Things that were better as a kid

[Mass_nerder]

Bouncing on trampolines.
When I was a kid, nothing was better than going over to that one friend's house who had a trampoline. They never really seemed to want to bounce on it though, so it was kind of a treat when you had the chance to spend an afternoon bouncing.
As a 30 year old, I went to one of those trampoline parks today and all I got was a very sore back.

[JBR]

Calgary Flames

[bc-chris]

going out to eat at a fast food joint was always such a big deal when i was a kid. money was really tight when i was a kid so going out to mc d's or burger king was such a huge treat (we maybe would go out to eat once every 2-3 months). now, even if i'm really hungry, i find that i'd rather just pass and eat something when i get home.

as others have mentioned - kd.... what the heck happened?? i maybe get a craving once/year for kd and then i'm reminded again why i don't like it anymore!

cartoons seemed to be better when i was a kid - transformers, thundercats, gi joe, robotech - these were all awesome (and still are!!!). most of the current cartoons i find are just cringe worthy (i'm starting to be re-exposed to them now with our kids).

this one doesn't go back to childhood, but 15-20 years ago or so... life before most people had cell phones was so much better. remember when you could go out with people and you would actually talk to each other and interact with each other?? now it seems people are more interested in their phone than the people they are with (or the world immediately around them). people walk around like mindless vessels too engrossed in their phones to even look where they are walking (yea... dumb neighbour chick who i almost ran over as i came around the corner becuz you were standing in the middle of the road at 1am texting!).

the smell of rain was always so awesome as a kid. don't get me wrong - i still love that smell, but that smell likely means that i washed my truck earlier in the day and now it's going to be covered in water spots!

[ben voyonsdonc]

A few that come to mind:

- Deep and Delicious cake: I used to think it was so delicious (and deep). Now I find it so dry and meh. The icing is still kinda good.
- Oreo cookies: my palette has obviously evolved to where I can only taste chemicals when I eat them.
- Pizza Pops: they are just nasty.

I also enjoyed birthdays more when I was a kid. I still love Christmas though.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by mivdo

Drive-in theatres and watching planes take off and land right by the airport.

This is still just as good as an adult, except the planes aren't as gloriously noisy/smokey as they used to be.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

Non-existence of parental supervision.
My parents would just kick me out for the day. If I was hungry for lunch, come home. If not, make sure you're home for supper... or at least listen for my dad's whistle which you could hear from 10 blocks away. My friends and I would go into the forest behind my house and we'd build the most kick ass forts and rafts to go float around in the swamp (surprising none of us drowned). I just measured out that we'd ride our bikes through trails 3km's away from home where there was caves, cliffs and chasms that at 10 years old was magical. No idea how we didn't get lost or seriously hurt! But now all kids have an alarm that goes off if they go 10 feet from a parent. Has the world changed that much? I'd like to trust my daughter, but she's almost been run over twice in the past 6 months because she can't figure out that cars drive on roads. And now all the kids get to play in are concrete jungles

This isn't a shot at you, and if it comes off that way I apologize, but if you want your kid(s) to have the freedom you had the answer is easy.

Give it to them.

I am not sure how old you daughter is, but I have always encouraged my kids to take off and explore their world. When they were 5 & 7, we let them go off to the park 2 blocks away in the evening/night. They would roll with a big "gang" of friends. We have continued that approach. Allowing them to go to the woods on the edge of town, or down to the lake alone with friends. Now we are back in Calgary my approach hasn't changed. Get out explore, find parks, climb stuff, hang with friends. Kids still like and enjoy this stuff.

Honestly the world (IMO) isn't any less safe than "back in my day".

I think the one thing I miss is the anticipation of buying music. Now if my kids hear a song they like they can download it right away. I miss having to go to the record store and finding the tape/record (eventually CD) and buying it. Then you had to rush home to play it. Would there be liner notes, words? Ah, sure good times. Coupled with that is just hanging out in record stores. I would love browsing through bands and sometimes having to jump in the deep end and buy an album without really hearing it.

[CaptainCrunch]

There were a lot of things that I get nostalgic for

Simple bikes with the pedal break. They were awesome, high speed and it felt like you were slamming on the brakes on an out of control train.

A less dense city. I lived in Bonivista growing up. The area with the big strip mall off Mcleod trail was a huge vacant lot, they had built the road there but it was never used because it linked to nothing. So it became our Calgary Corral, then the Saddle Dome for all day ball hockey tournament. We even had Mike Eaves show up for one.

Going to the Library and having to do research instead of googling. First of all, it forced a lot of collaboration. Second it was a real sense of accomplishment when you used the Dewey Decimal system, tracked down a book, opened the book and then found that nugget of information that you needed.

Someone mentioned Albums, and I completely agree that I liked that better then going on Itunes and downloading. you could spend hours in a record store. It would take you three minutes to find the one you were looking for. But you would go up and down the aisle admiring the Album Cover Art.

(Asia yo)



Fast food served on roller skates. A+W, you'd drive up and order through the speaker thingy and a waitress in a short skirt and roller skates would roll up with your food. It made it unique, and the servers were I guess more into in and more chatty. Now you can barely get a server to look up from their phone to serve you.

Drive ins, a movie watching memory that needs to come back in the worst way. I still remember sitting in a Van with my girlfriend at the time. The whole place smelled of pot and stale popcorn. Seeing the Michael Keaton batman on the screen with the sound playing through the crappy car stereo.

[troutman]

The climate.

[CliffFletcher]

Imagination.

I used to be able to escape into another world when I read a book. Close my eyes and see the landscape and action - better than any movie. I read fiction everywhere, sometimes three books a week, and never grew bored. When we played Dungeons & Dragons, we were transported to the labyrinths our characters were exploring, our heroes battling the monsters in glorious technicolour in our minds eyes.

Today, I struggle to spend longer than 20 minutes reading fiction. The words are inert on the page - I get their meaning, but they don't open portals to new worlds. When we play D&D today, it's about drinking beer and making wisecracks, not turbo-charging our imaginations.

I watch my kids reading Harry Potter or the Prydain Chronicles and I envy them their single-minded absorption in the worlds opening up to them.

[DuffMan]

I was in the last video rental place I can remember being in business, with my daughter, when she was about 7 or 10 or so, and we walked by the "adult" room, it had swinging doors on it to get in, and a big sign on top "You must be 18 to enter this area". I remember my daughter saying....."I'm going to go in there when I turn 18". Sadly, she never had the chance.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

When they were 5 & 7, we let them go off to the park 2 blocks away in the evening/night. They would roll with a big "gang" of friends. We have continued that approach. Allowing them to go to the woods on the edge of town, or down to the lake alone with friends. Now we are back in Calgary my approach hasn't changed. Get out explore, find parks, climb stuff, hang with friends. Kids still like and enjoy this stuff.

While I agree kids still like that stuff, most parents don't let their kids out unsupervised anymore. So in my case, it's my two kids and maybe one or two other kids in the neighbourhood who play like that. If those one or two kids aren't around, my kids are out of luck. And while my wife and I went around ringing doorbells to see who could come out to play, we've gotten the vibe that a lot of parents today regard that as inconsiderate.

And while I'm a supporter of free range parenting, I don't quite give my kids the freedom I had - by grade 5 I was already heading down to the woods at Glenmore Park or Weaselhead with my friends. Heck, my and my buddy took the bus downtown ourselves to watch a movie in grade 5. I'm not concerned so much about their safety as I am about the high likelihood that a pearl-clutching adult will see 9 or 10 year olds without suppervision and call the authorities.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Dion

Getting the Sears or Woodwards wish book each fall and thumbing through the toy section looking for ideas for Christmas.

That's just weird, the bra section was the first thing I looked at.

[bossy22]

Drive-ins. We had to drive to Westlock to watch movies.
In 2008 we were down in Whitefish and took the boys to Columbia falls to the drive in. Backed the truck up, set up lawn chairs chairs and sleeping bags in the box of the truck and watched the Incredible Hulk. The movie sucked, but the boys were 10 and thought it was an awesome experience. They closed that drive in down after that season.

[mivdo]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

This is still just as good as an adult, except the planes aren't as gloriously noisy/smokey as they used to be.

It could just be fond memories of my dad taking me and my sister there when we were young. This will definitely be a place I take my future kids.

Originally Posted by Mass_nerder

Bouncing on trampolines.
When I was a kid, nothing was better than going over to that one friend's house who had a trampoline. They never really seemed to want to bounce on it though, so it was kind of a treat when you had the chance to spend an afternoon bouncing.
As a 30 year old, I went to one of those trampoline parks today and all I got was a very sore back.

That is another great one. My body. I could be fast asleep, woken up and be wrestling, doing cartwheels within a minute. No problem.

Now if I sneeze too hard, ill flare something up in my back and feel it for a couple days.

[Cowperson]

My father would give me my .25 cents weekly allowance and I’d immediately ride my bike downtown to the only convenience store in the dusty prairie burg I grew up in.

I’d carefully select a .15 cent comic book and grab a .10 cent Jersey Milk chocolate bar, go across the street, sit on the curb and take my time reading and eating.

I’d always ball up my chocolate bar wrapper and put it in the trash can which seems like an odd thing to remember but, in those days, lots of people would just toss stuff into the street without a second thought. That scene in Mad Men where they’re having a picnic, get up, shake all the fast food wrappers onto the grass of the park and then blithely walk away had me howling because it was so true of the time.

This all sounds fairly depressing I’m sure but I remember it all clear as day as being a highlight in a less complicated time.

I was probably about 8-10 years old at the time. I still have some of those .15 cent comic books.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

I was in a the last video rental place I can remember being in business, with my daughter, when she was about 7 or 10 or so, and we walked by the "adult" room, it had swinging doors on it to get in, and a big sign on top "You must be 18 to enter this area". I remember my daughter saying....."I'm going to go in there when I turn 18". Sadly, she never had the chance.

That might not have been what she meant by "going in there".

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

. I'm not concerned so much about their safety as I am about the high likelihood that a pearl-clutching adult will see 9 or 10 year olds without suppervision and call the authorities.

#### 'em.

[The Yen Man]

For me, it's video games lately, and not even vs when I was a kid. It's vs. when I was a teenager and a university student. Not saying I don't enjoy it a lot now, but definitely a different feeling and not that great sense of joy I got back then.

Back when I was a kid, the sense of joy I got when my dad bought me TMNT 3 on Nintendo, or we rented an SNES from BlockBuster up in Beddington and ended up playing it all weekend. That sense joy is definitely missing.

And when I was a university student, I so looked forward to summer break after all the tough exams where I would just play for 8 to 10 hours straight of JRPG's for like 2 weeks straight and finishing it.

Now as a thirty something adult with more disposable income and more free time to play, it's definitely not the same feeling.

[BigNumbers]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Now as a thirty something adult with more disposable income and more free time to play, it's definitely not the same feeling.

I wish I had 1/5th the "me-time" I did in University...

[Wormius]

University was the best. No real responsibilities but with all the perks of being an adult. I got student loans, so I think that helped with being able to just take a 4 month holiday and not do anything I didn't want to. I had a good job after university, so paying them all back wasn't a tremendous burden.