How did we ever survive?

Here’s to US!

No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us,

WE ARE AWESOME!

OUR LIFE IS LIVING PROOF!

To Those of Us Born 1927 – 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-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes,

we had baseball caps

not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts,
no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck 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, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
And, we weren’t overweight.   WHY?

Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!


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 OKAY.



We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps

and then ride them 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 Play stations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,
no video movies or DVD’s,

no surround-sound or CD’s,
no cell phones,
no personal computers,
no Internet and
no 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 would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles,
or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.

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 poke 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 l aw!  

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.


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?

7 Responses

  1. What a great post BJ.

    I remember when we had two outdoors recesses plus lunch and the teachers came out and organized games with us .Four Square, Andy I Over and Red Rover… Not a lot of bullying going on.

  2. To MsBehaved –
    Now if we could only figure out a solution to adult bullying…as you know, it’s rampant…;)
    Bj – Keep up the good work…I think Sarah. like Hillary ,was terribly mistreated…however, I cannot support her political views…hope she and Hill really do have coffee together…and soon!
    sclare

  3. Great to see you here.

  4. …and another thing, in my day we walked 10 miles to school each way in the snow, and we liked it!

    Just kidding, good post.

  5. Excuse me, but I must make a slight correction to the comment by alessandromachi — it should read “10 miles to school each way in the snow UPHILL BOTH WAYS.”

    Seriously, I love this post. My sister and I decided the other day that each subsequent generation is weaker than its parents. Our parents survived the Great Depression, and almost to the day they died (which was in their middle 80s) they could outwork either my sister or myself. And we look at the kids raised by our generation and wonder what happened. I think everyone wants their children to have it better than they did, and that has turned out not to be such a good idea if that is accomplished by work of the parents rather than the parents just providing the education (both formal and good parenting) for the child to be able to accomplish these things for herself or himself.

    But your post brought back good memories. I learned to use the brakes on my bike by first running into a rose bush (and at the time I would never have thought that would be a good memory); and my parents were very forthright that if we were punished at school for something we did wrong, we could expect additional punishment at home. And in those days of small home-town schools in which the parents and teachers knew each other, this was not an idle threat.

  6. Marcy and Alessa …. you forgot the barefoot part. 🙂

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