For those of you born before 1986...

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have
survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured
lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no
childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets
and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and
fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride
in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat
was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it
tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank
fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we
were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and
no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-karts out of scraps and then went top
speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After
running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the
problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as
we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no
one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms. We had
friends - we went outside and found them.

We played football and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other
parents. We played knock-a-door-run and were actually afraid of the
owners catching us. We walked to friends' homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy
or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

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

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids,
before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a
smile on your face:


The majority of students in universities today were born in
1986........They are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and
the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have
never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda
Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS
has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were
born.

Michael Jackson has always been white. To them John Travolta has
always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy
could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films
from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers. They'll never have
pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they
will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile
phone.


Now let's check if we're getting old...





1. You understand what was written above and you smile.





2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.





3. Your friends are getting married/already married.





4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably
with computers.





5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.







6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.





7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old
days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced
together.





8. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some
other friends because you think they will like it too... Yes, you're
getting old!!

 

OK, Born in 1967 that puts me at the geriatric end of what used to be called "Gen X" Looking around at my fellow Gen Xers I see a lot of tattooed freaks with multiple facial piercings, people who can't construct a grammatically passable sentence in their native tongue, people who are beginning to see highest ever levels of obesity and diabetes. Cancer has become commonplace.

I'm not so sure we turned out so good, really. Bike helmets and non-lead paint sure seem like a good idea from my perspective!

[DISCLAIMER: I love tattooed freaks; some of my best friends are tattooed freaks.]

 

lol....

5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

I do that a lot.... usually because the mobiles they have are 10 x better than mine

I've even started to do what older people do a lot, which is talk about how much bus fare was to a certain place, or how huge wagon wheels were.

 

Heck, acording to the new parenting governments of the West most of Asia should not be surviving either, yet they have two of the most populous countries in the world with over a billion people each. Go figure.

Real reason for these 'parenting' type of laws, growth of government control and more patronage jobs..... not to help us like they use to sell them and the populace buys.

 

I was born in 1986 and i do/understand all of it.

 

heh heh. How true.

 

My daughter has had a cell phone since she was 14 yrs old(18-now) and a computer(her dad gave her one at the rip old age of 8yrs old) which she doesn't have time for anymore. I remember when i was 14yrs old very few ppl had dial up phones in there home. Yes i mean with the huge black dial ones--roll around as you dial. Darn- i feel old just typing this...i also remember that we use to keep the same tooth brush for yrs--- and nobody die from that,right?
School is so much different from now--the most kids got in trouble for was getting out of line, talking or throwing paper---Now those are the good old days. you didn't have to worry about bomb threats.
Sorry guys about the ranting and venting.

 

Dang! Them were the days!

 

Let's not forget that the Internet was almost non-existent at the time (at least as far as the general public went).

Imagine that

 

I once said to my son, "Go put a record on," meaning of course, a CD. His reply stopped me in my tracks: "What's a record?"

Rob - Yeah, those were the days.

 

interesting

 

Bhuuu.. Those days.. generation `72..

We have allday fun under the sky without chemtrails. Star Wars in first grade. WOW.. And I learn what mean to have a friends..


And now kids have Grand Teft San Andreas Hot Coffee or whatever..


Mella, thanks!

 

That is so true, and having kids of my own makes me notice it all the time.. Cant wait to see how things change in the next 20 years!

 

Nice one Mella

Apart from the kids with computers (my two were practically suckled on them ) I swear I could have written that myself, almost verbatim. What can I say, I am most definitely a child of the 60's

 

God you're old


(so is Malachim...)