EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Out of Hours An observation.

I didn't put this under 'jokes' because there is obviously a good deal of truth here...

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids
in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's probably shouldn't have survived.

• 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.
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding
  in the passenger seat was a treat.
• We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the
  same.
• We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop
  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 play all day, as long as we were
  back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one
  minded.
• We did not have Playstations 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 Internet chat rooms.
• We had friends - we went outside and found them.
• We played cricket, and that composition ball really hurt.
• We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were
  no lawsuits. They were accidents! We learned not to do the same thing again.
• We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we
  learned to get over it.
• We walked to friend's homes.
• We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and
  although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out,
  nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
• We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
• Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of! They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

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 to deal with it all.

<font color="#0080C0" size="+1">And you're one of them.</font>

Very happy memories of all of the above... still got the scars to prove it..

Hey when you tell your kids off.. do you remember your parents saying exactly the same to you??..Well it always makes me smile .. but I still tell them off just the same..... :p :p

And as for being gay....

gay?

Yes we were all gay then - Happy as it was in those days.

Robert

The bureaucrats are the 1% who did not do any of
those things on Huw's list, during the 50s,60s,70s&80s!

bureaucrat

\Bu*reau"crat\, n. An official of a bureau; esp. an official confirmed in a narrow and arbitrary routine. --C. Kingsley.

Ffoyd

My six year olds' bike is just 6 months old.
(Santa was kind enough to bring it for him.)

He's trashed both chain guards and the rear wheel is down to the 'fibre' that is exposed moments before the tube blows!

How can you tell a 6 year old not to do 'skids' or 'stunts'?

Isn't it easy to become all to 'grown up'?

I took my boys to the woods to show them some good 'climbing' trees, from my childhood days.
I told them that the object of the matter was to climb as high as you dare, select a branch and climb out as far as you dare or until you fall off.
And/or - sit on a low lying branch, get your mates to pull the branch down to enable a good launch, just to see how far you could 'fly'.

They look at me as if I were bonkers.
I don't know..the youth of today

Cheers

Isn't nostalgia a funny old thing - ALL the summers were hot and dry. All the Christmas's were white...... But oddly enough being a generation from the 70's I hate to spoil the fun but quite a few of my old primary school chums are now pushing up the daisies .. So maybe some of these things weren't so harmless. Dripping sandwiches - it's amazing I haven't had a heart attack! - Did everyone else add tons of salt in their dripping butties????