Spartacus

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 40s, 50s, 60, 70s and 80s.

We survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

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

Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always exciting and great fun.

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

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

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank cordial 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 scraps and then ride 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 Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, No video games at all, No 99 channels, No Pay TV, No cable, No DVD movies or surround sound..

It's crazy! We even had No mobile phones, No text messaging, 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.

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

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we didn't poke out anyone's eye.

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

Local teams 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 law!

This generation has 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!

And 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 our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with your eyes shut holding a pair of scissors, doesn't it?!

lorrilou

i loved being a kid, i grew up on a farm and the things we used to get up to would have health and safety going BANANAS!!!!!

We used to play on the hay bales that were all stacked up and do somersaults off them!!

it was great, makes me want to be a kid again!!!

Spartacus

I know! Is a shame we now live in such a different country pretty much like you said health and safety would have had a fit with what we used to get up to but no one ever got hurt!

shame we live in such a cotton wool society these days....reminisce....

bexy_22

Love it! I used to love playing in the street from the morning till the streetlights came on, making our own fun, riding our bikes up walls (don't ask) and collecting millipedes. It's such a shame that society is so untrustworthy nowadays people don't want their kids doing that incase they get snatched or hit by a car or something and would rather they stayed inside and played computer games. I'm so glad I grew up in the times that I did!

Spartacus

But I think those things happened then just the media crazed/government world we live in today scares us all as it is all doom and gloom in the papers.

We were lucky weren't we even though we probably moaned about not being able to do anything when we were little! we still made up the best games ever and I think had the best cartoons ever too I mean Smurfs every sunday before roast dinner!!

Elli21

I love it. I was one that went out all day and had loads of fun getting dirty and climbing trees. And i always had a time to be in with a watch, not on call on my mobile.

Arrrr....good times.

Ema

Aw I miss it.......I remember taping the uk hit 40 on radio1 every sunday as cd's werent invented and trying to pause in between the singing so you wouldn't get any speaking on it. Because you never got mixed tapes. I also member playing out till god knows when and me mum knowing i was ok even tho i didnt have me mobile.

I also member the bloody shell suits me mum used to dress me in when i was a kid.....that i thought maked me look class.

Or as you say the cartoons. They were great none of this crap thats on tv now.

I member my first mobile phone i got in year 6..... all you could do was ring on it......nothing else, but no-one ever needed anything else. It was the size of a brick so never took it anywhere with me....as couldnt carry it.

God how its changed from when we grew up to how our children will grow up. You see kids nowadays as young as 6 wearing make-up and wanting mobiles. When i was sick i was out playing......and make-up was yuck! lol Oh .....XxxX

leedsforever

150 million %!!!!

Crime has no way risen as much as our parents and grandparents think it has!!
In fact so much more went UNDETECTED back then!!

leedsforever

OH MY GOSH Ema..... I sooooooooooooooooooooo did this

rafwife

Totally agree with all this. I think it's a shame that kids don't play like they used to anymore.