For those born in the 50's, 60's and 70's...

[unpa1dcar3r]

For those who were born in the 50's, 60's and 70's, this may sound familiar: Firstly, we were born to parents who smoked and drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products and lots of processed meat. After that trauma, we slept in baby cots covered in coloured lead based paints. As kids, we rode in cars with no seat belts, air bags, power steering or anti lock brakes. We drank water from a garden hose, NOT from a plastic bottle. There were no McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Chinese, Indian or Thai meals. No KFC or Subway. If you wanted takeaway food, it was fish and chips, all wrapped in newspaper! And it tasted great! Even though all the shops were shut by 6pm, half day closing on Wednesdays, and didn't open on weekends, we somehow didn't starve to death! We could collect old glass drinks bottles, and cash them in at the local shop, and buy gobstoppers, bubble gum and toffees. We ate loads of sweets, white bread, real butter and drank fizzy drinks with loads of sugar in them, but we weren't overweight because........we were always outside playing! We'd leave home straight after breakfast and play all day. Our parents had no idea where we were, but knew we'd be home for tea. We'd build go-carts from old prams and fly downhill on them, suddenly finding out we forgot about brakes. We had no PS3, Wii or X box. No Sky tv, no dvd's or cd's. We had no mobile phones, no PC's, laptops or notebooks, and there was no internet. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside to find them. We fell out of trees and got cuts, broken teeth and bones. Did our parents sue the landowners? NO! We learned to be more careful the next time! We ate mud and worms, and we didn't die! We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthday. The only time you could buy easter eggs and hot cross buns was at Easter. Shops didn't sell tins of Quality Street in September. Football, rugby and cricket teams had tryouts, and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to deal with disappointment. Can you imagine that?! Teachers used to hit us with the cane or a slipper. And if we broke the law, our parents sided with the law and wouldn't bail us out! We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility. And we learned to deal with ALL OF THEM! You my friends, are one of the lucky ones who grew up as kids before the government and lawyers regulated our lives "for our own good" Oh, you may wish to show this to your kids, so they can see how brave their parents were when kids were kids.

Born in '74. I can remember when everyone had at least one friend, sibling or other relative who had drowned in a reservoir whilst swimming.

Everyone knew someone who'd died or been seriously injured in a fairly minor car accident, due to not wearing a seatbelt.

Many of us now know someone who suffered a broken bone as a child from falling on concrete. It wasn't a big deal at the time, but they now have arthritis and other complications from it failing to heal as well as it could.

Also, in every school or university year group, there would be at least one death from measles or meningitis before the age of 21.

Bloody Health and Safety and health police, ruining everything!

Am I the oldest person to be reading this ,I found it quite amusing to read, I came into being back in 1947.

My children are having a much happier childhood than I did (born in 71).
Two of my childhood friends died in ways that wouldn't happen now, I ripped most of my face off in an accident myself and my DH lost his finger playing on a building site.
My parents largely ignored me and got on with their lives. AND my teeth are terrible thanks to all that sugar.

Could you do one of these from the point of view of mothers OP?
I think my mother had a great time in the 70s, it doesn't compare well with my life of drudgery.

i have to say i have a mouth full of fillings and my mum never really cared if she was still out shopping when we got back from school, often climbed through a window to get in the house but still had fun and never thought anything of it

OK. This is a cut and paste and as such quite sickly sweet, BUT, I actually agree with most of it. I do remember my childhood as being like that. (born 75) Yes, it did have a good share of shit, Mum worked to make ends meet after Dad buggered off and was never home, our house was always cold and draughty, and I didnt get on with my step dad because he drank and was obnoxious. But it was my childhood, and in all its parts, it made me who I am now. Is it wrong to dwell on the good bits? Life was different then, people did break bones, get killed in cars and eat processed food, but life isnt necessarily any better now, cars are faster and more dangerous, and foods are filled full of atrificial sweetner, salt and E numbers, and there are new and improved ways to die. I like my memories.

I do sometimes feel like I grew up on a different planet. Born in 1970 - neither parent smoked, no-one else allowed to smoke in our house. DM always knew (roughly) where we were. No fizzy drinks, not many sweets, never hit by a teacher.

Born in 1969. Have to say my parents would never have allowed me the freedom to go off in the morning and not come back until tea. I think that belongs to a different generation to mine.

I remember the teachers at school never being able to work the video machine and thinking how pathetic that was. I am alarmed that I too now live in a world where I think technology is getting beyond me - I like CDs (I even still own tapes and records) and am not that good at downloading MP3 files. I phone friends rather than talk to them via facebook. My mobile phone is still for ringing my husband when I am stuck on a train not for living my life. I am starting to feel like a dinosaur!

My mother always insisted on knowing where my brother and I were, too, Stealth. We did play out, but we would be grounded if we were found to have crossed the imaginary boundary she had set up for us. We also had to be back when she or Dad said, in time for tea.
To be fair, I have used the same approach with DD, although I don't ground her for being a minute late.

I was born in the early '60s so i remember most of this. I wouldn't like the whole package back but some bits were better then. I wish we had a lifestyle that was between that one and the today's one. Does this makes sense?

Actually from what i read sometimes here maybe some of you have that.

..oh yes and we always had seatbelts. I have to admit I knew that was odd - and considered more odd was the fact that my mother generally refused to transport any more children than she had seatbelts for.

I was born in 1980 so didn't bother to read this. You are clearly eighties-ist!

Ah, the happy days of sugar sandwiches, Fray Bentos pies ( one between 4, so we certainly didn't get fat) and dens, my children have never made dens despite encouragement. No seatbelts, my father used to put his arm across in front of me when he braked. We had a sucession of pets that were stray/feral animals I found wandering around the countryside and took home (then spent lots of time taking round everyone in the localities houses to see if they knew where they came from before being alowed to keep them)
Yes, we undoubtedly had better and more adventurous childhoods than my children have had. I don't know anyone who died in a car accident or of childhood illnesses, falling off a swing etc.

yummy sugar sandwiches , no seatbelts here, remember sitting in car with a coke and a bag of crisps while my dad was in the pub, he was meant to be looking after us

Goosey - I was born in '69 and we were away the whole day down the woods, swimming in quarries, crossing railway lines, climbing where we definitely shouldn't have been. The whole street used to go off on a picnic which was a plastic bag with a jam sandwich and a biscuit and the older ones would watch the little ones and the neighbourhood scruffy dog would come too. We used to save junk for weeks for bonfire night and make our own fire form old sofas, chairs - anything, some peoples fences used to disappear overnight. We also used to fight the neighbouring street or scheme (though I was a big woose and always hung back) and play tricks on folk like 'chap door run away'.

Oh for heavens sake. forget I posted this. it was just a bit of something light hearted in this world which can be no less sh1tty now than it was then!
Ok so it's not original, it's not completely accurate, and it's not paragraphed, so sodding what!

And for what it's worth, i had an incredibly abusive childhood (born 64- lunatic mother, farmed out to various relies when ever she got sectioned etc etc) and we were terribly poor too, had nothing but jam (or banana If we were lucky) sarnies for our tea (yes we had breakfast, dinner-at school- and tea in those days, not breakfast lunch and dinner), never went on holiday or out for the day. But I still remember the great things too. And it did make me tough, feisty and determined which is just as well with the life I have now.

No ones said bad things didn't happen, bad things happen every bloody day (a very young child at my sons' school died on monday) and where I live so many young people have died in car accidents over the last 7 yrs i've lost count...

At least LaptopLover took it in the vein it was intended.
Fair play to you laptop

Oops sorry too for all the above posters...reminiscing on the good things we all got up to. it was fun wasn't it. I remember the ball going over and if it went one side it was ok, she came out and gave us all sweets, but if it went over the other side, we would draw straws as to who would go get it cos she was an evil old dragon, and she'd tell our mums and then mum would clump us.
If we got in trouble at school, we kept quiet! Mine would come home and tell me indignant tones, like they were the victims!
I think the difference is that as young adults we respected our elders to a larger degree than nowadays, not to say we didn't have spirit and would never argue back, but we knew where the line was and knew not to cross it.
I had 3 jobs at one time, paper round 7 days a week, saturday/holiday job and working the tote at the dog track at night which took 2 long bus rides there n back- would never dream of asking dad for a lift on the rare occasion we had a car, they would've laughed at me and told me not to be so bloody lazy!
Mine got chuaferred (spelling) everywhere!

Did anybody see this about children's reducing 'roam' areas? Interesting and true, I thought (despite being in the Mail.)

ok, yes you posted it in jest, OP

but you have to acknowledge lots of things have changed for the better since those halcyon days.

how many threads would you see starting 'AIBU to report my neighbour to SS as she had just sent her 6yr old out to take her 3yr old to nursery' and the reply would be 'yeah, but it's ok, as long as YOU trust her'

not many, but that's what I had to do

Hmm i assume you mean 'way back then' Moanica? if so I can only think of one example; a neighbour of ours used to let her 2.5 yr old out to play with the older kids ( e.g. us and its siblings) which all the other parents were horrified at.
However I walked to school from the age of 5 with my sister, aged 6, alone! I also used to take the washing round the launderette in my younger bro's old pram, with my sister, and wash it all, fold it and bring it home. The launderette was about a mile away and down 4 alleys, also from that age and until about 8. I suppose my mum must've got her spin washer then!
My mum always worked (between losing the plot anyway) and we'd come home to an empty house from aged 6, latch key kids, and were left for neighbour 5 doors down to keep an eye out (but only when we were playing out, she didn't come to ours and we didn't go to hers).

Don't remember feeling hard done by, it's just the way it was. Didn't know any different.
However my own (now grown up) girls would never have been left like this and my boys are a different story altogether as they're SLD. But I remember an SLD lad about my age, his nanna used to mind him while his mum worked, but he was also always out in the street and we all looked after him. No one bullied him or were nasty to him, he was everybody's baby in a way.
Compassion towards others who were vulnerable came naturally to us kids, we didn't have to be taught about differences and accepting them!!!!

Sorry I knew you were being lighthearted. I really meant my rant to people like FIL who goes on about how much better it was when he was young. And then tells us we don't know we're born/never had it so good in the next breath
Didn't mean to pee on your parade OP. Sorry

DH was run over (twice) as a free and independent latchkey kid.
Sexually abused, too, but no-one knew what it was then, or took it seriously.
His smoking parents both have lung cancer. And one has a brain tumour.
My Mum's friend lost a child to cot death (sleeping on front).
My school friend was killed catching a bus to school on her own, 2 of my brothers friends spent years in hospital having fallen under the wheels of a bus jumping off to play with friends at the bus stop (also unsupervised)

Luckily no one hit me with anything.

So there were some things about those good old days that didn't set us up for life. If ONLY my parents and teachers had hit me.

What a load of silly 'fake sensible' nonsense.

I was born in 82 and I did most of that. My children were born in 2003 and 2007, they are are both playing out as I type, niether of them are overweight and they eat real butter. I don't get your point?

Or they were playing out. Now they are attempting to murder each other in my living room and the amount of children I own seems to have tripled

Didn't expect such a response! Blimey.
One trick. My own exH was run over a few times too, broken bones galore, kicked by a horse once, broke his leg. He wasn't a latchkey kid though, had a SAH childminder mother, she now has emphysema and all sorts. She did have a tumour when he was about 12 but survived.
A friend of mine lost 2 kids to cot death early and mid 90's.
My mum used to beat the proverbial granny out of me regularly. Taught me a lot (like how to duck and run faster) and how to parent my own differently.
None of my friends were killed or maimed as far as I can remember as I guess we were street wise. However like I mentioned earlier a lot of my daughters friends have been killed driving cars too fast over the last 7 yrs we've lived here. Mostly young boy racers. Most boys of that age didn't have cars when i was growing up. Indeed not all adults did either! Used public transport which was more reliable and affordable in them days!

And BTW see previous; it was only meant in a lighthearted way to make people smile perhaps. It had that effect on some at least so i'm happy I brightened your day happy posters!!!