Journal filler...
Jun. 3rd, 2003 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deathpixieThis is one of the (many) little email things circulating through my work's intranet email service. I thought it was kind of nifty, especially for you young 'uns who like to tease this ol' lady of fanfic. *grins*
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived, because......
Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'clackers' on our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark.
No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We played street rounders and cricket without helmets and face masks, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits.
They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it.
We walked to friend's homes.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
So if you're one of us, Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
***
Man, talk about memories... *grins*
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived, because......
Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'clackers' on our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark.
No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We played street rounders and cricket without helmets and face masks, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits.
They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it.
We walked to friend's homes.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
So if you're one of us, Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
***
Man, talk about memories... *grins*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
The thing is.
Date: 2003-06-03 07:17 am (UTC)Not every kid was outside playing, not every kid is overweight from sitting on their ass reading. And there's a higher instance of adult diabetes from all those sugary things being eaten and kids who are adults now NOT knowing how to plan a decent diet.
Also consider the stereotype of the nerd from our childhood. Stayed indoors all the time - and was skinny, pale and wore glasses.
There were fat kids 25 years ago. Who ate badly, who didn't want to play outside. Hell, they were in the damned media. Didn't you watch "Stand by Me" or "The Goonies"??
Its never been JUST a case of not being active. Its lack of activity, bad eating habits, fast food being -cheap-, junk food being cheap and really tasty. And a distinct lack of education about proper eating habits.
Yes, getting hit in the face with a ball hurts. Hurts a hell of a lot more when it busts your skull open and you have learning disabilities due to brain damage.
Thirty years ago, if you were sexually abused, tough. There wasn't a lot to be done about it. If you were a girl, and wanted to take calculus at 16 - forget it, girls don't DO That. If you were gay? Nope, sorry, you're a poof and got beaten up.
And you know? I know a almost-seven year old and six year old who go outside and find friends. Who have a playstation, but also play outside. Who share drinks, who fall from trees, who get dirty, who play in streams.
Yes, I know you think this is cute.
Its also insulting to people who -did- live through some of that stuff. Who are recovering adults now.
The past is not a pipe dream of goodness. Nostalgic cannot erase the problems that society and technology have started to solve. And we're are damn well no worse off now then we were in 1973.
Yes, in 2003, we have problems. You show me a perfect society, I'll show you a really badly written sci-fi novel.
We over-legislate. We over-compensate. We'll get past it. But not because of glurgy suger-sweet "Oh, wow, the 70's were such a great time when we didn't know that lead paint caused people's brains to stop working right!."
Yes, to some degree, we're over-technologically inclined. Again, we'll get over it. Most people are finding a happy medium. MOST people don't have 11 ways to contact them at all times. Don't let the assholes ruin what is ultimatly a useful and good thing.
Because for every asshole that uses his cell phone in traffic to ask his wife what kind of ice cream she wants and causes a backup because he's drifting across lanes... there's a doctor who is on call who can take a nap, there's a ambulance who can get to an accident THAT Much faster because someone called 911 from the highway.
For every schmuck killing himself over Everquest, there's a girl learning that she can use computers too. There's someone understanding how the people on the other half of the planet live. There's a couple who would never find each other without the internet falling in love.
For every person rolling their eyes at the child-safety caps (Come on, am I the only person on the planet who doens't have a problem with these? Its not that freakin' hard, people. Line up the arrows. Duh.), there's a kid who isn't eating Mom's Ritalin.
I'm -really- tired of people forgetting the problems of the past, and dismissing the benefits of the present.
The good parts of our past are a good thing, and should be passed on. Children should (and still do!) play outside, swim, run, climb, and be free to do all kinds of things. But not at the expense of the lives of those people who -did- die from things we discovered are harmful.
A happy medium is necessary. Not the ignorance of yesterday, not the over-legislation of today.
Re: The thing is.
Date: 2003-06-03 05:00 pm (UTC)Yes, kids died back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Other bad stuff happened. Like John Howard our Honourable Gnome, being born. Indonesia invaded Timor and the Whitlam Government of the 70s let him. Korea. Vietnam. My own father having his mates ask him when he returned from the war how many babies he killed, and the effect that fucking war is still having on him. Women got paid half of what men do, when they could get a job at all - right up until the mid-70s, women in the job I do now were expected to quit once they got married. Kids were abused, kids had accidents and died, kids ate lead paint and got brain damage. Kids died from cot death because it wasn't realised putting a baby on its stomach to sleep was a bad thing. I'm not forgetting that for a second. I just thought, "hey, I don't have time for a full, completely-written-by-me LJ entry, and I don't want to clutter things up with Yet Another Survey (TM), and this is kind of amusing because I did most, if not all of this stuff, and I'm amazed I survived without breaking a single bone, let alone with everything else intact. Maybe someone else out there will be amused too." No ulterior motive, no hearkening back to the Good Old Days and insisting we Go Back, Right Now, just amusement at something that hit my inbox from one of my colleagues with more time than they should have on their hands and use of the Forward button.
If I want to seriously comment on the state of the world, you can bet I won't use someone else's words. Maybe I should have put it in italics, to show it was in fact a quote.
The good parts of our past are a good thing, and should be passed on. Children should (and still do!) play outside, swim, run, climb, and be free to do all kinds of things. But not at the expense of the lives of those people who -did- die from things we discovered are harmful.
A happy medium is necessary. Not the ignorance of yesterday, not the over-legislation of today.
I'm the first to agree with you. I'm the last person to call for a return to the benighted attitudes of that period. But I still think you're over-reacting. Yeah, maybe the wording wasn't great, but honestly, mate, it's not a hell of a lot different from someone posting song lyrics because they think they're nifty, or a survey or quiz. I could get offended and upset over some of the personality quizzes people post here, like the one that determines the level of abnormal psychological symptoms one has, because it doesn't take seriously those who actually suffer from psychosis or such. But I don't, because I take them in the spirit they were intended, as amusement. And hey, if I don't want to read them, I don't.
It was simply a bit of amusement - nothing more, nothing less.
Re: The thing is.
Date: 2003-06-03 05:22 pm (UTC)I wasn't so much responding directly to you (as I've seen this thing before, and knew it was a quote) as I was just responding to it, period. (Which in hindsight, I realize wasn't clear. Emotional reaction, rather than logical one.)
It hit some sensitive nerves.