The times they are a changing.

[GHT]

Would you believe that today I spotted a mother pushing her young child in a pushchair. Nothing unusual there you might say. But this particular mother was talking to her child, and even more worrying than that she was not looking at her phone. Be very wary of this almost extinct species.
Can I just clarify that we Brits use the term, "pushchair" whereas elsewhere others will describe the child carriage as a stroller. Linguistic differences aside, what mother ignores her cellphone just because her baby might need her attention. I mean, what is the world coming to?

 

[Tiki Tom]

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you! Dare I wonder if, as the child grows up, mom will also insist on family dinners where everyone sits around a table together at an appointed hour? Better call Child Protective Services.

 

[tonyb]

In my world, “push chair” is a manual wheelchair, as contrasted with “power chair,” which is a motorized wheelchair.

But that’s entirely beside your point. Yes, people are so plugged into their mobile communications devices that they present hazards. Traffic fatalities over here in God’s Country had been on a downward trajectory for decades, which is remarkable, considering that over that span there have been steadily more and more people covering more and more miles. But that trend has slightly reversed of late. I gotta suspect that can be attributed in some part to distracted driving.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

 

[Woodtroll]

She ought to try a week at a real job, like on a dairy farm or something.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

She ought to try a week at a real job, like on a dairy farm or something.

Just wait until she sees the deductions on her first paycheck.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can remember my mother rinsing out diapers in a pail on the kitchen table, with a cigarette in her mouth, a telephone receiver extended to the full length of its cord clenched to her shoulder, and the TV going full blast in the other room so she wouldn't miss "As The World Turns." And yelling at me all the while. Now that's concentration.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Just this afternoon at an antique mall I saw a vintage diaper pail, an enamel on steel job, that had somehow survived the decades unused. It still had the manufacturer's paper labels. The person I was with, a fellow some 24 years my junior, didn’t know what it was.

 

[GHT]

I can remember my mother rinsing out diapers in a pail on the kitchen table, with a cigarette in her mouth, a telephone receiver extended to the full length of its cord clenched to her shoulder, and the TV going full blast in the other room so she wouldn't miss "As The World Turns." And yelling at me all the while. Now that's concentration.

The image that conjures up! How did you heat your bed in winter Lizzie? Electric blanket? Central heating? Or......

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had an oil furnace, but when I stayed at my grandparents', the heat came from two kerosene stoves and a large dog.

 

[GHT]

Kerosene, we call it paraffin, we heated our apartment, our first home, that way. Does it stink, or what?

 

[Rmccamey]

^^^^^^^
Just this afternoon at an antique mall I saw a vintage diaper pail, an enamel on steel job, that had somehow survived the decades unused. It still had the manufacturer's paper labels. The person I was with, a fellow some 24 years my junior, didn’t know what it was.

Similarly, I was in an antique store yesterday and a younger couple were discussing a rather ornate piece of antique furniture in which the seat lifted up with a rather large ceramic bowl in the compartment. I suggested they Google "chamber pot".

They moved on down the aisle rather quickly after that!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Similarly, I was in an antique store yesterday and a younger couple were discussing a rather ornate piece of antique furniture in which the seat lifted up with a rather large ceramic bowl in the compartment.

Commonly called a Thunder Chair.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Outhouses were still in use among the country folks during my childhood years, as were chamber pots, presumably.

During a trip back that way in autumn of last year we drove past my mother’s early childhood home, which had been beyond the city limits when it was built, around the turn of the 20th century, I would guess. She recalled what a BFD getting indoor plumbing was, after several years of living in that house.

These days it’s not uncommon for newly constructed single family housing to boast not only a bedroom for every kid but also a bathroom. For every kid.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Just wait until she sees the deductions on her first paycheck.

I watched a little jewel of film yesterday, Can You Ever Forgive Me? about American author Lee Israel's descent
into larceny with subtext social isolation in Manhattan. But probably similar London or Paris, Barcelona, Rome, wherever, and this young lady seems rather lonely. I believe the young male or female living alone probably for the first real time and juggling life one fell swop is quite a row.

 

[LizzieMaine]

^^^^^^^
Outhouses were still in use among the country folks during my childhood years, as were chamber pots, presumably.

During a trip back that way in autumn of last year we drove past my mother’s early childhood home, which had been beyond the city limits when it was built, around the turn of the 20th century, I would guess. She recalled what a BFD getting indoor plumbing was, after several years of living in that house.

These days it’s not uncommon for newly constructed single family housing to boast not only a bedroom for every kid but also a bathroom. For every kid.

My grandfather till his dying day kept a pot under his bed. The bathroom, though indoor, was unheated, and he didn't like to be cold.

I have multiple friends, right now, in 2023, who don't have indoor plumbing -- and they aren't even Amish. The past isn't dead, it isn't even past.