CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL US KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920s, 30s 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s !!!!

Why????

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We slept on our stomachs and there were no baby alarms in our rooms because they were shared with our brothers and sisters.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.

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


When our parents went to the pub for a drink we were left outside with a bag of crisps and no-one abducted us.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was fish and chips or pie and chips. No Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC or Subway.

We ate meals all together as a family. We all ate the same thing and no-one starved because they couldn't eat the meal.

Even though all the shops closed at 5.30pm and didn't open on Sundays, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit Spangles, Love Hearts, Gob Stoppers and Black Jacks and Flying Saucers.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in them, but we weren't overweight because....


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 OK.

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. We built tree houses and cubby holes and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We explored streams and ponds, woods and abandoned places, and never drowned or got lost.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound. We either had no TV at all or else it was strictly limited to 2 channels and one hour of children's TV a night.

We had no TVs or Computers in our bedrooms.

We read comics and books and learnt to make them last.

There were no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms.....BUT.....WE HAD REAL 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.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time.......no really!


And in December, there was only one festive holiday....... CHRISTMAS ...... and everyone wished each other MERRY CHRISTMAS! and NOT.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS..... take it or leave it!

We were given air rifles and Catapults for our 10th birthdays,

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT AND NOT DUE TO BLACKMAIL, THREATS AND GUILT FROM THE PAST..... strange but true!

Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.

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

Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kylie' and 'Brooklyn' and 'Paris' and 'FiFi Trixibelle'



This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!


The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.


We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

I was born in 1955 and had a fabulous childhood, ate all those things, did all those things, obeyed my teachers and the law.

I think it was a great way to live and I mourn the passing of those ways and you know how normal I've turned out

Seriously though............those were the days

Hi Nikki,

How right your thread is!!
Kids nowday's have so much stuff to amuse themselve's, they still say
" IM BORED"

Fab....I've just cut and pasted this and sent it to my Mother in Law, who can't by a present without batteries or a plug, and thinks I'm the worlds most disgusting and uncaring mother because I flatly refuse to put child safety locks on absolutely everything!

Hear, Hear!.. My girls live like this too.. I am sure absolutely 100% positive that my neighbours think im a bad mum because my kids are (gasp) out in the neighbourhood after school and on weekends.. they have made friends with the kids on the street and often i cant find them.. BUT i have taught them stranger danger.. be home before dark.. and if you are uncomfortable SCREAM!..

I had freedom as a kid.. i would leave after breakfast and be back before dark.. My kids have mobile phones.. nintendos ds's, xbox and playstation.. pay tv and tvs in their bedrooms.. but we cant find the ds's.. they are in the bottom of the drawer somewhere.. phones are never charged and they get limited time to watch TV.. and xbox and playstations are used to watch movies or listen to tunes rather then play games..

my girls tear up the streets.. and i encourage it.. the sounds of kids playing and balls bouncing has all but dissapeared.. i give them more freedom to roam then most mothers.. infact every friday night they go skating.. i drop them off for a few hours to skate and dance.. because thats how i was bought up and i loved it!

How true!!! I remember we used go looking for old pop bottles to take to the shop and get 5p for them, and with that 5p you could get a bag full of sweets!! (that was after it went up from 2p a bottle, I'm a 70's child).

Also, when it was time to go home in the evening I remember hearing the faint strains of my mum shouting my name from the doorstep. Even though I was streets away I was aware that this was they way a parent found her child in the evening, and you would go running home for you tea and a bath. You never hear a mum stood on the doorstep shouting a childs name now do you? It so sad we dont still live like that.

You do on my street.. me!

OMG, how times have changed,didnt really realise until I read this post,wish I was back in the 70s, I did all those things, my lads a bit of a computer boff, but he also loves being out too, sometimes I dont see him for hours and yep his phone is always off or battery flat lol

I can remember a lot of this and I'm an 80's child so I guess a some of this goes for the 80's to?

I remember making mud pies, climbing massive trees, every Sunday without fail we would all be sat round the dinner table with a lovely Sunday dinner and we weren't allowed to leave until it was all gone(well nearly in my case), you got veg even if you hated it (which I did) then Sunday evening for tea mum would make some sarnies (prob egg) white a pot of tea and a cake lol.
We knocked round our friends to see if they were coming out whether it be next door or a mile down the road then off down the reck (sp) to play 50-50 which then we would be gone all day. My mum probably didn't know where we were half the time as we probably never told her. We were given pocket money to spend down at either the mixture shop or gobstoppers and we were allowed to spend it all on sweets, sugar mice were a favourite of mine.

The cars! I remember them not having head rests and us kneeling on the back seat to look out of the back window lol how dangerous!

We got our bums smacked when we were naughty or lippy and it was allowed!

My girls also have the DS, Wii a mobile phone (eldest has phone) but do they use them? Barely, the DS' have no stylus' the phone is not charged and lost and the Wii, well that was just a waste of money. They spend most of the time playing out in the street, round their friends or round the park which is fine by me.

I guess it's no wonder were all a bit bonkers really

What grand times...right off to dig out the old photo album's and walk down memory lane...oh the shame of that haircut and bell bottom trousers
Thanks for the reminder though