Now, mothers run around behind their children with purses full of bandaids, lysol, and anti-bacterial lotion, disinfecting anything and everything that might possibly come in contact with their little angels, and hysterically spraying neosporin on every little cut or scrape that they get. Of course, this prevents the children from ever building up immunities against real infections, and when they do run across one, they get sick big time.
And people wonder why children get sick more often and have more allergies now than they used to...
There are a lot of very neurotic moms out there. However, I do swear by Neosporin if you have a scrape or cut. It really speeds the healing process. We had iodine and bandaids (40’s and 50’s). We ate meat a couple of times a week (couldn’t afford more), we watched TV in the 50’s as a family and listened to radio as a family in the 40’s. We went out and played without structure or supervision. There was no such concept as scheduled play time. There were no helmets for bikes or motorbikes, just for football. We are in truly different times. Some changes are good. I do believe in seat belts (if I choose to wear them) and airbags and there have been other improvements but there are a lot of parents who are royally screwing up their kids heads with all of their scheduling, protection, rules, etc. I also blame the schools.
Oh well, I rant on. Enough.
My son is 12 and I swear he is of a different time. He absolutely hates, tv, video games and being inside. Give him and his buddies a ball and they will entertain themselves for hours. Plus they could fish from morning til nighttime.
Recently, he and some friends were staying with me at my parents, they have a pond in their community. The boys insisted on making their own fishing poles, they did buy some hooks, like and bobbers, but they went into the woods to find the perfect sticks to use. Before the day was through they caught over 140 Bream. The next morning, kids from all over the neighborhood were showing up to fish, they all wanted the home made poles too!
Mothers were probably extremely protective in the 1800s before modern emergency rooms. Post WWII doctors got pretty good which enabled Evel Knievel to break most every bone in his body and live to tell about it. People engage in extreme sports today because of their confidence in high-tech hospitals. But Obamacare will probably put an end to that.