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Childhood Freedom; What happened to it?
Topic Started: Saturday, 1. December 2012, 22:05 (730 Views)
Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
Rose posted this really good item in the jokes thread, but I'll make my observation here:

Quote:
 
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED
The 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's


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 that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

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.

We drank water from the garden hose 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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

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.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to 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!

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, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!


My observation is:

That generation raised the subsequent generation, which couldn't do a lot of those things! And now it's even worse.

What went wrong??
S.A.G.

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Rose of York
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Clare
Saturday, 1. December 2012, 22:05 My observation is: [i
That[/i] generation raised the subsequent generation, which couldn't do a lot of those things! And now it's even worse.

What went wrong??
When was childhood freedom eroded?

We had it in the forties. My parents had 29 grandchildren born between 1953 and 1973. They were all free to go along a few streets or roads to their friends' houses, to playgrounds or even into the woods. Parents knew that if their stomachs did not signal them to go home at the usual meal time there was cause for concern.

I think childhood freedom went out of the window when car ownership became common. that was in the 1980s. That should get you all thinking.
Keep the Faith!

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Angus Toanimo
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I think childhood freedom went out of the window when incidences of child-snatching and molestation became more commonplace and "Stranger Danger" stopped being taught in many primary schools.

I think childhood freedom has been further eroded by parents who treat their young children as "mates" or as mini-adults. I see many young children wearing make-up, revealing clothes etc. The stupid parents do not realise the real damage they are doing, nor do they realise how more appealing they're making the children look to paedophiles.



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Gerard

Like Rose, I also point to cars. Traffic volume is so high and the speed so fast that one darent let children near a road unaccompanied. It even puts most adults off cycling. I wonder if you have noticed the panick that grips the nation when a 2 or 3 year old wanders out of their house and is reported in the media. Everyone knows that if they are not found within a very short time (more like minutes than hours), they will be killed on a road.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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Angus Toanimo
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 14:18
I think childhood freedom went out of the window when incidences of child-snatching and molestation became more commonplace and "Stranger Danger" stopped being taught in many primary schools.


There is nothing new about a proportion of people having desires to molest children. In the past few weeks we have become aware of historic cases by show business personalities. People who have bottled up their suffering come forward 30 to 40 years afterwards.

We used to live our lives fairly locally. People went to work or church on foot or by bus. At my secondary school all teachers were graduates. Not one of them owned car. Because of that corner shops thrived. My mother got to know people when she queued in the butchers, grocers, greengrocers, fishmongers, drapery or chemist, all within five minutes walk of home. She told me that when she moved about a hundred miles some time in the thirties, she was walking home from Mass on Sunday morning when two women called her, said they had seen her in church and invited her to walk with them. Those three women were friends until they died, fifty to sixty years later. My father made his friends when he stood at the bus stop on the way to work. After Mass many men of the parish lined up on the pavement outside church until all were outside, then did a left turn and off they went to the local pub where they would exchange news of who had got the sack from work, who was ill, and what help was needed. Because of the communities, in towns and rural areas, being so close knit, people could pass the word round if they felt one adult's attitude towards children was suspicious. We children all knew that if one particular man in our area spoke to us, and encouraged us to go with him, we were to walk close to other adults, or if there were none around, knock on the door of a person on friendly terms with our parents, or our friends' parents or relatives.

In the nineteen eighties cars became affordable to most people. Small food shops closed. People took to driving to work, church, pubs, clubs and church. Community life, the "Little Society", fell apart. Supermarket shopping does not help people get to know each other. It became possible for a child molester to seek out prey far from his own patch.

I have noticed most child abductions that end up in murder happen in quiet areas where there are few people out walking or driving. Molestors tend to operate far from home, somewhere they are strangers. Robert Black who murdered several children comitted the crimes far from home. The link was, all were just a few miles from the A1 or M1. He denied being in the localities where and when the children were abducted. He was a lorry driver. On every occasion he had tried to cover up his tracks by diverting from his scheduled route, and paying with his own private funds for sufficient diesel to cover the extra mileage. That was to avoid having his employer asking why he had used more fuel than could be accounted for in distance from lorry depot to the delivery destination. Police looked at his bank statements, he had filled up, using his own debit card, a few miles from the scene of every abduction of which he was found guilty.

I think that there would have been more danger of child abduction in the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies, if car ownership had been the norm.
Keep the Faith!

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tomais

Why confine all of this to children? What about us? In particular-ME?
Remember -jenny Joseph!!!!!
As indeed whn we all grow old!
Tom
Who has been know to recently wear tyrelene as in shirt,( sark) or even brinylon which is easier to spell.
And brown shoe laces with black shoes! As in a verse I wrote some while back
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Rose of York
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Gerard
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 15:09
Like Rose, I also point to cars. Traffic volume is so high and the speed so fast that one darent let children near a road unaccompanied. It even puts most adults off cycling. I wonder if you have noticed the panick that grips the nation when a 2 or 3 year old wanders out of their house and is reported in the media. Everyone knows that if they are not found within a very short time (more like minutes than hours), they will be killed on a road.

Gerry
On the wall of the front garden at the house where I grew up there are three vertical grooves topped by a horizontal one. They are the result of children drawing cricket stumps on the wall with a piece of sandstone. We used to play cricket, rounders, kick the can, tig tag and other games in the middle of the road. It would be unusual for a voice to call out "Car Coming" more than twice in a summer evening. Now there are white lines, yellow lines and a pedestrian on that corner. I have been told the traffic is bumper to bumper in the rush hour. Before I went to school I did my rounds every morning, going to every one of my "old ladies" in a row of cottages. I thought they were old, two of them had teenage children! My mother did not need to tell me to be careful of the cars. There was only one vehicle on that street, it was the grocer's van. If anybody had tried grabbing me, they would have been grabbed by a passer by, who would have held the person and got somebody else to take me home then run to the police station or the police house.
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
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tomais
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 16:25
Why confine all of this to children? What about us? In particular-ME?
Women are no longer safe when out alone. Young men get mugged.
Keep the Faith!

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I think there is an element of rose-tinted spectacles on this issue ( oops, no pun intended). The advent of cars in increasing numbers and the subsequent road traffic danger did mean that parents were less willing to let their children walk to school and to the local shops. That apart, I can see little difference to the way my grandchildren go about life and the way I did at their age in the 50s.

The same is true of the safety of adults. Any reading of history will show that muggings and violence against the person have been prevalent at many different times in our history. I've just read an account of the boom times in the South Wales valleys which says that a particular problem at one particular time was the assault of women out strolling with their husbands by gangs intent on humiliating both. The idea that the past was a wonderful time of blissful childhoods watched over by adults at peace with all in society is a myth as is the idea that all modern children spend their life cowering behind locked doors for safety from the prowling marauders outside.

It is true however that Victorian times in particular were very good for householders with narrow chimneys which needed sweeping.

John
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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
I've mentioned it before, but I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of a maternal presence was a contributing factor. Mothers are often stuck in offices nowadays, so their collective watchful eye is absent from the neighbourhood.
S.A.G.

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Rose of York
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Where I grew up most mothers were stuck in textile mills all day, due to economic necessity. Some did it so they could rent a house big enough to raise a family decently, nothing luxurious, just more than one bedroom so parents had privacy and hot water if they were lucky. On return from school and during the school holidays, aunts, grandparents or neighbours took good care of the children. A small minority of women were in offices. They were married to white collar workers, and lived in decent housing so were less pressured to earn. Among my school friends, those whose mothers worked grew up just as well as the rest.
Keep the Faith!

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Clare
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Rose of York
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 18:18
Among my school friends, those whose mothers worked grew up just as well as the rest.
Yes, because they were a minority!

If one or two mothers had to go out to work, there were still plenty of others around.

The problem now is that it is hard for a minority to cover for a majority, whereas a majority can cover for a minority.
S.A.G.

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Rose of York
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Clare
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 19:49
Rose of York
Sunday, 2. December 2012, 18:18
Among my school friends, those whose mothers worked grew up just as well as the rest.
Yes, because they were a minority

If one or two mothers had to go out to work, there were still plenty of others around.

The problem now is that it is hard for a minority to cover for a majority, whereas a majority can cover for a minority.
!
In deprived towns they were not the majority. In the poorer housing areas most mothers went out to work. The husbands who worked in textiles or mining were low paid. The mothers worked because it was the only way to make ends meet. Some children under school age went to council owned nurseries.

The women of Lincolnshire worked on the land, doing heavy work such as potato lifting, or back breaking work planting bulbs.

One reason fewer women are walking around outside during the day nowadays is that they drive to supermarkets or main road convenience stores since most that were in residential areas have closed down.
Keep the Faith!

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Angus Toanimo
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Actually, I'd forgotten about Yorkshire's Own celebrity, and I remember well the book he wrote, called "Benjamin Rabbit and the Stranger Danger" - thinking back, I can't help wondering if it was to help distance himself somewhat from his own disturbing activities and the fact that many children know their abducter/abuser.

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Rose of York
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For all we know Jimmy Savile might have written the book "Benjamin Rabbit and the Stranger Danger" to give the impression he wanted children to be careful of strangers. Writing such a book made him look like the good guy who cared about children.

It would be helpful if children were not encouraged to hero worship "celebrities". The cult of the celebrity is akin to idol worship.
Keep the Faith!

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