Kids these days... - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

puckluck · 08-08-2011, 10:38 PM

Taking my niece to the park today I realized how easy they got it. I remember as a kid we didn't have the soft pillowy rubber tire pieces as a safety net if we fell from the monkey bars or they didn't have to deal with the metal that heats up to about 60 degrees burning your skin as you slide down the slide. They also don't need to risk their lives going around on a merry-go-round (how people thought this was a good idea in the first place really boggles my mind, those things were death traps). I remember at least once a week a kid would get a body part stuck under those things and hurt themselves.

What do you remember as a kid that has changed drastically for the better?

afc wimbledon · 08-08-2011, 10:39 PM

Growing up in the UK in the 60's everyone was allowed to beat you, parents, teachers, coppers, neighbours, random strangers on the street.

That and torn up newspaper for arse wipe

Regulator75 · 08-08-2011, 10:45 PM

This should toughen them up.

HotHotHeat · 08-08-2011, 10:55 PM

I disagree. The level of cautiousness these days is pathetic. Obviously some things are warranted, like those merry-go-rounds, but overall it's not a positive step.

octothorp · 08-08-2011, 11:00 PM

Yeah, it was a lot rougher when I was growing up. When I was young, grown-ups would bitch about how tough their life was and how soft you were to your face; now, adults just make posts about it on messageboards.

Yeah_Baby · 08-08-2011, 11:06 PM

Is it just me, or does every generation look at the next one and think about how lucky they have it?

robocop · 08-08-2011, 11:06 PM

I remember once I got beaten up by a kid three doors down from me for not giving him my basketball. I ran home hoping I could get my dad to take back my ball, he made me go back and take my basketball from him no matter what the kid said. That was how things got dealt with when I was growing up, now you have to wear a helmet everywhere you go. And I don't look back and say they have it so great now, their toys suck and the cartoons suck.

Sylvanfan · 08-08-2011, 11:09 PM

When I was a kid I had to wear awful clothes. Even my mom comments that her grandsons are much more fun to shop for thanks to plentiful Chinese child labour. I had to wear the same brown pants until I grew out o them. My kid has three pairs of pants or shorts to wear every day. Granted...better washers and dryers might have something to do with that. Plus I was doused in Phosphates all the time,it's a wonder I haven't scraped all the skin off my bones from itching.

puckluck · 08-08-2011, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Is it just me, or does every generation look at the next one and think about how lucky they have it?

I think that's obvious with the way technology is. We do have huge advantages over the older generation though!

WhiteTiger · 08-08-2011, 11:12 PM

I remember my mom locking my younger brother and I out of the house, telling us to "go play somewhere, and don't come back until lunch/supper time."

Don't see that sort of thing much these days, I imagine.

RougeUnderoos · 08-08-2011, 11:13 PM

Remember the thrill of biting into Halloween Candy and not knowing whether or not you'd chomp down on a razor blade stuck in there? Kids today don't know how exciting that could be.

I suppose it is "better" that this is no longer a Halloween Ritual, but they don't know what they are missing.

Yeah_Baby · 08-08-2011, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by puckluck

I think that's obvious with the way technology is. We do have huge advantages over the older generation though!

Yeah and your grandparents sure had a nice advantage over their grandparents with those fancy horseless carriages.

Young-Sneezy · 08-08-2011, 11:18 PM

i walked 10 miles every day in the freezing cold to school.

macker · 08-08-2011, 11:21 PM

As soon as you would hit the Saskatchewan or BC border it was such a pain to have to reach for the seat belt....Glad they didn't have booster seats back then. Travel in comfort

puckluck · 08-08-2011, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Yeah and your grandparents sure had a nice advantage over their grandparents with those fancy horseless carriages.

Yes they obviously did or it wouldn't have been so popular. In those times it was absolutely an advantage.

Yeah_Baby · 08-08-2011, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by puckluck

Yes they obviously did or it wouldn't have been so popular. In those times it was absolutely an advantage.

So it's all cyclical, that is my point. It's like saying war is so much more terrible in modernity. No it's not. Are weapons more powerful? Yeah, but there are a lot more people nowadays too. It's really a question or proportionality.

puckluck · 08-08-2011, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

So it's all cyclical, that is my point. It's like saying war is so much more terrible in modernity. No it's not. Are weapons more powerful? Yeah, but there are a lot more people nowadays too. It's really a question or proportionality.

And I agree. Just simply talking about what has changed in the time since people on this board have grown up.

Vulcan · 08-08-2011, 11:37 PM

Growing up in my day, we had a lot more freedom to kill and maim ourselves. BB guns, potato guns and firecrackers were common and fun. I only almost blew my hand off once.

LGA · 08-08-2011, 11:40 PM

The gravel taught me not to give up, even when you are dead tired and really want to let go, because the alternative is falling into the jagged rocks.

pylon · 08-08-2011, 11:55 PM

LOL.

Summer of 1982 or 1983. I am 8 or 9 years old. I know this since we lived in that particular house in 82-83.

Anyway. Me and my also not 10 year old buddy, from across the street are in the back alley, with my dads CIRCULAR POWER SAW, cutting up 2 X 4's and plywood making a bike jump for our BMX's. My dad gets home from work and comes out to the back alley, not to give us crap, or take away the saw, but to critique our work, and help with the project..lol. Rips off his tie, and proceeds to re-engineer the jump (he is an engineer) to a ghastly jump of death, with landing ramp, designed to clear 3 standard issue steel garbage cans.

The funny part of the whole thing, and this is one of my most vivid childhood memories, was him being the first to try the jump, and proceeding to face plant in the back alley, and get taken to the hospital by my mom. Many years later I learned he had a severe concussion, and as it turned out, when he had an MRI done in the late 90's it shows he had a cracked skull at some point in his life! The only thing he can think of that did that was the bike jump.

Things were certainly different back then. I grew up in the tail end of the free roaming childhood. Me and my friends would get up at 8am in the summer, meet in the middle of the street by the same "lightpost" and take off for the day into Fish Creek Park on our bikes, and just roam around the hood making pit stops at each others houses throughout the day. We would check in for lunch and dinner, but you were gone from dusk till dawn. In the winter, when school was out, it was straight to hockey practice, or out to the Lake to play until dark. It makes it sound like we had disinterested, neglectful parents, but no, that's just how it was. One weird story, we got sent out of Fish Creek Park by the cops, the day they found Charles Ng down there. All these years later, that is a scary thought. We used to cruise run around in the bushes a few hundred feet from the guys hideout down there.

My memories of summer growing up, are the fondest memories I have in my life. Yeah we had super crappo video games, that anything more than an hour was enough. Summers were spent outside, shirtless, and on our Bikes. No helmets, no kneepads, and no helicopter parents. It is sad to see how kids now are so overprotected, and being raised by their Xbox's. They are missing out huge.