I'm trying to raise my two boys with many of the same freedoms I got to experience, only I just don't want to get arrested and have my kids hauled away by child services.
Trying not to be too much of a helicopter parent either. Back when I was a kid, "helicopter parent" meant your dad flew choppers in 'Nam.
Where are the children in that picture?
I remember as a little boy riding with my dad in his pickup. I would stand on the bench seat beside him. Crazy times.......
You forgot school lunches ... kids were allowed to eat pizza at school - and buy cokes from a machine...
The big difference between now and then was there were many more children, especially among the people who have the ability or desire to create opinions. Thats my, perhaps brutal, take on it.
Not all the eggs were in one basket so to speak.
Now the cultural influencers, if they have children, have one, generally, or two at most. There are no “spares”.
Back in mah Day, you weren't a real man until you had walked to school in the snow so many times you could feel in the cold in Summer!"
I hear nothing but crap about us Millennials, but the same was said about every generation before.
“Born in 1968 here. I should be dead. Any other examples?”
You were born the year I had my fifth.
The high diving board at the local pool is now gone. It was a rite of passage for my kids.
.
Bill Cosby - Playground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqv38fP7cr0
“The monkey bars came in....we lost 124 kids in one day.”
This week our Trail Life USA Troop was in the Smoky Mountains for a weeklong summer campout. On Wednesday, we went tubing down a rain swollen river. Most of the boys came out with some battle scars from the rocks. One guy, not with our group did get cut up enough to need some stitches.
When we got home to Maryland last night, they were still comparing cuts and scrapes and laughing.
They all carry knives too. Some really big tactical or hunting knives.
Like packing black powder from firecrackers into empty C02 cartridges to use for blowing up beehives etc. in a nearby orchard?
In the 70's I carried one of these through the High School twice a week, because the range was in the basement.
The “unconventional” launching of Estes model rockets.
M-80’s shot from wrist rockets.
Good times, good times.
1967...should be long gone. No seatbelt including car trip to relocate from AL to ME when I was a toddler and then again from ME to CO when 7.
No helmet on bike. No helmet and knee pads on skateboard. No sunscreen ever. 2nd hand smoke from both parents all my years growing up. Unsecured firearms in the house. Walked to school by myself. Played with no supervision until dark.
Reference the two kids on bikes with the hot mom in hot pants and high heels....I assume they’re trying to get daddy to buy a damned bicycle.
We used to get up in the morning, eat breakfast, head out the door and not come home until dark. I can’t remember what we ate for lunch.
In 1959, I was 12. I lived in Hitchcock, Texas, a small town between Houston and Galveston. I would borrow my father’s 12 Gauge, double barrel, Fox shotgun, with his permission, and a paper bag of shells and ride with them, on my bike, to my cousin’s house about a mile away. The 1 mile trip was on the major road through town. We would then walk out into the rice patties and cow fields and shoot at whatever we could shoot at. We never even thought about damaging property or threatening anyone. On the way back home we would stop at the local store to buy a coke, with our guns. No one thought this to be unusual. Times have changed in my lifetime.
Metal bars.. Some protruding.. No, not dangerous at all. LOL
LOL. I was born in 1967 and should be dead too. I rode in the back of pick up trucks, got hit in the face with a line-drive baseball, went off the high dive (the one you had to walk up a ladder to dive off of) numerous times. Played with all manner of toys with sharp points.
I agree its important to let our kids take some degree of risk. A kid breaking his arm or leg, or getting into a fight at school, should not be the end of the world. It may even be good for them.
I was born in 1950. When I was in high school they had designated smoking bathrooms. Ugh. I had a horse and rode every where by myself. No helmet. Just a rope and a good horse. Hint: don’t rope a jackrabbit. It’s tough getting your rope back.
***Any other examples?***
Riding horses with no saddle, falling off, getting back on.
BB gun fights. We didn’t put our eye out. (almost did when I was hit with a home made arrow 1/2 inch below the left pupil).
Drinking from a farm pond. No filter.
Playing with and getting seriously bit by a “tame” raccoon.
Rock fights with neighbor kids. (Friends on Monday Wednesday and Saturday, rick fights in between)
Winter snow ball fights with rocks inside (We fought back by putting cactus inside our snow balls).
Building and falling out of tree “houses” ( more like a tree stand today).
Gun fights with cork guns. (Almost did put out an eye with that one!)
Riding in my little read wagon down a steep road. Lucky no cars were coming.
Swimming in a algae green farm pond. No lifeguard.
Eating wild blackberries without washing.
Buying a box of 50 .22 Shorts for 45 cents at the age of 14. Now must wait till 21 to buy.
Way too many more to mention.