Childhood, Today's Kids...and The Goonies

[Yeps]

I just never felt my kids would have been better off being taught by me.

I think this is what it really boils down to. Which is better for the kid. In your case, it sounds like MoCo did well for your kids. In my case my homeschooling did well for me.

By the way, once I finally caught up with reading, I couldn't stop and read voraciously . Lately, I listen to more audiobooks, because I enjoy it more (especially with a good narrator), but that is mostly do to the stressful schedule I have. It is nice to be able to escape to another world and also close my eyes to listen.

 

[Yeps]

For example, I learned to ice skate without wearing a helmet. It never occurred to me to make my kids wear helmets to ice skate. Their teacher didn't require it. However, every time we run into friends or my sister at the ice rink, they scold me for not making my kids wear helmets.

Wait, people wear helmets ice skating? Biking, yes. Rollerblading (generally road hockey) fully geared up. But ice skating? I guess it makes sense, I just wouldn't think of it.

 

[Tango Yankee]

I don't believe for a minute that Hollywood ha ever reflected true childhood experience.

The TV show "The Wonder Years" was a lot like my experience growing up in the suburbs. I was amazed at how right they got it, considering it was Hollywood.

 

[PoohBang]

the TV show "Little House on the Prairie" was more like mine.

I'm reminded of the story a few months ago of motorcycle rally against wearing helmets in which a rider was thrown from his bike, landed on his head and died. They said if he was wearing a helmet, he'd be alive today.

 

[C-dot]

It's not necessarily that your views change, it's that everybody else's views change and so they judge you for failing to comply with what has become the societal norm. For example, I learned to ice skate without wearing a helmet. It never occurred to me to make my kids wear helmets to ice skate. Their teacher didn't require it. However, every time we run into friends or my sister at the ice rink, they scold me for not making my kids wear helmets.

Ugh... I didn't think of that. Even parenting has to be somewhat fashionable these days.

I had never ice skated before a grade 2 field trip, so my teacher made me wear a helmet, although none of the other kids had to. It was a good thing, though, because as soon as I got out onto the ice holding my friend's arm, another kid smacked right into me and sent me flying backwards, headfirst, into the ice! Boy, did that kid get chewed out.

However, every time I've been ice skating after that, I've never worn a helmet, and have never needed to. It was kind of a freak set of circumstances. [huh]

 

[Tango Yankee]

I had 2 kids. Many boomers had only 1 or 2 kids. When my kids were 13 or less years old they didn't even have kids their own age on our block to play with. They were also in the first bussing generation. Playing with their school friends pretty much meant they had to have a "play date" and do so when working parents were available for transpotation. Sleep overs were common on weekends.

I don't think that's an issue. I was born in 1973. Every family on our block had 2 kids and there were plenty of kids to play with. In my current block, half the families have 2 kids, 3 families have 3 or more kids and one family has 1 kid. The kids aren't home because they have to go to aftercare because mom works. No change in the number of kids, just a change in situation.

I think it rather depends upon where you live, but both have similar results.

I live in a rural area (house on 10 acres, about 3 of which are "playable" for kids). My wife and I have custody of one of our grandchildren, a 6 year old girl. She is allowed to play outside by herself (there are also four dogs out there) but there isn't anyone around for her to play with. Our son and his family live in a town between Dayton and Cinci and have two kids. Most of the people who live on the same street are retired or near to it. There aren't any other small children so playing with friends involves travel.

In the end, I think that there are several factors at play here: fewer kids in general means there usually isn't a bunch of kids of varying ages on every block; today both parents usually work, so the kids go to an afterschool care until they're picked up by a parent on the way home from work; the fear many parents have that there are bad guys lurking around each corner; and the current mindset that letting children play without immediate adult supervision is somehow child endangerment or neglect. Probably other factors as well.

Bottom line is that I don't see kids having the type of childhood I and many of us had simply because there are so few compared to when we were growing up.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[John in Covina]

As the population increases so has distances. Nowadays it's not just Mom and Dad who have the long commute. Once more, even going to school has become a major trek for many kids especially if they live at the very edge of the school district boundaries. I've known a lot of people who drive their high school age kids to and from school.

I thought we were all supposed to telecommute and work at home via the computer.

 

[John in Covina]

Wait, people wear helmets ice skating? Biking, yes. Rollerblading (generally road hockey) fully geared up. But ice skating? I guess it makes sense, I just wouldn't think of it.

There's nothing like slipping on the ice an smacking the back of your head while ice skating. I did it once were i hit so hard I could taste it. (odd metalic flavor for a few moments)

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I thought we were all supposed to telecommute and work at home via the computer.

Heck, I'm still waiting for those space cars from the Jetsons that we were all supposed to have by 2000.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Heck, I'm still waiting for those space cars from the Jetsons that we were all supposed to have by 2000.

I'm all for a class action lawsuit demanding reparations from the powers that be for making "The Future" so incredibly lame and at the same time, so tragically horrific.

I'm also for an additional lawsuit against those who include an apostrophe when writing decades (it's the 1940s, not 1940's).

 

[C-dot]

I'm also for an additional lawsuit against those who include an apostrophe when writing decades (it's the 1940s, not 1940's).

Maybe what they were referring to belonged to the 1940s...

 

[Viola]

I was a kid in the '90s. In the city, not the suburbs. I still had more fun than a lot of kids seem allowed to have now.

I was allowed to play outside by myself before dark if my mom knew where I was or if I was on the block and she could scream out my name. I babysat my siblings from when I was 9. I was allowed to go a lot of places if I had them with me because presumably you can't get up to anything TOO fun if you are trailing a 7 year old and a 5 year old. My best friend's mom had the same logic for HER baby brother so the 5 of us would go to the mall, or the park, or the playground en masse. And eat ice creams and Snapples from the corner store.

Five kids. Unsupervised. Would never happen today. Sometimes we took the dogs. We knew not to talk to strangers. We knew not to let our little brothers step on syringes on the playground. ("look where you're walking! They're full of AIDS!") We would march through the creek in our "creek sneakers" that were our old ratty shoes. We could ride the bus and subway when we were 11-12 years old.

We took our dogs lots of places. I've heard recently that even older children should never be left unsupervised with a dog. When I was a kid, it was our job to walk them. Even though they were bigger and stronger than we were. As far as my dog was concerned, growing up, if he was there - I wasn't an unsupervised child at all. [huh]

You know, I spent most of my childhood and teenagehood thinking my parents were very over-protective.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I was a kid in the '90s. In the city, not the suburbs. I still had more fun than a lot of kids seem allowed to have now.

I was allowed to play outside by myself before dark if my mom knew where I was or if I was on the block and she could scream out my name. I babysat my siblings from when I was 9. I was allowed to go a lot of places if I had them with me because presumably you can't get up to anything TOO fun if you are trailing a 7 year old and a 5 year old. My best friend's mom had the same logic for HER baby brother so the 5 of us would go to the mall, or the park, or the playground en masse. And eat ice creams and Snapples from the corner store.

Five kids. Unsupervised. Would never happen today. Sometimes we took the dogs. We knew not to talk to strangers. We knew not to let our little brothers step on syringes on the playground. ("look where you're walking! They're full of AIDS!") We would march through the creek in our "creek sneakers" that were our old ratty shoes. We could ride the bus and subway when we were 11-12 years old.

You know, I spent most of my childhood and teenagehood thinking my parents were very over-protective.

I'm pretty sure your experience was the exception and not the rule during that time. Glad you got to roam! Now we have a generation of Butterballs rolling about with their false confidence and sense of entitlement.

 

[Viola]

I was very pleased with myself, when I was 12 and able to go downtown via a bus, then transferring to the El train, then transferring to the subway.

During the day only, though. Was frosty at my dad for not letting me take the subway after dark. Argued up and down a male friend of mine was allowed to, so my dad said that friend was 16 and six feet tall, and I could feel free to do the same when I was six feet tall. lol

I was a bit of a butterball, to be fair. Small, pink, chubby. I got away with a lot because of it, actually. My siblings thought I was tough, though. My brother (five years younger) was very willing to reply to "gonna hide behind your big sister" with "how could I watch her punch you from behind her?" lol

 

[Yeps]

We would march through the creek in our "creek sneakers" that were our old ratty shoes.

I am glad other people had creek shoes. I spent approximately half of my childhood trying to find the source of the creek out behind my house (an impenetrable bramble, eventually a storm drain) and the other half seeing where it went (a small, very smelly swamp). Sometimes this was done with wooden swords and capes, other times with pith helmets (or just wading to catch crawfish). Naturally, the creeks by my friends' houses were similarly charted.

I think "exploring" was my primary pastime.

 

[TidiousTed]

My childhood river

I grew up close to the border river between Oslo and the next county to the west. It was a river that could get pretty wild after heavy rain and there were homeless people living in shacks at one place. We kids were not allowed to play there although back then we could play almost everywhere else, this was after all the late fifties, early sixties and we lived in a fairly rural area.
Well, the fact that the river was off limits didn’t mean we didn’t play there although we were a bit scared by the homeless people, particularly a large rough woman we used to call The River Queen. To day I can see that she only chased us away because there probably were other individuals in the shack town that actually could be a lot more dangerous than we thought she was.
But the river was long and most other places along it we would have a great time and when we came home for dinner wet to well above the knees we always got by by telling our parents we had played with the garden hose in someones garden.

 

[rue]

I'm also amused that this thread is one of the rare free-of-rue topics.

That was sweet. I hate to disappoint you

I'm reading this thread, but I haven't commented, because I had to catch up after traveling across the country. Now that I have....

I was raised with the most paranoid mother you can imagine in the 70s and 80s. There were supposedly perverts and kidnappers on every corner and I was very sheltered. I don't know if that's because we were in southern California, but I think she would have been that way no matter where we lived [huh]

As a result, I'm nowhere near as strict with my kids, but I still worry constantly if they're okay, because it was hammered into me that something could happen. Compared to most of the parents I know, I'm still considered too strict though. When my daughter was 12 she had friends that were allowed to roam the streets at midnight in our old neighborhood.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My mother was incredibly strict on us, as kids. My dad was always the one who would let us go somewhere. He always said 'If it was up to your mother, you kids would never leave the yard!'

 

[LizzieMaine]

My ma couldn't get us out of the house fast enough, and the further away the better. Her favorite trick was to open a roll of pennies, take one out, throw the rest out the back door and tell us we couldn't come back in the house till we'd found all fifty.

 

[sheeplady]

My ma couldn't get us out of the house fast enough, and the further away the better. Her favorite trick was to open a roll of pennies, take one out, throw the rest out the back door and tell us we couldn't come back in the house till we'd found all fifty.

I hope that's not considered child abuse today because I'm totally going to steal your mother's idea. I hope inflation doesn't mean I have too throw out quarters or dollar bills.

My mother was extremely strict, and my father backed her up. As long as I obeyed the many rules she had, she really didn't care what I did in my limited free time. (I grew up on a farm, so most of my time was spent working.) I did get plenty of "you better not get your eye stabbed out because you only have 2" or "I'm not going to have another child, so you better not die" but as long as I didn't actually get caught doing anything dangerous, she was pretty fine with me making my own decisions if she knew where I was, who I was with, and made sure I knew the various ways I could hurt myself or others.