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 surviving the trauma of birth, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

To prevent us from climbing out of our cribs in the middle of the night docotrs suggested that parents should tie the child’s ankle to one of the crib slats. That’ll keep ‘em reigned in.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, and later on the risks we took hitchhiking during our teen years.

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.
 
Nobody was allergic to anything.

Maybe one kid in school had asthma.

We drank water from the garden hose, or, believe it or not the creek in the woods 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 would play with fire. We set fires in the woods, melted our army men, burned our model airplanes and even leaned how to make fireecrackers out of caps. For those youngsters who don’t know, caps are a long roll of paper with small amounts of gunpowder that make a BANG when you put the roll into a cap gun.
You can still buy both products, so not all is lost.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD or On Demand movies. No surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet. No Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The only “video game” we had was pinball at the local dive, a place where it was ok with mom to get take out food, but it was not ok to hang out there.

What did we do all day?
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

Most importantly we had more unscheduled, non adult-directed, free time then today's kids would know what to do with.
We had to make our own fun (and boy did we know how to do that). There were lots and LOTS of kids to play with, and play we did

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.
All that would happen was after you’d learned how bad they tasted you’d try to get your best friend to eat one.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, we made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
And still no lawsuits.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door, or just yelled for 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!
We may not have liked all our teachers but we showed them and ALL adults respect, cuz if we didn’t we KNEW we were in for serious punishment.

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!


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 while you are at it, let your kids read this so they will know how brave their parents were.

The Annapolis Roads pool
Where a bunch of good kids spent their youth and despite doing all the things mentioned above, somehow we grew up to be (hopefully) better adults.