How did we survive childhood???

[OldHoosier62]

Talking to my studious little bookworm daughter today and we started comparing adolescent experiences, after a bit she looked at me and said "how did you survive your childhood"? Then pointed out that if she were doing those things today that her mother and I would probably go to jail for neglect.

Some of those things from the 60's and 70's....

1) Jumping off the walls of a limestone quarry, 30+ feet high, into the water filled hole
2) Riding bicycles like maniacs with no protective gear (jumping over ditches, down steep hills and into the lake, etc...)
3) Riding dirt bikes in abandoned gravel pits jumping off highwalls.
4) Rock and dirt clod fights. (cheaters used slingshots)
5) Homemade fireworks ('nuff said.)
6) Fire.... Lots of fire. Lol
7) Exploring... (sneaking into places we shouldn't be)

And that's only a small portion AND just the pre-teen years.

Let's here yours.

[jpm2]

I would probably get arrested right now if I listed mine.

[Doc Dan]

I would agree with the list and add:
Jumping off the roof of a house
Climbing cliffs
Climbing trees
Climbing rock cliffs and jumping off into small trees and riding them to the ground
Climbing the sides of old barns 3 or 4 stories high
blowing up stuff with home made fireworks
yes, and fire
jumping off cliffs into the water below so high it left bruises when we hit the water
riding streams over waterfalls
and a lot of other stuff I will never mention
Playing Rugby with no rules on how hard you could hit or how many times (the local high school coach banned his players from playing football with us)
Climbing trees and swinging limb to limb like monkeys

Kids today are sissies.

[O,just,O]

I still do a lot of those things.
Probably the reason why I am nursing broken ribs at the moment.
But, hey, how else can I learn ?
**** quad bike !
O.

[The Mastiff]

We had pellet gun wars where we put on heavy jackets and glasses and hunted each other. There was supposed to be no eye shots and a limit of how many pumps the gun can get before shooting though there was invariably someone who broke one or both rules. I called a foul after having to pick a pellet out of my face right below my eye. I saw the guy aiming at my face too. Usually "peer pressure" was enough to curtail second occurrences.

The B&O ( then later the Chessie after it's reorganization) ran through my back yard so playing with "fusees and torpedos" we absconded with was a fairly regular occurrence. We also began hopping trains to get around. I knew people who would steal from cars in a trainyard but that was precisely the kind of thing I avoided.

We were on our own from after school until the parent(s) got home that evening and during the summer so we found our own limits. I personally didn't like being in trouble and avoided it when possible but it wasn't always possible if you were going to be around other people at all. We hitchhiked all around and had to keep our wits to stay safe so I learned I didn't want to drink or take something that made me less able to take care of myself . I got a job around 12 years old after school and the summer ( $1.30 per hour) so that took up a lot of my time.

Yeah, things were different for my son. He had after school care and an allowance, plenty of food around the house and my wife( ex ) and I kept up with his friends parents and we drove them to the mall or movies rather than letting them wander. As adults the people he grew up with either just talked more about their problems or just plain had higher rates of depression, drug abuse/selling drugs, prison etc. than the kids in my era. One even became transgendered. That is not something we saw as kids. They are all sporting lots of Tats. Not something my group did either.

Joe

[ZrowsN1s]

How did we survive? Natural selection. :D

[Evil D]

I hate to sound like every stereotypical "old guy" but it seems to me that common sense must be a recessive gene because each generation seems to be using it less and less. We did reckless stuff when I was a kid but we weren't stupid enough to eat a Tide pod just for attention.

[holeshot]

Years ago when I was much younger I remember asking an old fart what was the secret of youth, he replied, "Getting old". That and I guess some dumb luck. :D

[MichaelScott]

Helicopter parenting exploded in the 80s when the extrememly tiny number of kids who had been abducted usually by a parent or disappeared were ruthlessly publicized in the media and milk cartons. Parents who hadn’t had the freedom to grow up and learn to problem solve and successfully deal with their peer groups like former generations did (I grew up in the 50s and 60s Texas and you had to learn fast) got so paranoid and over protective that it’s no wonder kids today are lost. We have entitled children going to college on their parents money who know basically nothing including how to keep their room clean demanding society change to follow their whims.

I survived things like hunting with firearms when about ten, being expected to carry and properly use a pocket knife, imitating Superman by jumping off the garage roof with a towel pinned around my neck, falling from a tree and being driven 30 miles o a hospital whilst bleeding into a dish pan. The usual stuff.

[Frozenspyder]

I remember doing a lot of these things. Good times. We also tried to keep wild animals as pets. Not just rabbits either, but things like raccoons, woodchucks and possums.

[Doc Dan]

And snakes and lizards and scorpions and spiders and anything else we could catch.

[The Mastiff]

Does it make any of you laugh when someone talks about something being unfair?

How do you feel when some young person talks about what free stuff everybody should get?

How about when talked at about how terrible this country is and that we are the source of all the worlds problems? Has anyone gotten lectured about the American right wing violence against minorities and immigrants that is now the worst problem for Americans of Color? I mean seriously with a straight face coming from a European? I have. It was surreal.

Joe

[Daveho]

Well to be fair, only those that did survive are here to reminisce

[Bloke]

We had pellet gun wars where we put on heavy jackets and glasses and hunted each other. There was supposed to be no eye shots and a limit of how many pumps the gun can get before shooting though there was invariably someone who broke one or both rules. I called a foul after having to pick a pellet out of my face right below my eye. I saw the guy aiming at my face too. Usually "peer pressure" was enough to curtail second occurrences.

The B&O ( then later the Chessie after it's reorganization) ran through my back yard so playing with "fusees and torpedos" we absconded with was a fairly regular occurrence. We also began hopping trains to get around. I knew people who would steal from cars in a trainyard but that was precisely the kind of thing I avoided.

We were on our own from after school until the parent(s) got home that evening and during the summer so we found our own limits. I personally didn't like being in trouble and avoided it when possible but it wasn't always possible if you were going to be around other people at all. We hitchhiked all around and had to keep our wits to stay safe so I learned I didn't want to drink or take something that made me less able to take care of myself . I got a job around 12 years old after school and the summer ( $1.30 per hour) so that took up a lot of my time.

Yeah, things were different for my son. He had after school care and an allowance, plenty of food around the house and my wife( ex ) and I kept up with his friends parents and we drove them to the mall or movies rather than letting them wander. As adults the people he grew up with either just talked more about their problems or just plain had higher rates of depression, drug abuse/selling drugs, prison etc. than the kids in my era. One even became transgendered. That is not something we saw as kids. They are all sporting lots of Tats. Not something my group did either.

Joe

Joe, we grew up in the same street? :cool:

I could have written the above myself with the exception that none of us got shot in the face (we were big on the crotch shot) but I'd put that down to good luck rather than good judgement and my first job in a hardware store when I was 11yrs paid $1.50. :eek:

[RickC27]

I'm 35 years old and have to agree with some of the above comments from "the old farts" I feel, that my generation is the last that still has the morals of the previous generations. We work hard for what we have, respect our elders and authority, were disciplined as children with more than "go to your room" or having a cell phone/tablet taken away. We played outside, in the woods until dark! Imagine that. I only see a handful of teenagers outside in my neighborhood.

We used to stay outside until dark, then go home and sneak back out after our parents went to bed. We would each take 2-3 of our parents beers and pool them together skateboard around neighboring neighborhoods at night, beers in hand, a cool breeze and street lights guiding the way..at 14.

Ding dong ditch the heck out of neighbors that yelled at us for skateboarding in the streets. Peg garage doors with crab apples. Shine laser pointer through people's windows while they tried to watch TV at night. Cops show up but they didn't know the ins and outs of the neighborhood like us kids did.

I saw a comment about fires....yes, definitely fires! Once a group of 6-8 of us boys stole all of our fathers gasoline cans for lawnmowers/etc and went into the woods. There was a small stream, about 8-10ft wide. We dumped all the gas in the stream and lit it on fire while one of our friends that did motocross jumped over the stream while it was on fire. Recorded on a video camera the size of a 1980s boom box.

"Skitching" on buses and cars when we would do some city skaeboarding. Skitching was when you would sneak up behind a car and grab onto the rear bumper and take a free ride.

Blindfolded Roman candle wars.

Bridge jumping...until a neighborhood snitch told our parents when they happened to drive by!

We made a homemade "bomb" out of aluminum foil, toilet cleaner and an empty 2 liter bottle and tried to blow up a soda machine at a local corner store. We got arrested for that and had to serve 150 hours community service at a local volunteer fire station...which was a highlight of that summer, I'll never forget those guys!

Now, as an adult and father myself...I'm certainly not proud of myself for these things, especially the vandalism and harming the environment. I want to make that perfectly clear.

[OldHoosier62]

Yup, sounds like we have a few survivors in here.

We lived in the country and only had 8 kids on our road with most of us a mile or so apart.

We never really had a curfew and spent 75% of our time in the woods, gravel pits and quarries. Started hunting on my own around 8yo for rabbits and squirrels, trapping came in around 10yo... All unsupervised. My mother had a farm bell that she would ring if we were needed before dark and knew a couple of swimming holes we used if she needed to find us.

We used tools, power tools, scrap and sweat to make stuff to play with, ride on, annoy others with... Also unsupervised.

Hay loft jumping, making our own "slide for life" over a wide space in the quarry, backyard boxing (girls included), shooting guns, bows, homemade crossbows, homemade blow guns with drywall screws as ammo, slingshots, knife, hatchet and axe throwing contests, building a "dune buggy" out of a neighbors old VW and LOT of welding rod and pipe, swiping beers from my buddies dad's shop fridge, swiping Yellowstone Bourbon from my dad, bonfires, fighting field fires (that we were usually the cause of)....... Etc, etc, etc.... Ad Infinitum

[Frozenspyder]

I forgot about taking the old man's liquor. I still can't stand drinking McMaster's canadian whiskey.

I think the last generation that had a fun, barely survivable childhood and grew into decent human beings varies by location, but it's almost certainly come to an end everywhere.

[Bloke]

I forgot about taking the old man's liquor.

We weren't game enough to steal the old man's liquor but when I was about 7 or 8yrs (we moved when I was 9yrs) we found a half box of beer, an old type bottle opener, a stash of Playboy (or similar) magazines, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in a shed at the local truck yard/transport depots we used to explore. :D

[RickC27]

I forgot about taking the old man's liquor.

We weren't game enough to steal the old man's liquor but when I was about 7 or 8yrs (we moved when I was 9yrs) we found a half box of beer, an old type bottle opener, a stash of Playboy (or similar) magazines, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in a shed at the local truck yard/transport depots we used to explore. :D

Ohhh yes, that too. After my grandparents passed away at a rather young age on my father's side from ALS and liver cancer by the time I was 11 years old, my parents aquired their liquor cabinet. We would sneak downstairs to the cabinet when my parents were at work while we were on summer vacation and do shots at the downstairs table. Neither of my parents drink much at all, so I thought nothing of it. We would hammer shots of scotch, fermented creme de menthe, gin, vodka...sometimes resulting in dashes to the bathroom.

I'll never forget being 16 years old and my parents hosting a new year's party with some of our neighbors. My mom had brought up a couple bottles of "vodka" from the basement for people to make drinks with. I owned up and told her, mom...those bottles are filled with water, it's not vodka!

[bearfacedkiller]

I did some dumb stuff as a kid. BB gun wars and Roman candle fights, building improvised explosives and probably a lot of things I would rather not mention on here. I once jumped my mothers car over a blind hill so fast that it was a pure Dukes of Hazard style event. As a parent I try not to forget that but it is hard as I feel like I am lucky to have survived some of it. Fire? Ya, love it! At 40 years old my inner pyro is alive and well. Luckily now I channel that through heating with a wood stove and my outdoor cowboy kitchen. I like to cook on a campfire with cast iron and do it in my backyard often.

I do believe that if you idiot proof the world that you will end up with a world filled with idiots. All those experiences as a child taught me a lot. I never want to see my child get hurt or get in fights but also know that those experiences made me the man I am. As long as he lives through it (and his mother doesn’t find out) he will be richer for it.