Congratulations...

[Celia Crowson]

I received this email from my auntie and uncle - I think it suits the forum:

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1950s, 60s and 70s!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were 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 or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, 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 old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd films,
no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet 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.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time....

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bullies always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Love this! Reminds me of a country song called "Different World" by Bucky Covington

I think you may enjoy the video as well as the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waOMnQ_Ws90

 

[Widebrim]

Yeah, I had seen this before; rather funny (and somewhat true). However, I would not include those born after, say, 1970, as some of those points didn't apply by then (at least in the States)...

 

[DanielJones]

Have seen that one before as well. Usually crops up in e-mails. Always good to read it too, lots of true stuff there. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Carlisle Blues]

I have seen this as well....
It conjures up images like.....

The time my brother shot me.

 

[Ethan Bentley]

Thanks for the post.

I guess that's what some call progress...

 

[skyvue]

lots of true stuff there.

Lots of not necessarily true stuff there, too.

And the same kind of thing could have been written in the '60s about how different it was for those born in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.

That "we had it tougher/better" attitude is as old as mankind itself.

 

[Lorena B]

Really nice, thank you for sharing
Ironically looks like modern times are somehow turning into nanny states trying to stop us having healthy and happy childhoods while at the same time nowadays a human life seems to be worth very little.
who said the present was better? bring the old good times!!!

 

[shortbow]

:eusa_clap

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Yeah, I had seen this before; rather funny (and somewhat true). However, I would not include those born after, say, 1970, as some of those points didn't apply by then (at least in the States)...

I was born in 1971 and everything but the "Fish and chips" reference applied to my experiences growing up. There were McDonald's everywhere. This was more Brit-centric.

Curse the yuppie scourge for the total wimpification/nannyization of the world....

 

[Widebrim]

I was born in 1971 and everything but the "Fish and chips" reference applied to my experiences growing up. There were McDonald's everywhere. This was more Brit-centric.

Curse the yuppie scourge for the total wimpification/nannyization of the world....

But the point of the first post was that there were "no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos" when those generations were growing up...[huh] Your post verifies that they did exist when you were a kid.

 

[MPicciotto]

With a few modifications that could be applied to children of the eighties. We didn't have electric scooters. We had to push ourselves! I remember riding my bike for HOURS. I got fat after we got a Nintendo.

Matt

 

[Lady Jessica]

I was born in the nineties and I was outside all the time. WE rode our bikes and played in our backyards, we had trampolines and we used our imagination... sure we had video games, but they were never as fun as outdoors. If it got too hot outside (It gets up into the 100s here) we'd run around inside one of our houses. Then when it got dark we'd go back outside. We were all very skinny and fit....

And then we all moved away. lol
(My backyard can't fit a trampoline now)

 

[Geesie]

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were 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 or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

While a lot of poorly-reported things cause needless panic, salmonella, Rey's Syndome, cervical cancer, diabetes, lead poisoning, asbestosis, fetal alcohol syndrome, and the myriad of effects of smoking on a fetus, the vast amount of life and health saved by seat belts, heart disease, are well-documented and real.

If you have not had any of these problems, you are lucky and nothing more. You are not tougher or better off any more than your great grandparents were tougher and better off because they didn't have sissy things like "indoor plumbing" or "the germ theory of disease".

I mean, I guess I'm sorry that you are so oppressed that you have to wear seat belts or use paint that doesn't cause brain damage but geez...

 

[Viola]

My grandparents had takeaway, pizza, and diners growing up? In the '40s? Grandma DID have to go to work to help ends meet? Shops were open past six and on the weekends?

So much of this list is about being rural, not about being the past.

Kids still break bones and fall out of trees and drink from garden hoses, and bullies still rule the playgrounds.

 

[ortega76]

Lots of not necessarily true stuff there, too.

And the same kind of thing could have been written in the '60s about how different it was for those born in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.

That "we had it tougher/better" attitude is as old as mankind itself.

As old as mankind and as tiresome. As others have pointed out, this list really is geared toward the rural. I grew up in the suburbs Do I loathe the nanny state mentality that "inspired" this rant? Yes. Do I regret that advances in technology have made our lives safer than 30 years ago? No, of course not.

 

[Celia Crowson]

Yep, I am sure allot of people have seen it before - just thought it fits the forum in some way.
I would say it is all written with tongue firmly planted in cheek (as in yes smoking in terrible, seatbelts are great, so are helmet, etc) - and it is just a general observation and does not apply to everyone. Though allot of it does apply to me - and I was born in 70s (Australia - suburbs - no McDonalds, etc)

 

[Spitfire]

Man am I glad, I was born in the fourties!!!

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Man am I glad, I was born in the fourties!!!

Yeah, all of life's real difficulties were wrapping up by then!

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandparents had takeaway, pizza, and diners growing up? In the '40s? Grandma DID have to go to work to help ends meet? Shops were open past six and on the weekends?

So much of this list is about being rural, not about being the past.

It strikes me as being awfully middle-class, too. In working-class families, it was often taken for granted that Grandma would have to work in one way or another, above and beyond her household chores -- if she didn't have a job in a factory, she'd take in sewing or laundry, or do cleaning for middle-class folks.

I think the class issue applies even today: when there were a lot of kids in my neighborhood here, five or ten years back, they weren't living the playdate/videogame/highly supervised way of life, because they didn't have obsessive yuppie parents. They played in the street, pretty much the same way I did.

I do agree with the basic sentiments, though -- I don't think I could stand to be a kid today.