When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all our friends also had permission to beat us! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MYGOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your *** and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brat!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!



See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

there were advantages. I took off for days at a time. From an alarmingly early age, I had to report to no one -I just took off for the creek, woods or pool. You could carry a BB gun around your housing development with no one taking notice. Hell I paid an older kid (who had suffered a stroke) to go into the hardware and buy a bolt action 22 and box of short rounds for me - I had saved my lunch money for over a year for it. Crimes were not always punished thru the legal system...and if they were...judges sometimes would take into account the quality of your parents. I was up for a felony at 15 but the judge just let me off as he knew my parents would straighten me out but Juvie hall would have messed me up. I rode my motorcycle thru my high school and my punishment was to ride it during a half-time show with a "Roller Ball Theme".You could settle the score with a bully with your fists with out ending up facing charges by the jerks parents.

Yep, there is no generation that could make in the generation before, at least no comfortably. I remember when I was a kid my dad and I used to build lots of stuff together. Once my granddad told me that he and I were going to build a dog house with only the tools he had available in his younger years. It took forever not using power tools.

Yer right Savage. Funny how we change from I'll never say that when I'm old to you young whipper snappers have it to good.

Don't forget one phone in the house located where everybody could easily hear the whole conversation, and if nobody was home except you,then you still had everybody on your party line listening!!!! TV had three channels and most of the time you had to go outside and manually rotate the antenna. The remote was telling your sibling through an open window to stop turning the antenna pole when the channel reception was clear.

Funny how you mentioned when you were younger you always said you would never lay that on your kids. My kids used to say the same thing and the other day I was at my sons house and my grand daughter was mad because she couldn't use the computer and my son said "when I was a kid we didn't even have computers at home"... I just looked at him with that told you so smile.

Yeah, but we all live in that Utopia, not just the kids. I always look back and wonder what I myself did before the internet, CD, digital music, cell phones, remotes and all that other good stuff. Don't think I would be happy living with the stuff I had when I grew up either.

Not sure if that's funny or sad GoFur, but it sure is true. I'm actually a little older than you so I had even less conveniences growing up, but today I am spoiled. I have put food back in the freezer because the microwave time was too long, if I can't find the TV remote the family runs and hides for their own safety, and god forbid if I find I left the house without my cell phone... depending on how far I am, I'll go back for it. And the internet... I still can't figure out how we got along without it. Hell, I would hate to have to wait 'till the next day to settle a bet on something. By then we would be sober and have forgotten what we were betting on Yeah, just because I didn't have all that crap as a kid, don't mean I don't love it now.

I'm not so sure I believe that kids today have it easier/better. Tech wise we had nothing by today's standards but we made our own fun. And I don't recall ever wondering/worrying if I'd be able to get a job or even if the job would actually get me through. I wouldn't want to be a kid today and have this world of doubt and fear looming in front of me. IMHO, we had it all. I dont' think kids today have near as much fun just being kids and growing up as I had. But I gotta consider where I live and what I see around here. Maybe, just maybe, kids are the same as they've always been. It's just where they're growing up that makes all the difference in the world.

Peace

I remember baby sitting a neice and her telling me the story of how she just learned that you can cook popcorn on a stove and not just in the microwave ... I just about died laughing.

You can really blow her mind by telling her "home made" cookies don't come in a plastic tube!

Two weeks ago I was 20, I took a nap, woke up, looked in the mirror and WHAM! 54...Now we share those stories with the kids...lol

Lucky that would just confuse her.

You're still a kid Deb!!!

Born in 1954... CRAP! That wuz a long time ago, back when black folk had their own bathrooms in school and drinking fountains. Couldn't vote either or go to my school. A husband could beat his wife/girlfriend and it was OK. Cops would talk to HER about 'marital harmony', the old man down the street could shoot you with his bb gun for using 'his' sidewalk. It was a time when pedophiles lived in the next block and gave kids candy to come into his house and play 'Games', when 'bikers' and 'worthless bum's' were the same things, even when all had jobs and worked on their yards. When teachers could whip you in front of the class for passing a note and the term 'Date Rape' meant 'she was easy'... When medicine and surgery couldn't save a friend, but it could today.
I could go on for a long time... I was raised in sub-rural Texas and YES, I do have goood memories from those days. I also remember the nasty parts, the warts and the indignity of being a kid back then. Was it a simpler time? NO. Better time? NO. To the folks that has myopia about the past... You're welcome to your memories... I have enough of my own... So, I live today and enjoy all I have... justsayin...
Edge "Won'tForget" Walker