TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

Yep – we’ve all heard how “Kids today are so effed up”. Forgive me while I laugh myself silly…

Needless to say I’m not convinced – and I don’t think looking at the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia really adds much to the argument. Sure lets blame laywers and politicians for the fact that we now have to suffer child-proof pill bottles (the horror!), mothers shouldn’t smoke and drink while they’re pregnant (the impertinence), or that kids should be able to ride in the back of a car without a seat belt (the outrage!). I mean its not like people back then had any say over what politicians actually did is it...

In short, lets ignore the responsibility that the finger-pointing elements of the “older” generations have for the way things are now and seem keen to divorce themselves from culpability. They were/are running things after all… Indeed lets ignore the fact that the public has benefitted greatly from scientific advances and that any mother worth her salt back in the 50’s would have likely been horrified if she knew that smoking and drinking during pregnancy would increase the risk of still-birth and birth defects. But then again… people were “harder” back then. A little thing like a miscarriage wouldn’t stop a 50’s mom-to-be from jumping right back in the saddle.

Yep – those sure were the days: DDT, race riots and Vietnam. Halcyon days indeed.

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

My mom told me the other day how when she lived in Chicago and had my brother who was 2 and my sister who was a newborn, she'd take him out in back of their appt building and TIE HIM TO A TREE and then go upstairs and tend to my oldest sister.

When I asked why on earth she did that she just *looked* at me and asked what was she supposed to do since he was wanting to be outside and running around. No wonder my family is so effed up.

eta: she also used to send us outside at like 10am and demand that we not come back in the house until the streetlights came on unless we had to go to the bathroom!!!

Do we think there is any less abuse going on today? You just have to hide it now so people don't see it thats all.

[Alex & Rachel 78]

For the record; there is nothing wrong with some of those laws. Try telling someone born with foetal alcohol syndrome how 'lucky' they are that their mother wasn't warned against consuming large quantities of alcohol during pregnancy! Or someone with a cracked skull how brave they were for not wearing a cycle helmet.

The rest is at the parents' discretion. I'm an 80s child and my mother walked us to school every day until we were old enough to walk ourselves alone. No one is telling a parent that a kid needs to have a console or TV in their room, either. We certainly weren't allowed one. Oh, and the implication that today's kids don't have friends? Charming!

Kids didn't get fetal alcohol syndrome from moms who had a few drinks every now and then while pregnant. A drunk is a drunk then the same as now.

Parents should protect their children but we have gone so overboard with making laws agaist parents who 30 years ago would be considered good parents.

How many of these are now 'laws' and how many are 'against' parents, though? Expectant mothers aren't prevented from drinking alcohol; there's no one going around monitoring them; they're simply 'advised' not to. And even then most doctors still say that a few drinks every now and then isn't going to do any harm; and some suggest that if you were previously a smoker that you don't cut back entirely but to one or two cigarettes a day anyway. What has increased is awareness; a few drinks every now and then might not do anything but quite a few adults go binge-drinking and consume more alcohol than they're perhaps aware of. The knowledge that alcohol in large quantities = can harm babies might make of those binge drinkers think.

Also, yes, the criteria for what is considered 'good' parenting may have changed but that doesn't mean that past parents are viewed as 'bad'. If many of these laws had been in effect earlier I don't think parents would've disregarded them then just as most don't disregard them now.

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

i love this one...

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

but you know what makes me sad...

is that my mom worked only part-time till i was old enough to go to kindergarten, and then she went back to work at night. i wonder if i'll be able to afford to do that when/if inchallah i have children... will i be able [to afford] to spend that much time with them ?? things are so different now.........

Give up a few things and anything is possible. How much value to you and your husband for your child to have his mother home with him/her?

[natty bumppo 297]

I survived?

[Alex & Rachel 78]

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

Getting a kid to realise that other kids in other countries are - gasp - human children too is a bad thing?

Do we think there is any less abuse going on today? You just have to hide it now so people don't see it thats all.

So it was better to have it out in the open so...it could be condoned? Or so people could see it, but once they saw it and condemned it, it then became hidden?

[Alex & Rachel 78]

i love this one...

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

but you know what makes me sad...

is that my mom worked only part-time till i was old enough to go to kindergarten, and then she went back to work at night. i wonder if i'll be able to afford to do that when/if inchallah i have children... will i be able [to afford] to spend that much time with them ?? things are so different now.........

Just takes a little prioritising, usually. Yes, it's not always very easy. My mother has managed to be a stay at home mother for 25 years and my dad does not earn a fantastic salary, but they have worked out how to make it work. Kids don't mind second-hand clothes and furniture, for example. If you stay at home you have the time to cook from scratch and thus save on food bills, and of course you also save on childcare costs.

[brnidokiegurl 0]

Each generation wants to GIVE their kids things they didnt have, to make life better etc. Have the times changed so much, back in the old days so to speak we had fathers coming home drunk, abusing wife and kids, these things just were not discussed and over looked. Money was tight well guess what it is now too, just different times different situations. Growing up where i did in a country setting, we rode our bikes alllllll the time and all over the countryside, never thinking someone would want to kidnap us. We had block baseball games and the parents played, we did the trick or treet and never had to xray our candy. I didnt have a tv in my room, we had one in the house...i never was given a car when in school...on Saturday we took a empty coke can to the Saturday Movie to see whatever....my father worked for the railroad so i knew how and often rode to say my uncles alone, my kids i cant remember them ever riding a train. In high school we went to the drive in movies...some kids today dont even know what that is....these times were good for me....in years to come our kids will do the same looking back and feel their times were good for them to. Oh my mother never worked....i have worked since day one even before i thought to have my kids

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

Getting a kid to realise that other kids in other countries are - gasp - human children too is a bad thing?

Do we think there is any less abuse going on today? You just have to hide it now so people don't see it thats all.

So it was better to have it out in the open so...it could be condoned? Or so people could see it, but once they saw it and condemned it, it then became hidden?

I am not saying it is bad that our children are learning that people are all the same around the world, only that how will this change our future generations when someone like GWB wants to do something like the North American Union?

Abuse is bad no matter what or when but now if a parent chooses to spank their children they are looked at as bad parents. Some day if you are seen spanking a child you will be arrested.

Education is great but when does it go too far? Is it worth sacrificing most for the sake of a few? How many kids out there think they can call the police if they get spanked?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yep – we’ve all heard how “Kids today are so effed up”. Forgive me while I laugh myself silly…

Needless to say I’m not convinced – and I don’t think looking at the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia really adds much to the argument. Sure lets blame laywers and politicians for the fact that we now have to suffer child-proof pill bottles (the horror!), mothers shouldn’t smoke and drink while they’re pregnant (the impertinence), or that kids should be able to ride in the back of a car without a seat belt (the outrage!). I mean its not like people back then had any say over what politicians actually did is it...

In short, lets ignore the responsibility that the finger-pointing elements of the “older” generations have for the way things are now and seem keen to divorce themselves from culpability. They were/are running things after all… Indeed lets ignore the fact that the public has benefitted greatly from scientific advances and that any mother worth her salt back in the 50’s would have likely been horrified if she knew that smoking and drinking during pregnancy would increase the risk of still-birth and birth defects. But then again… people were “harder” back then. A little thing like a miscarriage wouldn’t stop a 50’s mom-to-be from jumping right back in the saddle.

Yep – those sure were the days: DDT, race riots and Vietnam. Halcyon days indeed.

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

I guess we need only look at high-school graduation statistics, average wages, general life-expectancy and infant mortality between the 50's and the present day to see how much "worse" things are now

[brnidokiegurl 0]

Yep – we’ve all heard how “Kids today are so effed up”. Forgive me while I laugh myself silly…

Needless to say I’m not convinced – and I don’t think looking at the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia really adds much to the argument. Sure lets blame laywers and politicians for the fact that we now have to suffer child-proof pill bottles (the horror!), mothers shouldn’t smoke and drink while they’re pregnant (the impertinence), or that kids should be able to ride in the back of a car without a seat belt (the outrage!). I mean its not like people back then had any say over what politicians actually did is it...

In short, lets ignore the responsibility that the finger-pointing elements of the “older” generations have for the way things are now and seem keen to divorce themselves from culpability. They were/are running things after all… Indeed lets ignore the fact that the public has benefitted greatly from scientific advances and that any mother worth her salt back in the 50’s would have likely been horrified if she knew that smoking and drinking during pregnancy would increase the risk of still-birth and birth defects. But then again… people were “harder” back then. A little thing like a miscarriage wouldn’t stop a 50’s mom-to-be from jumping right back in the saddle.

Yep – those sure were the days: DDT, race riots and Vietnam. Halcyon days indeed.

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

I guess we need only look at high-school graduation statistics, average wages, general life-expectancy and infant mortality between the 50's and the present day to see how much "worse" things are now

do ck and see alot now graduate and cant even read, wages go with the flow the rich are rich and the poor are poor,thanks to medical our babies do have a chance now, many diseases are under control and we do live longer. But how many of our older do die because they cant afford the medical and medicines to help them. If the help is avail and u dont qualify then what good is it. Food back then didnt have all this processing stuff in them. Now we have supposedly more time thanks to our electrical conviences makeing things easier but yet we never have enough hours in the day

[sara..... 371]

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

Getting a kid to realise that other kids in other countries are - gasp - human children too is a bad thing?

Do we think there is any less abuse going on today? You just have to hide it now so people don't see it thats all.

So it was better to have it out in the open so...it could be condoned? Or so people could see it, but once they saw it and condemned it, it then became hidden?

I am not saying it is bad that our children are learning that people are all the same around the world, only that how will this change our future generations when someone like GWB wants to do something like the North American Union?

Abuse is bad no matter what or when but now if a parent chooses to spank their children they are looked at as bad parents. Some day if you are seen spanking a child you will be arrested.

Education is great but when does it go too far? Is it worth sacrificing most for the sake of a few? How many kids out there think they can call the police if they get spanked?

lol my elder brother thought he could.....and he did.....and the police came and watched him throw a fit turned and looked at my mother and said i take it this is the first time u have ever spanked that child should have taught him way before he got to this point.......she said thought it was against the law police told her abuse is against the law spanking is not there is a difference so my brother was not happy with that and called children's protective services my mom said forget it im bringing him in to ur office so when they got there my brother thru himself down on a chair there the officer or what ever they are called said well i just saw u thru urself down so im of the opinion that ur mother spanked u not beat u if u were beaten u would have been in too much pain to thru urself into that chair go home he was 16 years old at that time and was angry cuz she refused to allow him to go to the movies so he started a big fight in the home thats why he got spanked my mom is about half his size so it was a difficult task at best.......the worker told my mom u know sadly we see spoiled kids like this daily they know how to play the system..............the really truly abused kids we dont get until its too late in most cases.....

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yep – we’ve all heard how “Kids today are so effed up”. Forgive me while I laugh myself silly…

Needless to say I’m not convinced – and I don’t think looking at the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia really adds much to the argument. Sure lets blame laywers and politicians for the fact that we now have to suffer child-proof pill bottles (the horror!), mothers shouldn’t smoke and drink while they’re pregnant (the impertinence), or that kids should be able to ride in the back of a car without a seat belt (the outrage!). I mean its not like people back then had any say over what politicians actually did is it...

In short, lets ignore the responsibility that the finger-pointing elements of the “older” generations have for the way things are now and seem keen to divorce themselves from culpability. They were/are running things after all… Indeed lets ignore the fact that the public has benefitted greatly from scientific advances and that any mother worth her salt back in the 50’s would have likely been horrified if she knew that smoking and drinking during pregnancy would increase the risk of still-birth and birth defects. But then again… people were “harder” back then. A little thing like a miscarriage wouldn’t stop a 50’s mom-to-be from jumping right back in the saddle.

Yep – those sure were the days: DDT, race riots and Vietnam. Halcyon days indeed.

Vietnam, Iraq the same thing, difference cause communism vs oil. DDT - obesity/type 2 diabetes. We have problems now just like then.

I see the world changing and children being desensitzed and conditioned for a change in the world. For example Disney channel has commercials now about how food is the same around the world to get kids to realize the are the same all over the world. This along with many other things will bring future generations to accept globalization of curencies, governemnts, economies, etc. You can ask adults today if they would accept a one world government and they will say no way it would never happen but wait 10 years and lets just see?

I guess we need only look at high-school graduation statistics, average wages, general life-expectancy and infant mortality between the 50's and the present day to see how much "worse" things are now

do ck and see alot now graduate and cant even read, wages go with the flow the rich are rich and the poor are poor,thanks to medical our babies do have a chance now, many diseases are under control and we do live longer. But how many of our older do die because they cant afford the medical and medicines to help them. If the help is avail and u dont qualify then what good is it. Food back then didnt have all this processing stuff in them. Now we have supposedly more time thanks to our electrical conviences makeing things easier but yet we never have enough hours in the day

I don't dispute that there are problems with the world as it exists today - I do dispute the idea that there was some mythical "golden past" where everything was perfect. These things are shaped largely through the perceptions and "fond memories" of the people who lived through those decades. Its rather a flawed and limited way of assessing general standards of living.

On the bolded part at the bottom - I hate to use the phrase but isn't this where "personal responsibility" comes into play? It is possible to find time to do things if you manage your time effectively... But if people are spending 5 hours a day watching TV when they want to be writing a book, or doing a study course of some sort - it stands to reason that they're not going to get very far..

Edited July 1, 2008 by Number 6

[brnidokiegurl 0]

Im sure there could be large debate from all past times, each giving their own reasons. Time is a responsibility for each, just saying in todays times, some commute, work two jobs to just make a living, some of these luxuries do abuse our time, tv, etc. But this life style that is choosen is what is dictating we do all this travel to work, spend more time there, get the extra job so i can buy the kid the computer or the tv or the new car and of course i have to have the biggest house on the block with the nicest furniture. This reminds me of a box i still have. It is a big old (green at one time) wooden fairly large box. My grandfather made it back in the day. This box held clothes for my mom and her brothers and sisters becasue back in their time closest were less. This box also doubled as a chair for two or three of them when pulled to the table so they could all eat. I remember hearing stories when someone poor needed food they didnt stand on a corner with a sign they were invited into the house for a meal now we have many bragging how much they MADE knowing very well what they were doing to collect these funds when not poor.

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

Everyone has an opinion but life gets more complicated every generation.

Medical advances have been a good thing in some ways but not in others. Illnesses that shouldn't kill us like measles etc should be wiped out but getting a liver or a heart because we smoke or drink too much? Why extend someones life because they chose to abuse their body? Type 2 diabetes is going to affect more and more people because they eat too much and don't exercise, should we use drugs and transplants to help them extend their lives?