You kids today don't know nothin'

[Atman]

I just stumbled across this great little rant...enjoy...

-------

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 BOTH ways . .
. through year 'round blizzards. Carrying their younger siblings on their backs . . . to their one-room schoolhouse, where they maintained a Straight-A average, despite their full- time, after-school job at the local textile mill . . . where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

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 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 thirty, 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! 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 damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardships? You couldn't just download xxx! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

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! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent - you just didn't know!!!
You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your 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!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! 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 ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and 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 brats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire. Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about!
You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!!!!!

[noahmijo]

1. This line had me rolling in laughter

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!


Haha well I was born in 1981 I remember games like that!

You know one thing I could say that I do miss about those old days even though I was barely toddling around back then were the anti-Reagan bands like Queensryche. What the hell happened to bands like that???

[darkmaestro019]

10. Drag out Operation Mindcrime and listen to it. Preferably with

the liner notes in front of you. It's eerie eerie eerie. As apropos now as it was then, maybe even more so.

I think they all quit doing drugs and consequently lost their ability to see beyond the reality presented to us. :shrug: Don't laugh, lol. Their albums from Promised Land on sucked, IMO. And look what happened to Aerosmith when they quit imbibing....:puke:

[Atman]

11. "JUST SAY NO!"

No kidding! Just say "roll me a fatty and relax" is what I say!

:rofl:

[darkmaestro019]

66. I saw "Just say Know" on some FM radio thingy

I'm sure I've seen it before but it made me very happy : )

[noahmijo]

19. Operating Mindcrime-One of my most favorite albums of all time

easily in my top five and you're right it's amazing how listening to it today it seems like it was written just yesterday.

The sequel is awesome I don't care what anyone says. It has the same flavor as the first one just a little more hard edge, and I wouldn't say it's better or worse it's just a continuation nothing more than the second half of the package.

I really liked Empire though but yea when they lost the fire to make people think a little bit...

[darkmaestro019]

67. I didn't lose my interest until Promised Land

which I never bought......the video just kind of turned me off utterly. It was sort of a spinning camera with the band and a woman giving birth shown at the same time. I got nothing out of it. (sigh)

I loved Empire, though it wasn't quite the....I kind of equate Mindcrime to their "Welcome to My Nightmare" or "The Wall" Some bands just have that one monumental album inside them, I guess.

Queensryche came here a while back with Judas Priest. I'd have had to sell my non-existent children to afford a ticket, though. :cry: I never got to see Geoff sing in person and I so wanted that voice to go through my very bones.

But I live the Livecrime vid. (beam)

[hfojvt]

44. I think I was able to beat Space Invaders

at some point I passed a million and the game wigged out or something. Then it became a typical game to reach that goal, but that was a computer game in the late 1980s.

[lildreamer316]

60. Go listen to "Sign of the Times" n/t

[hopeisaplace]

71. Milk, Bread, & Egg man..Tv shows in my day I loved....awwhhh

I'm feeling nostalgic, Mash, WKRP in Cincinnati, Happy Days,
Welcome Back Kotter, The Carol Burnette Show...

(I want to go back in time for a weekend visit..other than
the Prime Channel on TV)

[seabeyond]

2. we didnt have 9/11, we didnt have cops out of control, we didnt have

the religious zealots in our government passing moral laws, we were on the way to concuring racism adn sexism, we didnt have bushco and repug control, we didnt have underfunded schools and the attack on school teachers and administration, we didnt have tak tests, we didnt have the disfunction families today, or parents so self absorbed they insist the children raise themselves, or both parents having to work adn never be home, we didnt have.......

my children have more to figure out today, than i ever did. i often tell my kids, i dont get these adults that say, wow, wish i was a kid they have it so easy, cause i am seeing how very hard it is. we demand our kids be in the adult world at 5 and have it all figured out, though we adults dont have a clue as of yet. we are expecting our kids to clean up our mess

i know where this poster comes from as i see kids going into work force adn they dont have a clue. we send our kids our in the real world, having deprived them of foundation they need ot be successful, why???? cause we were too busy or self absorbed.

no, i dont adhere to this theory. what i got away with in the 70's and 80's, the freedoms i have my children will never haev, the security and feelings of safe, my kids dont have......

i wasnt ever stripped searched ot get on a plane

no....

i dont agree with this article at all.

on edit: we didnt have religion telling us the end of world, or enviromentalist telling us the end of world, or repugs (thru war) teh end of war

i could keep going, as i step from computer only to come back again to add more to the list

finger prints, foot prints, nose tags to make sure preditors dont steal our children, and mutilate them.......telling our 5 year olds how they are suppose to save themselves from death. isnt that my job, not the kids????

[Atman]

9. First of all, I think you took it a little bit too seriously...

But you do make some valid points. However, I don't necessarily agree with the stuff about predators. We scare out children way too much. Sure there are predators now, but there always were. One of the big differences is 24 hours news, which feels compelled to make local stories into international news events. It used to be that if something happened to a kid in Kansas, it was on the Kansas news. Now it is on CNN within five minutes, and we all freak, as if it had happened in our neighborhood, when you simply wouldn't have heard about it twenty years ago.

I always try to remember that there are 300,000,000 people in America. So bad shit is bound to happen. But that also means my odd of it happening to me are about 300,000,000 to one. People line up around the block to by a Powerball ticket on better odds! Keep it all in persective, and remember who has the most to gain by keeping us in fear...the government and the cable news networks!

[Horse with no Name]

33. Remember Mr. Stranger Danger?

We were well indoctrinated to him in elementary school.
We feared Russia. We feared nuclear attack.
We had bomb drills in school. We had missing and murdered kids. We had REAL reporters blown up for reporting stories that the bad guys didn't want us to hear. We had the Vietnam War. We had Kent State. We had Little Rock. We had MLK marching in the South for equal rights. We had women burning their bras and marching for women's rights.
The difference is the media and this administration.
The President didn't do everything in his power to scare the shit out of everyone back then. The media didn't bring this crap into our homes on a non-stop merry go round.
The stuff still happened. It was just in the background, not in the foreground.

[Atman]

35. "Remember Mr. Stranger Danger?"

Yeah, I think he was my P.E. coach!


Gosh...remember P.E.? EVERY DAY? And actually having to take a shower afterwards, naked! And the President's Physical Fitness Test? Get one fat-ass PlayStation junkie teen today to do 50 sit-ups! Jesus, it's no wonder we've turned into a nation of whining marshmallows.

[The2ndWheel]

22. The same problems have always been around

Just in a different form or shape.

Safety? We were minutes away from nuclear war in the 60's.

Religion wasn't telling us about the end of the world? Isn't that was religion is based on?

On the way to what with racism and sexism? You think that's going to go away, or has the chance of going away?

[sproutster]

54. As one who did "nuclear bomb" drills - I beg to differ

I haven't heard it bandied in the terrifying way until recently, and I am flipping terrified.

[TAPat]

3. Thank you so much for that!!!!

:rofl: I haven't laughed that hard in a while!

[liberal N proud]

4. How about the 70's

No CD' Players you had to get up and change the vinyl every 30 minutes unless you had one of those 8-track tape players.
There were Microwaves in the 70's and 80's - I remember the fight my parents had over that, Dad went out and bought one of the first Amana Radar Ranges. My mother didn't speak to him for a week. She wouldn't use the thing for years.

As far as the video games, remember Pong?

The cars didn't have automatic windows, unless you had one of those fancy Cadillacs. No Cruise control either, you had to keep that foot on the gas all the way to California.

TV, one TV set in the house with an antenna on the roof that could pick up 3 channels, if you got it pointed in the right direction.

Rotary Telephones, with no call waiting or Caller ID, you answered the phone and talked to who ever was on the other end. If you were not home, there was no answering machine to pick up your message, the caller assumed you were out and would call back later.

Yeah, the kids today do have it easy.

[AValdoux]

16. How about lawn darts?

We also weren't given safety gear like helmets to ride our bikes. Our bike reflectors were made of glass and fenders of sharp metal. There weren't seat belts in the back seats of cars. A BB gun was a right of passage for a little boy. My brother got his when he was 10.

Now that I think about, were our parents trying to kill us?


AValdoux

[Ciggies and coffee]

77. With lawyers as the scapegoats....

All of this was "lobbied", cough bought by the INSURANCE INDUSTRY so that they could reduce their claims (increase their income) at the cost of our freedoms. Follow the money............

[BOHICA06]

5. Too true ,,,,,,,,

...and we had to write stuff ....you heard me, we had write with our hands the assignments for school. And our only spell checker was a Websters and the space between our ears!!!!!!

AND ... don't forget we had to suffer with dot matrix!!!!!!!!!!

[TayTay]

6. Yeah, those kids today have it ral easy

Loss of jobs to outsourcing.
Loss of health care benefits due to employers not offering this as a benefit.
Loss of funding on both a state and national level that results in less money for 'kids' to go to college.
America engaged in one war that it can't get out of and threatening another that might produce WWIII.

Lucky kids today! They have better video games and TV. Wow! Impressive.

[BOHICA06]

12. You weren't in the workforce in 1980 ...

were you?

Outsource wasn't the problem .... existence was. Big Bad Recession ...mortgages.at 15% - unemployment nearing 10%...it was nasty

and I won't go into the idea of MAD.

[Atman]

15. Only being able to buy gas on odd-numbered days...and only $8 worth

And where did you get one of those bargain 15% mortgages? They were 21% where I lived!

[TayTay]

24. Yeah I was

And I don't think kids have it any easier today. I think they have more stuff.

Having more stuff does not equate to having it easier. I think that the generation coming up today will have it far harder than I did. Far harder.

[dogday]

20. Don't forget a huge Federal Deficit as well

they get to inherit that from us.....

[Bridget Burke]

28. I believe this is called "humor"...

Look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

[TayTay]

34. But it's reactionary humor

that posits a golden age that never existed.

[Atman]

36. No Golden Age EVER existed.

Every generation thinks it had it so much harder then the previous, despite the fact that advances in technology have made everybody softer.

You really need to relax! Reactionary humor is still HUMOR. If you want to limit your humor to knock-knock jokes and Bennet Cerf riddles, that's fine. But you don't have to be such an old fuddy duddy! (That's a term from the Golden Age).

[Bridget Burke]

39. It's an answer to what we heard growing up....

About how tough life was in the Depression. (Actually, it WAS tough back then.)

In fact, I can remember when we had NO CABLE! I remember when we finally got the 3rd major network in Houston! However, we had the nation's first PBS channel.

[alcibiades_mystery]

42. You call that positing a Golden Age?

:rofl:

Did you even read the piece?

[Inland]

7. "Now get off my lawn!" nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. !

:rofl:

[AlphaCentauri]

13. LOL

and there was no DSL or satellite TV

:D

[SidDithers]

14. That was great...thanks for posting...

:applause:

Sid

[havocmom]

17. I miss the card catalog.

And we had a lot more quality family time when you had to go across the street and down the block to receive an emergency phone call from the 'folks back home'.

Never had to carry my kid brother in a blizzard, but did have to pull him out of the tall branches of the big tree out front a time or two. If he was too high up there for me, I would get a nickel out of my piggy bank and sit on the curb waiting for the bakery truck. A fresh donut would usually give him the courage to make it down on his own. On really hot days, I would take a dime and wait for the ice cream truck ;)

Kids today do have the advantage of not having to try and get under their desks at school to protect themselves from the Russkies and mushroom clouds. Now they just have to worry about whether every stranger is a sexual predator or terrorist. Back in my time, we knew which uncles to avoid.

I'll take the fond memories of my childhood over the ridiculous conditions kids today are dealing with.

[Atman]

21. Milk men!

We had a dude that would just open the back door, walk right into the house and re-stock our fridge with milk once a week!

Hmmm...come to think of it, he looked suspiciously like my brother Dave... ;-)

[havocmom]

23. I liked the once a month visit by the Fuller Brush Man

I would just about kill for some of that glass wax now. Old house, 60 year old windows... that spray stuff just doesn't cut it!

And those little nose thingies were the cat's ass to clear your head so you could sleep during head colds. Look ma, no Nyquil! And before getting that sleep, brush with tooth powder that didn't make you look like you had rabies or choke on an abundance of foam.

Bubble gum cigars. ;)

[Lorien]

58. The iceman in his horse drawn wagon!

oh wait, no...that was my Grandparent's childhood. ;-)

Actually, I'll take my childhood in the late sixties and early seventies over what these kids of the 21st century are dealing with any day.

[Atman]

18. Are the ones who don't like this "young" per chance?

The part I cut out of this was the intro which said "You'd probably have to be over thirty to find this funny." I'm wondering...even thirty might be a bit young to appreciate all of it. But remember...it IS just a joke/rant, not a political statement!

[noahmijo]

56. I'm 24 I was a wee one in the 80's but I still remember them

Maybe it's because I am an 80's person I miss the days when action movies were ACTION movies I miss when guitar players WERE GUITAR PLAYERS hell I even can laugh when someone brings up those stupid stirrup pants.

For all the people taking this seriously IT'S A JOKE people it's meant as just a little humor that's all c'mon I'm taking it with good humor and it's ME that this piece is directed at well me and my girlfriend you could say and it cracked us up and now we're probably going to discuss 80's memories over dinner thanks to this.

~N~

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

25. You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't!

http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm

[newportdadde]

26. I'm 29, we had a 'party line phone' till the early 90s.

I found that article pretty funny. The library thing really hit me because as you can guess I lived in a rural area. If the library didn't have it on stock it required filling out paperwork etc to try to get it. I remember all the work it was trying to write papers etc.

I also remember using a typewriter *gasp* you know where if you made even one fucking mistake you started the whole page over if whiteout wasn't allowed.

The party line phone was also fun, nothing like using the phone and the neighbor was on it. I still remember ow around 1990, my father a farmer needed to call the vet to come help a pull a cow who was hung up having her calf. Our newlywed neighbor was on the phone 24/7 gossping with friends etc. My dad out of pure frustration after the third try picks up the phone and slams it down about 5 times and yelled her to get off the phone.

Times really have changed quickly.

[FSogol]

27. Nice rant. My family had a semi-private phone line

You had to pick up the phone, make sure the other family wasn't using it and then make a call.

You forgot to add that playgrounds were built from steel and concrete.

and little league sports teams had winners and losers. You played to win.

btw those video games were more challenging and had better gameplay than the games nowadays.

[Village Idiot]

29. LUXURY!!! One of my favorite MP skits:

Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"
< from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 >

The Players:
Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;

The Scene:
Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

[Atman]

31. Even Dana Carvey's old man routine was pretty funny

"All we had to play with was a hunk of wood with a nail in it...and we liked it!"

Speaking of "remember when!" Remember when SNL used to be FUNNY?

[QuettaKid]

70. one of the greats ! ! !

that thing brings tears to my eyes everytime.....I read it and can just hear those accents!! simply brilliant.

[johnnie]

30. Funny

This is pretty good. I hope no one is really taking this seriously. I am a little older than this writer and could add a few things myself, but it is a funny way to look at the generation gaps. The Jiffy pop thing cracked me up.

[ptolle]

32. uphill

Please don't forget to include how you had to WALK to school each day 5 miles uphill both directions.And this included during the great blizzard(flood/dust storm) of 19?.

[TexasLawyer]

37. Newsweek My Turn

This is so funny-- you should submit it to Newsweek My Turn:

Submitting “My Turn” Essays
“My Turn” submissions should be sent to:
My Turn Editor, Newsweek
251 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019-1894
e-mail: [e-mail]
fax: [phone] (attn: My Turn Editor)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4926088/site/newsweek/

[HughBeaumont]

38. Where I saw this today, I'm not sayin'.

I'm wonderin' if you saw it in the same place .. . .:evilgrin:

[Atman]

43. Yes, that's where I saw it!

Best site on the web!

LOL! You freakin' perv! And with a name like "Hugh Beaumont" no less! :rofl:

[HughBeaumont]

49. YOU KNOW IT, MONEY!!!

HAAAAAAA! Only site I go to.

[Balbus]

40. Good stuff!

:thumbsup:

[Yupster]

41. Good find atman

I'm 20 years older than the ranter and to me, he had it easy.

We went to school until June 30 every year and we never had air conditioning.

[misternormal]

45. I really enjoyed reading the original article and all of the responses...

... I was born in the early '50s, so a LOT of that applied to me... My big gig is...

Child safely seats... safety playpens... where were these people when I was bouncing around the inside of a '53 chevy??? Or getting my fingers pinched... Huh???

I'm joking really, I think everything should be done to keep our little ones safe... I raised 5 kids with no serious damage... But I do think that we may be giving our kids a bit of a false sense of security... when they go out into the big bad world, all of those safety nets will likely not be in place... so if your little angel wants to touch the stove after you say that it's hot and they might get burned... let them touch it... Maybe... just maybe they will learn that its hot... and maybe they might learn that mom and dad aren't that stupid after all.

[shadowknows69]

46. Some parent 25 years from now

"..and we had to use cable modems that only got 768 kps data transfer and our ipods took 5 minutes to download a 10 minute video......"

[skypilot]

47. What the hell is a "card catalogue"???

Stop talking nonsense you dinosaur.:evilgrin:

[Atman]

48. Dewey Decimal

Isn't he a character on Cartoon Central's "Drawn Together?"

LOL!

[cynatnite]

50. I tell my kids this every day...

In 1980 I didn't get to ride a bus. I had to walk four freaking blocks to school!

[cynatnite]

51. kick n/t

[SmokingJacket]

52. Ah... the good old days.

I try to recreate them for my kids -- jiffy-pop, atari games, etc. But it's not the same. I feel sorry for the youth of today...

[sproutster]

53. Hahaha!!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

-- Those damned DJ's... Kasy Kasem was THE WORST.

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! 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 ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and 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 brats!

-- Never bothered my father - he had the "sproutster" remote. :) Remotes have been around a looong time. ;)

[sproutster]

55. I will say... As kids and teens we were allowed to screw up

WITHOUT getting a criminal record for every little thing.

I remember a freind jumping out a second story window to escape class - lol, totally funny.

I remember in science class doing a kinda squirt gun fight with big hyperdermic needles and I accidently stuck my cousin with pond water... I cried and cried, but luckily he was ok.

Changing the letters to the local quick stop sign... :) Getting busted for that sign...

All sorts of stuff. I'd probably be in juvie jail and transfered to adult jail for all of it.

Ooh racing a three-wheeler after liberating a couple bottles of champagne from an Aunts wedding, and our old dog had died, we didn't know how to tell the stepmonster. The cops (there were three of us on the three wheeler) stopped us and we're all "THERE HAS BEEN A DEATH IN THE FAMILY!!!" and he let us go. We had quite a wake for mama dog. :)

[kentuck]

57. That's a classic !

:)

[Ladyhawk]

59. LOL...I remember doing this one:

"Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!"

And the video games, too! But Pitfall had more than one screen. You just had to run forever in the same direction.

[Bobbie47]

61. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time

even made it more funny when I think back about trying to explain what an 8-track tape player was to my daughter yesterday. I finally gave up she just couldn't picture what I was trying to tell her.

[Rainscents]

62. LOL

I tried too with my kids and gave it up. My kids look at me like, I was explaining this object that came from out of space! LOL :rofl:

[RebelOne]

63. Try growing up in the '50s.and '60s.

Twice as bad as in the '70s and '80s. I know.

[NMMNG]

64. Cute

Takes me back to my youth.

[Buns_of_Fire]

65. Now... I see... the lines of age across your face...

Time... has gone... and nothing ever can replace
Those great... so great...
Young and innocent days (Ray Davies/The Kinks)

It's a wonder ANYONE survives past adolescence anymore.

[Gelliebeans]

68. OMG I feel dated....eek

[Neil Lisst]

69. Great rant. Now let me tell you what it was like to have black & white tv

no color, no cable, you got one channel that came on at 6 AM and went off at 12:05AM.

And you liked it!!

[haab]

72. Fantastic post....

:rofl:

You took me back to the good old days....

[bikebloke]

73. Skate boards

We pulled a roller skate apart, then nailed it to a board. Then we'd coast down the sidewalk until the end, jumping off. The skate board would then crash into a wall or car (a belated sorry to you car owners).

Black & white telly with rabbit ear antennas. Always shadows with the programs.

Jumping out of swings to see how high and far we could go.

And never talk or accept candy from strangers.

[Amaya]

74. i love this!!

i'm always telling my kids stuff like this.

great post :)

[Dr Fate]

75. Wonderful- I normally hate these chain emails... n/t

n/t

[Generator]

76. Exact wrong-o, yesterday was heaven

today is hell. We thought Nixon was the WORST PRESIDENT EVER. Oh what a laugh. He seems practically charming now.

We didn't have cell phones. When work was over-it was over. Nobody could reach you. There was no damn computer at work either-tracking your every second that you were away from your desk. You could FAKE it.

You could smoke. Yes, even at your desk.

And for the boys-yes I am bad-no DNA evidence-run baby run. Of course, this sometimes worked for the girls too-nobody could prove that Daddy isn't the Daddy, so it was a little easier in spots.

Remember the good old days-no urine testing. You could have a job and still smoke pot!

And if you wanted to call that guy-yes you could call a million times and hang the hell up. He would never know it was you.

There was mystery to the world. It wasn't all a genetic test. It wasn't a computer proof. It wasn't available on the internet. It was a simple time. And in the words of John Lennon, I never thought there would be days like this.

AND UBER bonus-no CNN!