 
I Can't Believe You Made It. If you were a child in the 40s,
50s, 60s or 70s.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long
as we have....
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air
bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was
always a special treat.
Our baby cribs were covered with brightly colored lead-based
paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors,
or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no
helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
Horrors. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of
scraps and then rode 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 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. No cell phones or pagers. Unthinkable.
We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.
We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were
no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents.
No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue
and learned to get over it.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop but
we were rarely overweight ... we were always outside playing.
We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle
and no one died from this.
We did not have Color TV, Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes,
video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video taped movies,
surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers,
Internet chat rooms ... we had friends. We went outside and
found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and
knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and
talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without having it all
arranged by a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold
cruel world! Without a guardian to run interference.
How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms
and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out
very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment....
Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a
grade and were held back to repeat the same grade....
Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason except
extreme $$ from the parents of the wealthy.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing
us out if we broke a law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law, imagine that!
This generation -- the majority of whose mothers probably
smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol while pregnant with us
-- has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an
explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom,
failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to
deal with it all.
And you're one of them.
Congratulations!
(Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids
in an era when parents still allowed children to act like children and
hadn't turned over their parental responsibilities to public institutions,
like schools, the legal system, and government.)
|
Visit 
