If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways| yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!
There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car.. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!
There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!
There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!
And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!
And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!
And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!
See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!
Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
I hear you. Actually my hubby and I believe in spanking when necessary of course, which is quite frequent.And a smack across the face for back talking. My kids are horrible for me, but I gaurantee when they are at friends homes. We get compliments on how well behaved our children are. The choice to spank is easy. Either a judge can yell at me now for supposed child abuse/ discipline or yell at me later for doing nothing. We were spanked and we turned out to be decent citizens. we chose no for cable so my kids still have to wait until Sat. for cartoons. but they are more grateful than most.
ReplyDeleteHow true this is. I hadn't thought of some of these things, but they are true and also sad....in a very funny way.
ReplyDeleteLet them try only 1 tv in the entire house and it was black and white with only 3 channels. No phone calls to or from kids. No swimming pools in the back yard. Baseball bats made from broomsticks. Pimple balls cut in half to play the game of halfies. Do they even make pimple balls anymore? At 8pm there was only the sound of silence because all kids were in bed, 9pm in summer months. The only electronics were transistor radios with AM stations. Roller skates required a key to hold them on to your shoes and the wheels were steel. Skinned knees required your mom to kiss the boo boo, some Bactine and a bandaid not a trip to the emergency room. One car per family. Block parties were the highlight of the summer.
ReplyDeleteThose were the days.
You had to change your clothes as soon as you walked in the door from school. Usually that meant you had to put on shoes that were labeled "play shoes" those were typically one or two sizes too small, but you surely weren't going to mess up the only pair of nice shoes you had. Clothes shopping happened twice a year at Christmas and the beginning of spring (Easter gifts usually), outside of that you knew not to even ask for something new!
ReplyDeleteWe got one "big" gift and a few small gifts for Christmas. A big gift was a racetrack, limited edition Barbie, or maybe a $25 gift certificate. If you had a birthday party you knew that was your gift so don't look for anything tagged from mom and dad on the table!
We spent every hoilday at the grandparents house, the kids either sat down and talked among themselves or stayed the heck outside until grandmom yelled out the door "Come eat"...don't dare be one of the last ones in the house that 25lb turkey didnt last long feeding 12 adults, and 30+ kids! We would take our plates and sit on steps or on the floor because there was only enough seating for the adults.
Most of us didn't get to play one sport much less a different activity every day of the week! Our parents would drag us to our aunt and uncles house on the weekends so they could play cards in a smoke filled trailer while we got to watch a movie on beta. Usually our eyes burned so bad from the smoke it was easier to just close our eyes and go to sleep!
In the summer we used garbage bags as slip and slides because no one we knew had a pool! We drank from the garden hose and made mud pies.
We took out the trash, dusted the house, vacuumed, washed and dried the dishes by hand, swept and mopped the floor. When it came time to fold the laundry the towels has to be perfectly folded in half then in thirds and everything had to be put away right then..not when ever we felt like it.
What ever happend to messing up in school getting caught and getting your butt tore up by a teacher. Now these students threaten with lawsuits. Ah the good ole days.
ReplyDeleteMy mom made me wear a pair shoes one time that cost $4.29 from some place that did'nt have a name and all the kids sang the dreaded (BOBO)song these kids today will never know suffering like that.
ReplyDeleteOMG!!! I read this and was in LAUGHING Stitches...even the comments by the commentators, but it is all true!! I'm of the over 40 crowd (41 ha ha), but do remember the good ole days and as we've all stated kids TODAY have it SOOO EASY!!! The Over 30 Crowd blogger hit it on the nose. Hey Remember BOOM BOXES were before Mp3's and only one friend out of your crew was blessed in getting one and that cassette tape, HA HA would always get ripped up from ejection. I think the disciplining of kids today needs to go back to our day. What is with this thing called TIMEOUT...my timeout was a smack on the face AND a tanning on the butt even if I looked like I was gonna talk back. Now if you even look at a person, let alone a kid wrong they wanna fight you or report you to the authorities. The world we live in. Yes, as the over 30/40 crowd, we said we'd NEVER be like our parents nor say what they said, but it's inevitable. We are our former heritage and believe it or not I am glad that I am. I value life more. God Help This Generation! As we comment, let's do our part and what we can to help nurture and save this generation. Everyone help someone! Make the world a better place.
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