to have had the options kids have today.
I used to listen to the Billboard Top 100 Countdown and tape my favorites from the radio. They sounded terrible but I listened to them until the tape got worn out. iPods, CDs, file sharing-- I’ve have loved them when I was a kid. Same for DVDs.
Graphic novels didn’t really get big until I was an adult, but as a kid, I would have really enjoyed them.
I refuse to bag on the younger generations. My parents didn’t really understand my fun, and I remember how hard it was to communicate with them as a result. Every generation thinks “these kids today” are so spoiled/ disrespectful/ out of touch/ immoral, whatever. They’re no different than you were, and you’re now, ta da! no different than your parents were.
Case in point, demonstrating who’s really out of touch:
Umm, kids today have fun too. Really. They didn’t stop making it in 1980.
Do you really think that kids today don’t have time to play? That they don’t have friends and they never play outdoors? Let me burst your bubble-- they do.
I have an after-school club where kids draw their own anime strips and write comedy sketches that they tape and broadcast over the TV. Might not be your idea of making your own toys, but they’re not mindlessly playing video games or watching TV-- they’re making their own.
Still happens.
I have many, many students who read hefty novels on a regular basis.
This is something you think was BETTER?!? I’d have hated doing that as a kid.
I call this revisionist history, because in every generation there were kids who disobeyed, talked back, sassed, etc. And today there are still parents and teachers who don’t allow said. However, I have never been a fan of blind adherence to ANYONE’S authority, and I’m always pleased to be challenged intelletually by a student who doesn’t just accept everything I say as gospel. This idea of never questioning adult authority figures has been abused in heinous ways…
I see things from a different perspective than you do. I express my viewpoint which is different from yours. Therefore you are saying I am a revisionist?
:dubious:
Revisionist history is a false view of the past forced on others to promote a political or religious view thas is contrary to the facts to promote an agenda.
Society and what is acceptable now is far more tolerant of all sorts of behavior than the society of seventy some odd years ago.
