Life With Sulis

I saw this on a list I am on not sure exactly who wrote it. If its you email me.
But it really sums up what growing up was like and it does amaze me that we grew up at all. If the people who want to help us raise our kids today had anything to say about it.


As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in
the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
Our baby
cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no
childproof
lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our
bikes, we
had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)
We drank
water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then
rode 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 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.

No cell phones. Unthinkable. We played dodgeball and sometimes the
ball would
really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there
were no law
suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame
but us.
Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got
black and
blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter,
and drank
sugar soda but we were never overweight.... ....we were always
outside
playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle
and no
one died from this?

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at
all, 99
channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal
cellular
phones, Personal Computers, internet chat rooms ... we had friends.
We went
outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home
and
knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to
them.
Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out
there in the
cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and
although we
were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did
the
worms live inside us forever.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who
didn't
had to learn to deal with disappointment..... Some students weren't
as smart
as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the
same
grade.....Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide
behind.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of.
They
actually sided with the law, imagine that! And, despite all of
that, we
all, somehow, developed our own values.

That generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers
and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of
innovation
and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility,
and we
learned how to deal with it all.

Ain't that a bitch!

posted by digitalsulis @ 7:35 PM