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  • This is so true

    Just saw this on another forum and thought I would nick it and share here...


    FOR THOSE BORN BEFORE 1986

    According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

    We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans .

    When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels.

    As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags and riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

    We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

    We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

    We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

    We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

    We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

    We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.

    We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.

    We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

    We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us. We walked to friends' homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

    We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...they actually sided with the law.

    This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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're one of them. Congratulations!

    Show this to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

    For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us. This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:

    The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986........they are called youth.

    They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley (probably a good thing), Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

    For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. Michael Jackson has always been white.

    To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

    They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year.

    They can never imagine life before computers.

    They'll never have pretended to be the A-Team, the Dukes of Hazard or the Famous Five

    They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

    Now let's check if we're getting old...

    1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

    2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.

    3. Your friends are getting married/already married.

    4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

    5. When you see children with mobile phones, you shake your head.

    Having read this, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too... Yes, you're Getting old!!

  • #2
    Re: This is so true

    The first section is oh so accurate but I reckon it also applies to to those born in the 40's. By the time the 80's came around things were starting to get tightened up a bit and the real fun days were coming to an end.
    -------------------------

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    • #3
      Re: This is so true

      Ive read this before goatsmilkuk but never tire of reading it, this so called "political correctness" is ruining everything. Sadly the fun things we had in our youth is so unheard of now. I feel sorry in a way for the youngsters of today, when you read of kids playing hopscotch on the pavement being "done" for putting chalk on the road, the warnings and having to wear goggles before you can play conkers!! to mention just two things this mad world now legislates. Im glad I had my youth when I did
      Mowgli

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      • #4
        Re: This is so true

        There's a lot of youngsters going to read this and think "ark at the oldens" but they will never know what they have missed. The days before plastic, TV, etc. were the good old days. Playing on a bombed out old building looking for treasure, flicking ciggy cards up the wall, marbles in the middle of the road. If you wanted a kite you made it yourself. I look at my grandchildren now and wounder what the future holds for them. I shudder to think.

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        • #5
          Re: This is so true

          I can relate to this Stu even though I was brought up in Africa - I am definitely of this age - I suppose it is global although I somehow think kids in Africa still have a bit more freedom especially the poor ones who cannot afford the gizmo's or don't have the electricty to run them but then to be realistic poverty limits freedom in other ways especially if the kids have got to work for money.

          Actually I have seen some kids in London who when I saw them playing a balancing game on the wall of one of the canals made me think that just maybe these kids had reclaimed a bit of the freedom that we had as youngsters - they were certainly not concerned with any health and safety stuff and obviously nor was anyone who happened to see them!! Maybe poverty in the UK has the same effect - there's a film out at the moment which I have yet to see but from the review may corroborate this - its called breaking and entering.
          "My own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose."
          --John Haldane

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          • #6
            Re: This is so true

            I don't half feel old after reading that!

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            • #7
              Re: This is so true

              Originally posted by spl View Post
              I can relate to this Stu even though I was brought up in Africa - I am definitely of this age - I suppose it is global although I somehow think kids in Africa still have a bit more freedom especially the poor ones who cannot afford the gizmo's or don't have the electricty to run them but then to be realistic poverty limits freedom in other ways especially if the kids have got to work for money.

              Actually I have seen some kids in London who when I saw them playing a balancing game on the wall of one of the canals made me think that just maybe these kids had reclaimed a bit of the freedom that we had as youngsters - they were certainly not concerned with any health and safety stuff and obviously nor was anyone who happened to see them!! Maybe poverty in the UK has the same effect - there's a film out at the moment which I have yet to see but from the review may corroborate this - its called breaking and entering.
              I can see it from two sides of the fence. I was brought up both in the West and the East. In my mother's home town in the Philippines you had to avoid horse draw carts and buggies and motorbikes pootling along, but there were no cards and only the occasional Jeep or bus. In Indonesia I used to play with fireworks the size of milk bottles... Doors were only locked at night or if we went away.

              Today, the reality is that my 8 and 10 year olds have to be reminded how dangerous the busy roads are and it would be really negligent of us to let them play in our street unsupervised. If left our door unlocked, the chances are that we'd be tempting misfortune.

              We do live in different times - I'm not sad to see a lot of the dangers we survived done away with, but I do agree that modern society has also changed in some ways for the worse. It's always a balance.

              Ian
              Founder/editor
              Digital Photography Now (DPNow.com)
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