Life Before Regulation

[PocketRocket]

I don't often start new thread. This is the second in 2 days.

I received this as an e-mail this morning, one of those "pass it on" things, but I thought it is interesting enough to include here.......

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they

carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored

lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we

rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took

hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE

actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but

we weren't overweight because

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back

when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down

the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the

bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no

99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell

phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat

rooms....WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no

lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,

made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang

the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't

had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They

actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, 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!

And YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as

kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And with those that are so fortunate as to know what they missed

[PocketRocket]

To keep the original post uncluttered, I though I'd add a brief comment in a separate post.

Is it just me, or does it seem like kids simply do not go out and play anymore???

I live in a secluded little area, only ten houses on my street. Lots of open space all around. Access by only one road, and the area is virtually unknown to almost everyone.

There's an area with trees, it's like a miniature forest.

In my childhood, I would have been out there with a handful of friends doing the "cowboys and indians" thing, or living some other childhood fantasy. In other words, having the sort of fun that only an imaginitive kid in a copse of trees can have.

The area looks like it's never seen a kid. I take my dog for walks through there. No candy wrappers, no half-built treehouses or forts, no footprints in the sand.

In my day, this was a dream playground.

The kid next door does, however, have a Playstation, and is rather obese, as are most of the friends that I occasionally see visiting him.

What's wrong with this picture????

[kimmy]

In response to some of the matters raised in the original message...

Rumour has it that my own mother smoked and drank quite a bit during her pregnancies. And (though some of you will surely disagree) I seem to have come through intact. My (allegedly) turning out OK not evidence that drinking and smoking during pregnancy is ok.

He pokes fun at lead-based paint on his baby-crib... if someone asked him, do you think he'd *choose* to paint his grandchild's crib with lead-based paint? "Hey, we had lead-based paint and we survived" is not a particularly good reason to ignore common sense and what has become wide-spread knowledge. Why doesn't he bitch about the removal of lead from gasoline? Cars back then had lead in the gasoline to combat "knocking"; studies on an urban neighborhood in Detroit where there were high volumes of leaded car-exhaust in the air proved that the results of all this lead flying around was, quite literally, a generation of stupid kids in that neighborhood.

Why didn't the author mention "we used to drink and drive all the time? It was a big joke to us, and we survived"? I'm told that back in the day, it used to be a real lark to get plastered and drive around. And the people telling me the stories survived to laugh about it later, right? So what's the big deal?

"Our mothers drank and smoked while pregnant, and we didn't wind up with brain-damage! (except for the ones that did.)"

"We ate lead paint-chips and we turned out ok! (except for the ones that didn't.)"

"We drove drunk and we didn't die! (except for the ones that did...)"

...

That said, much of what the author says does make sense.

It's been shown that playing in dirt and eating worms and drinking from the same bottle and all that other stuff kids do isn't just not harmful, it's actually helpful. Kids who grow up in overly sterile environments have weak immune-systems when they grow up. Exposure to lots and lots of different things builds your child's immune system.

I do agree with him that this is a generation of couch-potatos. Too much X-box and TV and time on the computer. I was recently bicycling past my old junior-high and saw a phys-ed class out for a run... it was rather sad. The gym-teachers often had us go for a run around the perimiter of the school grounds- perhaps a couple of kilometers... as I was watching this group of young athletes, I was both amused and saddened to see about 1/3 of the little blubber-balls run out of gas and start walking after only about 100m. Perhaps kids have just gotten a lot more out-of-shape in the few years since I attended that school, or perhaps I just never noticed kids expiring after 100m because I was always near the front of the pack. Nonetheless, it disturbed me to see how many of these kids just couldn't do it.

Perhaps kids don't play outdoors enough, perhaps they could find their own way home from school instead of being shuttled door-to-door. Perhaps kids are being smothered with kindness and care. I don't know... if I was a parent right now, I don't know what I would do... there's so many reports on the news about what can happen if you *don't* keep an eye on your kids. It surely can't be easy.

-kimmy

[daniel]

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they

carried us....

I first read this about a year ago. One comment is that it's true but we are the survivors of all these hazards. There are, of course, those who did not survive to laugh at this.

[Slavik44]

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO were born

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!----Quit your bitching its annoying

First, in 1932 you invented a damn parking meter, which to this day half of you losers still refuse to pay, yet you still drive your car, Morons. And after the trama of gettign a parking ticket and swearing at someone close buy. You will open up a can of beer, invented 1935, and drink your problems away, get in a car and well over 100,000 people a year, in the U.S, die due to that. Now you may be one of the lucky ones to survive getting home, where in a drunken state you pick up a colt revolver, invented 1936, but instead you put the gun down and reach for some LSD, invented in 1943. A popular drug of the hippy groups that came to loathe the invention of the hydrogen bomb in 1952. After finally regaining consciousness you drive to Mcdonalds, invented 1954, and order a big mac. After all that Mcdonalds eating you notice you are getting very fat like 80% of every one else from your god damn generation, that was once so Fit. So you head off to the plastic surgeon to inquire about liposuction invented in 1974, not a bad invention in its self but obviously there must have been a demand for such a device in 1970, for it to be invented. Finally as you are driving home you pick up a prostitute because after years of eating lead, driving drunk, falling out of trees mutilating your face, and being devistated because you suck at baseball, you are so un attractive, mentally and physcially, that a prostitute is the only way you can get laid. Unfortunantley all your early habbits in life has come back to haunt you and you just can't get it up, thankfully there is viagra invented by your children, in 1998, because they felt sorry for you.

[kimmy]

That was pretty strong.

Funny that this sort of topic always creates generational friction here at Mapleleafweb. Us young'uns always wind up complaining about the mess that the older generation created or telling them to stop bitching about us kids. The older people, in reply, respond with variations of "when you've had more experience, you'll know better..." or "when I was your age..." or "Get off my lawn, you kids!!"

It's a shame caesar is no longer with us; she could give us some perspective. Imagine all the changes she's seen in her lifetime. The arrival of the space-age, the jet-age, nuclear weapons, television, the airplane, the industrial age, the discovery of electricity, the invention of the printing-press...

-kimmy

[Guest eureka]

I actually feel sorry for this generation and for those to come. They may have Playstations and similar toys but they are worse off in may ways than the generations of the 60's and seventies.

Financially, this generation is only slightly better off than that of those decades and for the slight difference it works longer hours and must have two incomes. It has little time to enjoy the fruits of labour.

Society is far less congenial than it was due, in the main to the stress levels in today's living. The stress is probably the main factor in the failings in the Education system amongst others. Society today often seems to be just a termite hill of angry parents (and angry voters).

It is likely the lead paint of the 50's that is responsible for most of the ills. That generation is the fountain of the discontent of today.

Apart from that, Kimmy, your thoughts were very insightful.

[Unpolarized]

All generations are nostalgic about their own youth and only the good things remembered. Things change some good things are lost and the bad things are forgotten.

The original post was very North American centred. Globally is this generation loosing anything. If there is anything being lost, it is the ability to think critically about what is going on around them. We, young and old alike, seem to beleive what we are told and not analyze it. the impacts of constant information that is too little analyzed is the main difference. Kids go outside less because parents are freaked because they hear more about abductions or are told more about the dangers of a variety of product.

Too much information and not enough time to think about it all and put it in some sort of meaningful context. And then we react.

[PocketRocket]

Slavik44: Hilarious post. I love it. Except for......

.....reach for some LSD, invented in 1943. A popular drug of the hippy groups that came to loathe the invention of the hydrogen bomb in 1952. After finally regaining consciousness......

This. If you've ever done LSD, You would know that you simply do NOT lose consciousness when high on LSD.

Being part of THAT generation, I am aware of little things like this.

As to whether I know from personal experience shall go unrevealed

[Slavik44]

Slavik44: Hilarious post. I love it. Except for......

.....reach for some LSD, invented in 1943. A popular drug of the hippy groups that came to loathe the invention of the hydrogen bomb in 1952. After finally regaining consciousness......

This. If you've ever done LSD, You would know that you simply do NOT lose consciousness when high on LSD.

Being part of THAT generation, I am aware of little things like this.

As to whether I know from personal experience shall go unrevealed

yeah sorry, I was thinking more concious ability, or sobor I guess...next time I write one of those I will try and ensur eI ahve researche dit further...primarily through first hand expirence

[Guest eureka]

Unpolarized, the decline is Global. The poorer countries are economically worse off than they were, say, 25 years ago: much worse off.My observation of the way things are heading is:

This generation finds it hard to believe their grandparents who tell them how bad things were in the Depression of the 1930's. Your grandchildren will find it just as hard to believe you when you tell them how good it has been from the 60's and 70's.

Of course, it is still possible to avoid that future but there does not seem to be the political will to do so.

[PocketRocket]

SLAVIK44: I have a bit more time today, so I can address your quite funny post in more detail.

Please keep in mind that MOST comments are made in the spirit of humor and are not meant to cause offense.

   TO ALL THE KIDS WHO were born

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!----Quit your bitching its annoying  

Gee, and here all along I thought the whole point of these forums was to bitch.

You're certainly doing your share.

   First, in 1932 you invented a damn parking meter, which to this day half of you losers still refuse to pay, yet you still drive your car,  

Hmm. If the parking meter was invented in 1932, it's unlikely it was invented by anyone born in the 30's, and absolutely guaranteed that it wasn't invented by anyone born in the 40's or later. So, this is a null argument.

BTW, these days if you don't pay your parking tickets, they eventually take away your license. Another null argument.

   Morons. 

There's nothing like logical debate. In this is nothing like logical debate.

   And after the trama of gettign a parking ticket and swearing at someone close buy....

Last two times I got parking tickets, I didn't swear at anyone. But, seeing as how I was legally parked both times, and the tickets had been issued in error, I brought them to the appropriate place, and had them nullified.

Those tickets in my past which WERE valid, I happily paid. Well, not happily, but paid without complaining.

Kinda like hockey, if you break the rules and get caught, you pay the penalty.

  You will open up a can of beer, invented 1935,

Still not invented by anyone in the specified age group. Besides, I don't drink beer. I prefer Crown Royal, and I do not drive while drinking. Might spill some.

  ...and drink your problems away, get in a car and well over 100,000 people a year, in the U.S, die due to that. 

Ah yes, the good old US of A, where in many states it's perfectly legal to have a beer in your hand while sitting behind the wheel on the freeway. Fortunately, I live in Canada, where drinking and driving is not viewed so favorably

   Now you may be one of the lucky ones to survive getting home, where in a drunken state you pick up a colt revolver, invented 1936, but instead you put the gun down and reach for some LSD, invented in 1943.

Sorry, I only own rifles, no handguns. But still, it's unlikely that the Colt was invented by someone 6 years or younger.

LSD, on the other hand, I have done, but not for over 25 years. Keep in mind though, it was invented, by your own words, in 1943, and so someone born in 1930 was still only 13 years old, and probably had nothing to do with it's invention.

(Actuall, LSD occurs naturally in a variety of sources, so it really wasn't "invented". A process to synthesize it was.)

   A popular drug of the hippy groups that came to loathe the invention of the hydrogen bomb in 1952. 

1952, so that makes our child born in 1930 still only 22 years old, and an unlikely candidate as the inventor. Even if he was a hippy.

He may, however, have been out at the time painting flowers on his Volkswagon, invented (I believe) in 1939 (correct me if I'm wrong).

    After finally regaining consciousness you drive to Mcdonalds, invented 1954, and order a big mac.  

I prefer Wendy's, better yet, Subway. Also, if you've ever done LSD, you will know that you simply DO NOT lose consciousness. Just TRY to go to sleep. Forget about it.

   After all that Mcdonalds eating you notice you are getting very fat like 80% of every one else from your god damn generation, that was once so Fit.  

Well now, personally, I am 5'7", and weigh in at 152 lbs, my ideal weight.

   So you head off to the plastic surgeon to inquire about liposuction invented in 1974, not a bad invention in its self but obviously there must have been a demand for such a device in 1970, for it to be invented. 

You know, that just MAY have been invented by someone in the age range we're talking about. If he was born in 1930 that would make him 44. Possible. If you could cite a source for the name of the inventor, and his date of birth, you may actually have at least one valid point in this post.

   Finally as you are driving home you pick up a prostitute because after years of eating lead, driving drunk, falling out of trees mutilating your face, and being devistated because you suck at baseball, you are so un attractive, mentally and physcially, that a prostitute is the only way you can get laid. 

Judging from you demeanor, and your evident contempt for anyone born during the specified time frame, I can only assume that you were born later than the 70's.

Therefore, by the logic you have presented in this paragraph, it is likely that you are the offspring of such a mating as you have described here.

If so (and I specify "if so"), is your dad still that ugly??? And is your mom still earning a living on her back???

  Unfortunantley all your early habbits in life has come back to haunt you and you just can't get it up, thankfully there is viagra invented by your children, in 1998, because they felt sorry for you. 

Haven't needed it so far (touch woody, er WOOD, yeah, wood), but it's nice to know it's there.

Thanks, kids.

See, wasn't that easy??? I actually thanked another generation for it's contribution without casting any aspersions on them.

Now, I think I'll go adjust my halo

Oh, one last thing, another "habbit" as you put it, of my generation, was paying attention during English classes.

That's why most of us can spell

[Argus]

To keep the original post uncluttered, I though I'd add a brief comment in a separate post.

Is it just me, or does it seem like kids simply do not go out and play anymore???

I live in a secluded little area, only ten houses on my street. Lots of open space all around. Access by only one road, and the area is virtually unknown to almost everyone.

There's an area with trees, it's like a miniature forest.

In my childhood, I would have been out there with a handful of friends doing the "cowboys and indians" thing, or living some other childhood fantasy. In other words, having the sort of fun that only an imaginitive kid in a copse of trees can have.

The area looks like it's never seen a kid. I take my dog for walks through there. No candy wrappers, no half-built treehouses or forts, no footprints in the sand.

In my day, this was a dream playground.

The kid next door does, however, have a Playstation, and is rather obese, as are most of the friends that I occasionally see visiting him.

What's wrong with this picture????

A lot. As a kid, I used to love the "woods". I built tree forts and skipped rocks across the river. I rode my bike down to the river all the time with my friends. Friends were really the measure of life back then, and not just for kids. With inside entertainment being considerably more sparce, people spent a lot more time with one another, from the time they were small children, developing social skills, among other things.

The lack of social skills among young people today, or even young people from the last ten or fifteen years, is quite shocking. We are raising a culture of internet and nintendo kids who expect that everything is going to work out their way, and don't know how to cope when it doesn't, except by screaming and crying.

The physical problem of fat kids who never go anywhere and never do anything is becoming universal. And that's going to shoot various disease rates like Diabetes through the F'ing roof as they grow older. Hey, I have a PS2 and a computer myself, and I watch a lot of TV, but I probably spend more time on my feet than your average ten year old, and that's just plain sad.

But the emontional problem of a generation raised without the neccesary social skills is going to be even worse. Social skills figure into everything we do in life, from our success at work, to our spousal relationships. I think one of the reasons divorce is so common now is that people never learned how to compromise and deal with others' personality traits. Sure divorce is also technically much easier to obtain, but from what I've seen and read younger people get divorced for the most absurd of reasons these days. And I think it all boils down to growing up with too much tv and too little, in-your-face contact with others.

Those were the days, my friend,

We thought they'd never end.

We'd sing and dance

forever and a day.

We'd live the life we choosed,

We'd fight and never lose,

those were the days, oh yes those were the days!

[August1991]

Those were the days, my friend,

We thought they'd never end.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I was looking for stats on car fatalities in the US but I haven't found a good link. By memory, about 50,000 people died each year in the 1960s. At present, this number is around 40,000 (despite the increase in population and traveling).

Why? Are fewer people killed in car accidents because of regulations about car manufacturing or simply because people are wealthier and can afford to fly?

But then, plane travel is probably safer too. Because of regulations?

Terry Fox was in the news recently. It was noted that he probably would have survived his cancer today. In 25 years, things have changed. How have regulations affected cancer treatment?

----

I hear Hugo arguing that the market would have achieved this anyway - and faster and cheaper. I'm not certain.

There is no doubt that for most people, life today is better than life in the past. Today, we have more choices and we are more informed of those choices. We are less inclined to make choices by ignorance or hearsay.

I think everyone would like to return to the past, as long as they could go there with everything life has taught them.

[Guest eureka]

Your figures are about right, August.

[Slavik44]

Fine well go at this again,

TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER LIVED---YOUR ALL ANNOYING

Hey I can't help, throughout the history we have seen some crazy things but none more crazy then the phenomenon known as nostalaga. Common you know what I am talkign about, the guy that advertises his 1970's Yugo As like new, of course it is like new its not like it could get any worse. It seems to me as though we are constantly mislead by the people of the previous generations who in looking back across the gulf of time see the early half of their lives misted over by a lovely sunset haze of peace and security. But at the time in the midst of the hustle and bussle of their daily lifes, this was simply not true and the problems they identify today were present back when they lived. Take televisionfor instance, it is seen as an atni-social device that will make us un-educated, violent, and fat. Depriving us of creative thinking, wil power, and the ability to lead and interact with others. But way back inthe 1930's When Hitler, Mussolini and Superman were on the rise, every one ahd something bad to say about Superman, not mussolini and Hitler but Superman. Where the Chicago Daily News in 1940, calls comics books a national disgrace, a poisnous mushroom, a Sex horror serial that pushes mayhem, Murder, torture and abduction onto impressionable minds making children more likely to live recklessly. Not only that but the crudely drawn pictures rune a childs natural sense of colour. Infact comic books are all lies, with completely immoral publishers guilty of a cultural slaughter of the innocents. Apparently however the children of the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's were able to survive the horrors of those evil comic books and live somewhat normal lives.

The article you posted yourself, talked about the inventive nature of your generations, whatever the hell that means. However, lets stop to think about this, because it is those same invetions that are "corrupting" are society today, you invented the computer, it sound sto me liek the generation's before had no fricken idea what they were doing, and cannot control their own invetions, that is nto the fault of the current generation. Much of the critisicm laid on the video games of this generation has been laid on past generations before it, the fast food and the poor eating habbits, are not a seven year olds fault, it is the parents from your glorious generations who shove big mac's down little mikes throat and then turn around and say where have the kids gone wrong, when it is the parents who have gone wrong. You invented the telivision, congradulations...but it seems to me you have become incapable of controlling your own inventions that does not sound like a responsible generation.

Look at the skies, look at california, who hads its public transportations system utterly destroyed by General Motors...in a bid to make profits...and tell me that the kids they are not paying a price, for the bunch of gas guzzling jack asses from the 1930's-70's. For such an inventive generation you really haven't done to much good. By all accounts from you guys we have evil computers, evil telivision, evil games, and evil children not to mention global warming, obesity, and a rising rate of child poverty. It sounds to me like you bought a ten million dollar house, you could not afford, but lived in it anyways...and are now pissed off because your kids won't be able to afford the house either, and it is their fault.

What I have been trying to point out is that when it comes down to it, the colt magnum was invented in the 1930's....so much for Grandparents living int he glory days of peace bread and land, maybe it was invented for store owners to shoot those ungodly niggers? LSD???? Man we have parents trippen out over harmless little Pot, of course most of them were born in the 60/70's!!!!!! The 1920's was the era of Organized crime, where evan a vice president of the united states of America had some close ties to some prominent mobsters recieving huge donnations, it was an area of KKK dominance of the democratic party...yet 80 year old people want to talk about the good old days of real American moralty?????? Lets not get into hudred year old people who got cuaght up in one of the biggest disasters of our century in World War one, where the British foriegn ministery sat on his ass watching birds all summer, instead of trying to prevent a war...and you want to talk about morality and the corruptionof society???? Although there all prolly dead by now in the late 1800's in France we have the dreyfus affair, where one innocent man is sentenced to lfi eon a deserted island, jsut so the millitary can look good, and beyond that they censored the freedom of the press in hopes that information wouldn't be leaked, but being fat and innactive is so much worse, right????

I mean if the biggest problem with the generation of kids growing up in the year 2000 is that there is an obesity problem, we should shut our mouths and be happy. We could only wish that in the history of the world that being fat and innactive was biggest problem facing such a generation, because history can show us alot worse. History can also show us that many comments made in todays world by todays media were made every other time a new invention came out, that a bunch of old people didn't understand or care to understand. I mean we had bombings at Black churches in during you generation, we had open expressions of rasicm, and we had a alot more dumb asses driving drunk, and polluting are environment much more than todays generation. The fact is Democracy was not the end of the world, niether was universal suffrage, niether were comic books, niether was elvis shaking his hips, and up until a while ago...being fat was a symbol of upper class/Rich origins. So please cut yourself righteous bitchign especially when it is so hipocritical, every generation ahd their good sides and bad sides, but is beign Fat is the best you can come up with, you really do need to maybe use that invention from 1943. And By the way I am 5'6 210 pounds, I go to the gym 5 days a week and have no problem out running or outlifting anyone from your generation, not that it really matters because General cases don't change the fact that well over half of your generation is now seriously overweight/obese. I could go on to say that most of your adventerous youth exploits were easily topped by me and my friends, and we didn't eat lead paint, not that that matters either.

[Digby]

I beleave the drop in Car deaths is mainly due to much stricter Drinking and driveing laws, and better highways.

I know in my area Drinking and Driving is not completly gone but years ago it was 10 times as bad . Stricter Penalties is what has made the difference ,all my friends now take cabs if going out drinking , 15-20 years ago they all would of drove .