[Munch]

No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us,

WE ARE AWESOME !!!!
OUR LIFE IS A LIVING PROOF !!!!
To Those of Us Born during
1930 – 1979

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED

We were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered
with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes,
we had no caps or helmets on our heads. (sometimes no brakes either)

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and some times no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. (Up the coolness with the tailgate down…or an El Camino with seats welded in the back)

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 cup cakes and other sweets made with Butter & white sugar but were not over weight.

WHY?

Because we were always outside playing….that’s why! (Huge Huge Huge…..now after done reading this…. go outside and do something… I get to Mow)

We would leave home in the morning, go to school mostly on foot and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day.There were no cell phones, not even land lines and, we were OKAY. (My daughters think they world would shut down if cell phones were no longer able to connect….seriously)

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps
and then ride them 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 (This now a days is cause for Prozac 6 months therapy and a sponsor)

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s,
no surround-sound or CD’s,
no cell phones,
no personal computers,
no Internet and no chat rooms.
(Original author forgot we had Atari and Commodores but the next statement remains the same)

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 would get punishments like caning, spankings with sticks, or just a bare hands and no one would call child services to report abuse.

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.
Imagine that!!

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

These generations have produced some of the best Managers
risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. What can kids today do besides push buttons..

We had freedom, failures, successes and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

[Munch]

The above was copied from a different forum… parenthesis is my own interjections.

[madjak30]

But the problem is actually our generation…yes, there are lots of really productive people in our generation…but at what expense…their kids are a$$ holes…not all, but alot of people put their career ahead of family to be that productive person…and to compete with the Jones’ they BOTH worked…two incomes means nice house, nice car, nice cloths, nice holidays, etc…but who is raising the kids? Well, a lot of the time it was an older sibling…or we called them “latch-key kids”…they really raised themselves…

So who is to blame for the generation of “me-me” personalities…US…maybe not you and I exactly, but the generation that was born from 1945-1975 have produced some of the biggest idiots on the planet…have you heard that “common sense isn’t common anymore”…why do you think that is…?? There was no one around to teach them “common sense”…no instilled values like patience, courtesy, manners…the golden rule is missing…”do unto others, as you would have done to you”…how does a kid react when they are idle…”Mom/Dad I’m bored, there’s nothing to do…” and that kinda translates to our generation of instant gratification personalities…

The story talks about not having video games and lots of toys to entertain…that was really a result of stay at home Mom…people just couldn’t afford those types of luxuries…now it’s weird to see a home that has a “home maker” in it…I was quite fortunate in that when we had kids, we decided that she would stay home and raise the kids (atleast until they were in full time school)…money was tight (almost lost the house once or twice because of it), but we made it…now my kids are older (oldest turns 13 this year and the twins are 9)…my career is at a point that I make a pretty good living myself, and the wife is working (not full time, but close…30hrs per week) while the kids are in school…she gets home shortly after they do and has all the same vacation and holiday as they do (she is a teacher)

My sisters on the other hand, have worked their whole adult lives…one married a man that has lots of ambition and is away for work lots (she is like a single Mom that has money), the other sister is married with two boys…her husband works an honest day but makes just enough…she has worked most of the way through to help make ends meet (read living above their means) and my mother has helped by being the Grandma Daycare center…how often do you think a Grandparent says no to their grandchild? not too often…my sisters husband gets pretty frustrated, but what is a guy to do? They can’t have the nice house two cars and nice cloths/holidays…blah blah blah…without his wife working…and going backwards in standard of living is a pretty tough pill to swallow…

I don’t have any answers on how or if this can be reversed, but it is our own doing…we are the greedy generation…ask your grandfather how much debt he carried compared to yours…he will probably tell you he saved for what he bought and paid cash…we go in and get a loan/line of credit and buy what we want NOW…I’m as bad as the next guy for this…maybe worse as my debt load is increasing…(we are now taking steps to fix this…no new bike for me this year, or truck…but what I have works and needs to be paid for)

I think if we are going to be pointing any fingers at who is to blame for this…we need to be standing in front of a mirror…

Start by doing something really fun with the kids…some of the best memories are made doing stuff that you have already paid for…take the kids out for a hike or a bike ride…make sure you bring your camera though, those years don’t last forever…

Later.

[Munch]

Although for general society… I might could understand your thoughts….certainly easy to find it. However… I am such the contradiction to your thoughts. I grew up a “latch key” kid. Actually rural anywhere all of us pretty much were. My father died when I was 2 my mom held 2 jobs just to hold bills at bay. Never been in trouble with the law and though I do love my video games love playing out side.

My kids one just finishing drivers ed (help us all) and the youngest at 12 are both being brought up old school by myself and their mother. I tell them all the time when they ask why we are the way we are. My response…. your going to learn the value of value. Not just monetary but also in things that cannot be purchased. The oldest got the lesson of trust 2 years ago and how hard it is to get that back . Fortunately our methods have been relatively successful and the reason for the lesson was not for dangerous or overly dramatic reasons. The opportunity was not lost for a lesson taught. As a matter of fact you can find me telling my kids that my household different from their mothers is like that of a Native American PoV. I am not here to entertain or babysit you . I have 18 years of your life to teach and prepare you for the next 60+ years of your life. Doesn’t mean I don’t get down and play with or talk with them . However every moment a lesson can be found… will be a lesson taught.

IMO the “Let kids be kids” folks are more at the heart of the problem ’cause these folks have forgotten what kids of the generations past did. These are not limited to any generation either. But you got your butt up an hour before dawn, fed animals, done chores then off to school…. stay at school….come home to do homework and chores that were left unfinished. Then and only then if you had enough daylight left you were allowed to play…. variations in timing of course. However children had immense amounts of responsibility. Hell look at some of the reporting ages of the wars that have been fought. You give them no responsibilities and hold them accountable for it… they have no reason to be ambitious and strive for success… they will just sit and wait for what their used to getting… pampered.

Credit… well yea… I agree that is our own faults. Its easy to get duped into something when you want something bad. Thankfully I was taught from an older generation that if you cant pay for it with cash (with the exception of a house) then you really didn’t want it anyway or you would had saved up for it. Is why me and my significant other now debate the idea of buying our kids their first car. I am absolutely against it. IF they want it they will value it more if they have something invested in it such as their own money… too often growing up and even more now as a career mechanic I see and saw cars wrapped around various objects by kids and hearing the conversation following them being told it was totaled.. “Dont worry Timmy we’ll just have to get you another one”

[madjak30]

I couldn’t agree more…all I was getting at (in general terms of course) was that our parents (baby boomer generation) were a lot more frugal because they had too.

It wasn’t very common to see women in the workforce. There was an expectation that the woman would stay home to run the house and raise the kids, while the man earned the income to support it all. It tended to make money tight and everyone had to pitch in and help, but now with modern appliances and two income families…people have more free time and money…that spells trouble as much as it makes life easier.

Now to make for even more free time, the parents just provide transport and entertainment for the kids so that they can concentrate more on what they want (this is our generation, kinda selfish in general)…instead of being focussed on family values…so the kids don’t learn the value of a vehicle because it is taken for granted…same with the designer clothes…and anything else that the kids don’t have to “earn”.

I get to see the results almost everyday in the form of our new hires at work. When I look at resumes, one of the first things I check is if they are a rural kid or a city kid…the rural kids usually (general terms again) have a much different perception of what a days work is as compared to the city kid. They all expect to make big bucks, which is fine, but some don’t expect to have to earn their paycheck…just show up and get paid…I was a city kid and I am still trying to have a better work ethic…I’m a lazy SOB so I don’t want to hire…well, ME…but sometimes you don’t have a choice, and sometimes the rural/city kid thing doesn’t pan out…but more often than not, the rural kid is the “keeper” and the city kid is the “hat filler”…and when work slows down, you know who gets kept…I don’t even know if they learn anything from the experience, since they probably get work the next day…

Man, I don’t even know if that ended up where I intended it…??…I think we are all in trouble in the next 20yrs……

Later.

[Munch]

LOL… I got whatcha meant and yea …for the most part can agree :^)

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