only read if you were born before 1970

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THOSE BORN BEFORE THE 1970's

First, 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 colored 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 great fun.

We drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop 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 s****s 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 on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell 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 did not poke out any eyes.
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 scissors, doesn't it?!

PS -The BIG type is because your eyes are shot at your age

 

Excellent OWG - we are the salt of the earth and those of us born before the 1950's are even saltier and more splendid. Softness, mollycodling, political correctness all lead to personal inadequacy and social degeneration.

Eeehh when I were a lad...

 

Well said OWG.It is hard to think what we had compared to what they have today.I know what generation I would rather be from...Mine :D :D

 

We had a lot of freedom - that's something kids nowadays don't get. We over-protect them. And the state over-protects us - and it doesn't do us any good at all.....

 

Excellent, oldwinegum!

I could almost go back to some of that now ... well, where I live, in fact I do and I'm loving it all over again! That's for that!

 

Great stuff oldwinegum.I only just made it though.(phew)

 

Yep - that was me too.

Little lad next door asked if he could come and play with me last summer. I told him I was not playing but working in the garden and he could only come if he was prepared to work. Allong he came, but it took a lot of courage for him to put his hands in the soil and get them dirty.

What happened to "Frogs and snails and (oh dare I say it) puppy dogs tails" ?????

I do however remember the first "Flasher" I ever met, even more interesting and life learning was the recounter of our next door neigbour Mrs sledge's attitude to a bloke that flashed at her! Maybe there were always perverts about, we just learnt how to deal with them.

 

First class proud to be born 1953 and having freedom in the woods as an 8yr old child in the summer holidays .

I lost most of my little left finger but we still had fun.

There was tree stump adn was playing with cousins and funnily enoough a plank of wood was by our side in the 1950'sone cousin jumped off I was holding on need I tell you the rest my wee finger was underneath OUCH tears.

 

That is so true, kids today dont know their born, in fact they take the parents and police to court these days iff they got a tap on the hand.
I was born 1953 growing up we had a great time, walked everywere, played in parks, involved in church groups, kids today all you get from them is i,m bored and spoilt rotten, too much telly and electronic equipment.

 

I suppose every generation wonders how the previous one managed with what little they had but at the time it you don't think of it that way. My son thinks I was born in the Dark Ages (well there was a lot of fog/smog about in the 50's). :D

 

very good OWG..i was very fond of mud.. :D i used to come in looking like i had fallen through a hedge..clothes ripped covered in mud !!my grandkids now are constantly wiped with wet wipes if they get dirty..its a shame things have to change...

 

Brilliant owg! We used to play over the army land for housr and hours, making camps and mud pies and playing horses :D Then they discovered unexploded bombs a few years later and no one could go over there! That and the adders (which the boys tried to catch!)didnt get us though

 

I`ve been having a rake after reading this thread.It was taken about 30 yrs ago at John O` Groats.We travelled alot then and my brothers and i knocked the shelter up that sat on the back of the wagon.We called it the "clowty house"Those were the days... My Mother,myself,two brothers,Tim our lercher and a waif who came with us.My father took the poloroid.