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Childhood Freedom; What happened to it?
Topic Started: Saturday, 1. December 2012, 22:05 (731 Views)
PJD

I agree with most, if not all, of the comments above. Nice piece by Rose; and not so funny really at that.

In short today is a mess.

PJD
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Derekap
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Before I react, there are two points I would like to make. In my experience, people went for Aspros, a trade name for an Aspirin tablets - on sale at the corner shop about 1d for one or two. I was sixteen when I learned from a friend working in Boots that a little bottle of several could be bought for just a few pence. Secondly, I never heard of cupcakes until two or three years ago and recently a café said they no longer sold them and offered muffins. Muffins in them there days were similar to double thickness crumpets and slightly different texture.

In the 1930's and after WW2 people in slums were moved out, often reluctantly, to new estates. Sometimes a few were lucky and remained in the area in new houses or flats. This made front doors further apart so there was some deterrent of easy sociality. A point brought brought-up by someone rightly mentions that wives now go out to work in greater numbers. Perhaps WW2 encouraged this because usually women used to stop work when they got married. Of course there was not the attraction of all the gadgets there is now. Radio was often the BBC National Service, BBC Regional Service and the commercial Radio Luxemburg on Relay (wired connection) at about 6d a week. The latter station was like Radio One or Two in contrast to the then BBC programmes on Sundays. A few managed to buy the Phillips People's Radio Set for about £8.

I now tread on delicate ground to say the legal profesion may have influenced a few changes by encouraging victims of accidents to sue authorities and private companies for compensation, hence the multiplication of rules and laws.
Derekap
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Rose of York
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Once upon a time if a man (or woman) was seen trying to take a child away it was acceptable for the strongest person nearby to grab him or her, roughly if necessary and if needed knock them out so they would have to stay where they were until police arrived. There were occasions when Community Justice served its purpose.
Keep the Faith!

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Derekap
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I think in 'The Goode Olde Days' avoidance of shame on the family probably was considered more important than the harm done to the victim. Hence fewer court cases. Also national newspapers didn't include much regional news. Then the wartime shortage of newsprint meant that newspapers were some four, six or eight pages. Except the News of the World and Sunday tabloids sexual items were not featured so much as today. During my army days we once had a policeman among us who described the embarrassment of court cases where children had been abused.

Drugs were not so much a problem as now - partly because wages were no so high and there were few if any benefits. People in factories, offices and shops worked 5½ days a week and often longer hours. In their free time young people often stood around outside their homes dressed in their overals or white coats (from the chocolate factories).

When I was about eleven two cousins and I were taking a short-cut along a passage under a railway; we saw a man in the distance; the girl cousin of my age made us reverse and go another way - saying she had been warned by her mother against such situations.
Edited by Derekap, Monday, 3. December 2012, 12:57.
Derekap
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Penfold
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People do have a rather halcyon view or how things used to be. Derek and Rose have given some interesting insights from their memories of how things actually were but even in my relatively short life I can remember the poverty of the late 60s in England and sadly more recently while a student in Dublin in the 80s. If one lives in a middle class bubble as portrayed by programmes such as "The Good Life" or "Terry and June" or even the diluted version of Northern Family life portrayed in soaps such as Emmerdale or Coronation street then life does seem to have been rather good. However parts of London in the 60s was under the control of protection rackets and gangs such as the Krays. Many homes did not have a bath and still relied upon an outside toilet, sometimes shared with other families on some inner-city council estates. As for the Freedom of Children, well you some of you may not remember the fear of standing outside the headmasters study or the knowledge that your misdemeanour's would earn you a belt or slipper at home but for most children of the 60s and before corporal punishment was a reality. Even if one did not actually have first hand experience, and there were a lucky few, you would have known of friends and the general culture of the time being one of, a clip round the ear or a slap across the back of the legs was not considered anything unusual. Today it might be referred to as abuse then it was called discipline. The result was that Kids behaved, we got up to minor mischief but we knew that we did not talk to strangers, we did not go to certain places and stayed away from certain people who might be a "Bad influence" why, because we obeyed our parents or paid the price. Children today are free to wander around shopping centres in gangs, offer abusive remarks to strangers and generally make a nuisance of themselves with out any fear of being rebuked by parent, police or teachers. I am appalled by the way some 13-15 year old girls wander around in entirely inappropriate clothing and done up to the nines in make-up. From 4-7 I tend to avoid shopping centres and indeed during the lunch break because of the "Gangs" of school children loose around the town. In the past they would have been in school getting a nutritious, if not actually delicious, meal were today they are smoking and congregating around a shared tray of chips discussing their evenings viewing or activities. Harmless enough but then when one goes missing, and children have been going missing for centuries. If lucky it was into a gang such as that portrayed in Oliver Twist but all to often it was into the sex-trade. We tend to think of the sex-trade as being something invented for the Video or internet age but their have been children sold into sexual slavery, sometimes by their own parents, through out history.
Childhood freedom is relative to the times we live in. A child of today would not tolerate the restrictions placed upon many of us when we were children and while we may occasionally have rebelled most rejoiced that we were able to enjoy freedoms our grandparents did not.
Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were infamous sexual offenders from the sixties but they were sadly not unique in there activities. What I also object to is the idea that it is a novelty that women going to work. It may have been the case for the "June Medfords" and "Margo Leadbetters" but for most women work was a norm. Often underpaid and sometimes done from home, such as taking in washing, but the term "Latch Key Kid" is not a recent concept. though the idea of a door with a lock on it is perhaps a twentieth century notion for most inner-city families and a locked door was an alien concept in many country districts, and still is in some parts though sadly fewer every year.
Childhood freedom is perhaps greater today than it has ever been. When a boy in Norfolk I can remember my friends having to set too and help with the harvest and the planting, there were always chores to do and church was not an option. My cousins in Ireland were better off than some for they had a holiday away from home, both parents working, but they too would be stuck in during the harvest, particularly in the gathering of the apples in the autumn around Armagh. No one paid them but they got food on the table, clothes on their backs, shoes on their feet (something that many country kids in Ireland during the 50s and 60s would have had, but only for Sunday best, (before she married, my mother taught in a school in County Tyrone were many of the kids would be barefooted) and a roof over their heads. Pocket Money? I grew up in a very upper-middle class environment but I was not blind to the poverty of others around me. Something that Catholic Parishes were better at than some for we all mixed in together, I would play with kids who would only have dreamt of living in a house with an inside toilet, but to have a house with a toilet upstairs and downstairs and a separate bathroom, luxury. I remember in the late 60s in London the twin-tub was away being repaired and for a couple of weeks we would go with my mother to the local laundrette, this was the norm for most people.
Halcyon Days of childhood. but freedom, well as I said, that is a relative term.
Edited by Penfold, Monday, 3. December 2012, 16:37.
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Clare
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paul

I remember as a child in the 50s going to my small parish church with one or sometimes two pennies to put into the collection plate. Some other children had nothing and would put a button in the plate to save face. Very sad, but poverty was rife then. However, in general we knew how to behave and respected our elders.
I remember a teacher who had walked us from our school next to the church to attend a weekday mass telling me off for swinging my legs as I sat in the pew (we were to short for our feet to touch the floor!) She would say, "stop swinging your legs, you have the devil in you!" ha ha!

Innocence seems to have been lost in todays younger generation, the breakdown of family life, media influence are two examples of how children today are disadvantaged.
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Paul, I don't think "respecting your elders" is always an admirable trait

John
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OsullivanB

John Sweeney
Monday, 3. December 2012, 18:39
Paul, I don't think "respecting your elders" is always an admirable trait

John
I agree, though the older I get the more I see the merits of the principle.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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tomais

And just a thought crosses the cerebral motorway potholed linkages- one that I cannot grasp,but can postulate.
What will be the thoughts of the wee ones today as they grow up into their imperfect world?
Ah the remote control! Twenty TV chanels! A church in most districts! A Mum and Dad in almost all families! Not quite so many wars at our door step!
Gosh the early twenty first century must have been just great!
No computor chips inserted into our skulls!
1984! just a pub quiz question; except-what was a pub? Whre you meet to glorify God?
God?
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Ocean Star

I have read all your posts with great interest. I think it marvellous that we can all have different views and experience on the subject of childhood freedom and yet still cherish these hard times, though it may have been for many people but it seems to me people were happier in those days..
Clare posted how the kids survived in those days, and it seems that the kids themselves survived the hazardous ways in a world where Health and Safety was a million miles away from the thoughts of people;political correctness had not entered the conciousness of society; the law (policemen) was visible on the streets;moral guidance and church teachings were imposed on children and on communities..
Rose describes how it mattered then to be neighbourghly, to queue was an act of patience and discipline!! People had time for each other and there was a real sense of community Spirit, there was a sense of belonging..there was a connection everyone had empathy and helped those in poverty which both Paul and Penfold touched on. Penfold made the point about how life was for the kids who lived on farms they had to work the land, help out after school and during their school holidays. We can go not so long back to the Victorian days to see that kids used to work in mills under terrible conditions, no lights, no heating, long hours, so they could have food on the table..This was child exploitation at it's worst...
The British industry was gathering pace as Rose mentioned about affordable cars, through this growth and boom more people were in employment, women opted to have a career than "stay at home mum". In farming and agriculture the young opted for an education rather than carry on tradition and follow their ancestral footsteps.. which meant they had to travel to cities..In so doing farmers struggled to cope and had to employ more labourers the supermarket giants knew how to capitalise on this bought for peanuts the farmers produce who were just keeping afloat.. this then created some "super farms"... the smaller ones could not compete were swallowed up..
Derek touched on the housing programme where certain communities were re-house towards suburbs of major cities and these moves became a favourable way of greater intergration accross all types of cultures, preferences, ideologies, beleifs and this then created a subculture especially amongst students...
I think it was Derek who mentioned drugs? It was the way of life of the 70's which was the decadence of youth with the " make love not war" motto..they challenged the authorities on freedom, but a few things were born out of all that apart from music!! LOL.. Commercialisation, consumerism, materialism and of course globerlisation..TV adverts were encouraging all household to buy buy buy..I came to England in 1974 in the middle of miners strikes and Arthur Scargill I think then was their leader. Margaret Thatcher had other ideas for the miners and their families... Capitalism was born allowing people to "own" their properties...Yuppies (mainly graduates) were driven by shares and profits..What happened to chilhood freedom? I think the children evolved through social changes .. they were encouraged by pushy parents to become little adults and become the best and competition became the norm..they had to wear designer clothes, be the first to have everything in the TV adverts, own the latest technology on the market etc..and learn nothing from it except greed!!!..I blame it on the Chinese for inventing the "micro chip"...One thing is for sure we are moving faster and faster and not learning any lessons from our selfishness..Like pollution, endangered species by way of deforestation, our disregard to environmental issues... Tomais said "What will be the thoughts of the wee ones today as they grow up into their imperfect world? I simply say they will have inherited man's obstination towards destruction...
I agree with PJD.. it is a nice piece by Rose..

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Penfold
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Penfold
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Ocean Star
Tuesday, 4. December 2012, 05:52
It was the way of life of the 70's which was the decadence of youth with the " make love not war" motto..
The "Summer of love" in 1968 saw riots in most western cities and university campuses. It was a "Summer of Rebellion" and it was justified for the youth or those days had inherited a world of impermanence. A world were the whole thing could explode in one big bang because someone accidentally strayed into the wrong territory, The world of the "Cold War"
What was the point of planning for the future, why bother with long term objectives, live for today because tomorrow we would all be a heap of ashes or mutants. Were in the past people would have made do with second hand goods, rented homes and saved for a rainy day by the end of the sixties the credit card had arrived and people began to spend with no thought for tomorrow, governments too borrowed to provide "Jam Today". By the early eighties people hailed Maggie Thatcher who cashed in on a consumer spending boom and encouraged people to take out mortgages and swap their council house for, well a council house that they now owned and were responsible for maintaining, which most could not afford and the spiral of personal debt increased. Today that spiral continues for people blame the banks for lending the money rather than accept responsibility for having borrowed. IN all of this children have increasingly been exposed to a world without values, a world that is selfish and greedy. Oh we indulge ourselves by having huge events to raise money for the poor of Africa or the poor of some inner city, but the responsibility for that poverty, who owns that?
Children are the product of their age, and reflect the values of the society in which they grow up. I feel sorry for parents today who try to bring their children, particularly their teenagers, to church. For a teenager to admit to being Christian is hard enough to ask them to admit to being Roman Catholic in England today is very hard.
Indiscriminate accusations against the hierarchy do not help, but that is a throwback to those hippie days of the sixties and seventies that gave way to the anarchy of punk, oh yes the children of post war England did a good job of accepting their responsibilities, they blamed their ills on the past and anyone who contradicted them, was living in the past. This legacy goes on. Politicians of all parties will devote a large part of any speech to ensuring that those listening are in no doubt that all that is wrong is the fault of those who were in power before them, but precious little time sharing true vision of what they will do to build a better future. Is it any wonder that some retreat to the good old days, before things were mucked up. The problem is things have always been in a mess, there is only the hope of a better tomorrow, and that is the Hope that Jesus gave us. We need to stop looking back with longing and start looking forward with hope, and that is what we must encourage our children to do. In this season of Advent we look forward to the Second Coming, reflecting upon the first and celebrating the birth of Jesus is only part of the story, the real significance is the joyful expectation that one day, perhaps before some of you read this post, the Lord will return. We must be ready to greet him, not wandering around looking for the lost youth of yesteryear or dreams that have faded, hope in Jesus is not a dream, it is a way forward that calls on us to accept responsibility for our own lives and to live knowing that our actions will be judged. They will be judged by the impact our choices had on the lives of others, did we help or did we hinder, did we build or did we destroy.
A soldier may kill another with a bullet but a vote for a particular person in the ballot, may cause 1000s to die, not on the battlefield but in the poverty of their own home. We may have little impact on the world around us, and we may only have a small voice, but the wrong word can have devastating impact, a gentle word in the right place at the right time can have amazing results.
One phrase may resonate for generations, "I have a dream" Martin Luther King shared a dream against the backdrop of a revolution in western social culture, the swinging sixties. Right time right place he had a positive impact on a whole generation who have tried to bring that dream into reality, not all was bad in the past.
It is such a shame that when the Beatles sang, "All you need is love" they were singing of the hedonistic, self adulating love of the sixties "Summer of Love" and not the unselfish love of Jesus. "Love one another as I have loved you John 15:12" is perhaps a better phrase to teach our children.
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garfield

Advent is a good time to reflect on that hope and love which can overcome hatred and cynicism. If you read the news media it often seems like things are always getting worse but if you take the trouble to look there is a lot of goodness about
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Rose of York
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In the fifties old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'ole. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did nobody any 'arm." I thought most of the old people were very nice, but a few were just grumpy and the chances they had never been angels.
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I made a private pledge that when I got to their age I would not get like them, making our all young 'uns were a bad lot.


In the sixties old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'ole. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did nobody any 'arm."

In the seventies old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'ole. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did nobody any 'arm."

In the eighties old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'ole. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did me nobodyy 'arm." Why do they say a good belting never did them any harm? Did they enjoy getting cuts and bruises? Did they ever volunteer for a good belting with the strap? I doubt it very much.

In the nineties old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'old. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did me any 'arm."

In the twenty first century old people said "young uns nowadays are no good. It wasn't like that in our day. We knew how to behave. What they need is a good clip around the ear 'old. A good belting would do some of 'em good. It never did me any 'arm."

How is it that if young 'uns were never any good, when young 'uns of the past grew old they took to grumbling about the young 'uns of today being as bad as they themselves used to be, and in some cases still are?
Keep the Faith!

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