Children lost something along the way
The video below was posted by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, with the comment:
THIS CHILLING VIDEO MIGHT MAKE YOU KICK YOUR KIDS OUT OF THE HOUSE — TO PLAY OUTSIDE
It’s one of the more depressing statements about what has happened to childhood.
I don’t want to turn this into one of those “When I was a kid, I had to walk 4 hours to school…” type of things.
It’s just the opposite.
It’s about the freedom we had. To fall. To bump our heads. To compete. To get physical.
“Just be home by dinner” used to be the norm, now it could get a parent arrested or get child services involved.
Something very important was lost along the way.
We never let our kids have Nintendo, Gameboy, or any of what in the 1990s were all the rage. They hated us for it at the time, but now thank us.
The technology now, particularly the internet, should bring people together, but I think it isolates people in important ways.
And I don’t envy today’s children for it.
Someone more or less my age sent this to me a while back:
No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us,WE ARE AWESOME !!!OUR Lives are LIVING PROOF !!! To Those of Us Born 1925 – 1970 : ~~~~~~~~~TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s!! First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drankwhile 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 wereput to sleep on our tummiesin baby cribs coveredwith bright colored lead-based 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 and 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 buildingour go-carts out of scrapsand 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, Nintendos and X-boxes. There wereno video games, no 150 channels on cable,no video movies or DVDs,no surround-sound or CDs,no cell phones,no personal computers,no Internet and no chat rooms.WE HAD FRIENDSand we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut,broke bones and teeth,and there were no lawsuitsfrom those 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 piesmade from dirt, andthe 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 put 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 tryoutsand not everyone made the team.Those who didn’t had to learnto 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 law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors ever. The past 50 to 85 years have seen 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 those bornbetween 1925-1970, 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 ?
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY