The over 40 crowd.....

[queen greenlover]

Loved all these post, my mom knew none of us kids liked Pea soup so one halloween she made it-so needless to say we had to eat it or no trick or treating. I can't believe how rude & damn lazy kids are these days either. But it is fun to tell them you had only 3 tv channels, when cable first came out the local system had 10 channels at first.

[robf]

Wow this is like the 4 Yorkshireman sketch.

 

Do you really think kids have it easy?

 

Instantly scrutinised via twitter / facebook /text, living in a world of cyber bullying, over sexulisation and the expectation that creates, the abundance of information is great on one hand but are we doing enough to protect children from it where it could be harmful. Obesity due to staying in and fear of playing down the park on their own.

 

Kids don't have it easy. They have it different.

 

Now stop being so grumpy.

[Pippa]

Sorry Rob - maybe you are right but - at least today everyone one gets a trophy - no winners or losers at sport these days !

[El Bandito]

Hey Rob! Not being grumpy...just nostalgic..

 

I don't think kids today have it easy at all. They seem to me be forced into being pre-packaged mini adults. There seems precious little time for just being kids.

[El Bandito]

LMAO, your just jealous because a colonial invented the refrigerator, right?

 

I had a really hard time drinking beer in London, and had a hell of a time getting anything served cold there, in fact I had to practically beg for ice cubes. Yes, I am a totally ridiculous colonial, and my mother was French Canadian, but we colonials like our beer cold.

 

Besides, you guys drive on the wrong side of the road, silly Brits.

 

And now we have:

 

Budweiser, Coors, Coors Lite etc etc

McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC

 

Go into a bar in London now and you have to beg for a beer not served cold... :angry:

 

Globalisation. Love it. :angry:

 

Young man. I am British. I drive down the middle of the road. Now get out of my way. There's a good chap. :P

[sherry]

When cable tv first came out the promise was "No Commercials with cable!"... you had that little box that had the push buttons on it that sat on the top of the tv... i was in Baltimore Md 1980 got our first cable box, could watch movies at home!!!!.. and Oprah was on the local news with Richard Shear ....i bought a set of encyclopedias that year, still have them... not sure why !!   :P  

[robf]

Sorry Rob - maybe you are right but - at least today everyone one gets a trophy - no winners or losers at sport these days !

That's largely untrue, if you're talking about really young kids then I think it's good to give them all a reward regardless of how they did to make them want to continue with sports otherwise you will get all the strong kids being bigged up and the weaker kids being left by the wayside.

 

At school I was one of the weaker kids that didn't mature as fast as some of the others and was more or less sidelined for everything sporting regardless of if I wanted to take part or not, that's not positive teaching, it completely turned me off sport and creates segregation within a system.

 

Sport aside, if you taught that way for any other subject if you weren't a genius you'd be ignored in class rather than helped. Giving people rewards for accomplishment regardless of how well they did by comparison to others is positive reinforcement and has been demonstrated to improve individual performance.

[Still winning]

Aww I am enjoying the nostalgia, rather than thinking about what my children will face. x

[Soberjulie]

I'm enjoying the nostalgia too.

Rob, the original post is a tongue-in-cheek letter, just poking some fun at the generation gap.

The same way my parents talked about my rotten generation. And their parents before them.

Lighten up dude :p

[Soberjulie]

I remember:

Roller skates that fit over your shoes and had a metal key to tighten them.

Little comic strips wrapped around a piece of 1 cent gum

25 cents bought a whole days worth of candy.

I could buy smokes for my dad at the store. Maybe I was 7......they cost 90 cents and I got to keep the dime

Paying a deposit on glass pop/soda bottles.

Collecting those bottles to trade in for money, then for candy.

Count chocula cereal. Dessert for breakfast!

Easter Sunday with a hat and white gloves.

2 choices in high school: shop/woodworking or home ec. Boys took shop, girls home ec.

Have you seen the choices now?! My kids brought home a robot baby that was so real it scared me. Parenting class, cosmetology, rock climbing and camping for gym class. I had floor hockey in gym class.

I took peanut butter to school. Nobody was allergic......if they were I guess they went home for lunch because we never knew about it.

The most radical thing we did: ear piercing. Girls got more than one hole, boys started getting them too. It was quite a controversy at grandma and grandpas house.

Today, kids pierce their face. Or nipples. Or worse!

 

I wish my grandma was with it enough to know what they thought of my parents generation.

I mean, c'mon!! My parents were teens in the 60's.

Betcha gram and grampa thought the world has just gone to hell in a hand basket :)

[sharonsiff]

Great list Julie...loving the nostalgia :)

 

I remember nearly wetting myself with excitement listening to the radio. Sitting, hoping, crossing fingers that my favourite song would come one. No YouTube (although I love that) but more the excitement when your favourite chart hit came on. I would be on tender hooks waiting for them to play ABBA or David Cassidy.

 

Then the weekly treat of a show called Top Of The Pops...the excitement of actually seeing them!

 

Then last, but not least, the Sunday chart show BBC1 radio. O.M.G....was religion to me to sit there from 5pm till 7pm and listen (and prance about singing) the whole top 20. Loved it!

[Colleen]

[TAC]

My new motor home was built in 1972 with a 360 Dodge engine, no computer, no fuel injectors, no GPS, no ABS, no cruise control, no air bags, and no worries.

 

One of the best things about the olden days.

[comrade simba]

Honest truth is I'm personally enjoying watching industrial civilization collapsing, the social order degrading itself, and the dominant culture eating its tail. Nostalgia is just cheerleading for Empire.

[Ladybug]

I remember my lunch in a brown paper bag

I remember buying candy for 1 penny

Going to a shop and spending the penny was exciting!

I always had chores!

All the kids drunk out of one bottle and nobody got sick!

If you weren't good in something, you had to learn to live with the disappointment.

[sgt.barney]

I remember my lunch in a brown paper bag

 

Wait - this isn't a thing anymore?

 

Does The Sarge have to procure a lunch box now?

 

 

 

Easy Peasy

[Ladybug]

Wait - this isn't a thing anymore?

 

Does The Sarge have to procure a lunch box now?

 

 

 

Easy Peasy

Laughing here

[TAC]

[Nancy]

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC)

[El Bandito]

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on

frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond

words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and

respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise

[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC)

Nice chap Hesiod. Used to play bowls with him I think....

[jimmy]

[Aine]

 Giving people rewards for accomplishment regardless of how well they did by comparison to others is positive reinforcement and has been demonstrated to improve individual performance.

 

True. But giving people rewards for accomplishment regardless of how well they did. . .that doesn't improve performance.

[Daisyjane2014]

Love this thread. I'm not over 40 yet but I can relate and remember so much of what you all have described. On the weekends I watched the Saturday morning cartoons until noon (i.e. Smurfs, He-man, Carebears, Strawberry Shortcake), then went out to play until the street lights came on. Our neighborhood was mostly boys, so I had to hang with them even though they made fun of my Pink Huffy bike. We rode our bikes through the trails in the woods, built forts and played with G.I. Joes in the mud. I was always stuck with Scarlett or Lady Jay. I remember the icecream man and buying little boxes of Jaw breaker candy for 10 cents and 25 cents each. Running through the sprinkler system during the summer and racing down the hills with my sled, navigating around the tree stumps during the winter. Life seemed simpler back then, recording Michael Jackson songs off the radio with my tape recorder and dancing to Madonna. I remember playing E.T. on Atari at my older cousin's house. My first console was the Sega Master system. I didn't have a cell phone in high school. Nobody did. Times were so different then. 

 

I miss my lunchbox ;)

 

[Ladybug]

My parents had superpowers ...they said they could have me flying into the middle of next week! I believed them....I never questioned their powers!

[Lynn]

I love this thread Julie. I remember so well all the things that were mentioned.  Playing outside all day long, we used to play "kick the can" on the streets in our neighborhood (kickball with a can), baseball, Barbie dolls in the yard, basketball, listening to cassettes, top 40 count down with Cassie Cassum. We got so excited when we were able to buy ice cream from "the ice cream man".  We had Atari with "ping pong" and we were glad to have it. I used to walk about two miles to spend my 50 cents on penny candy. I walked to school and to church.  I had a paper route at 14.

My kids don't walk anywhere.  I have to kick them out of the house to get them to play outside. Penny candy- no, they want the big bag. Hmm- I need to re-think my parenting style.