Friday, 14 September 2012
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Kids Have It Freakin Easy!!
If you are close to 40, or even a little 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....up hill!.….barefoot...BOTH ways? Yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hellI 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! Well...that's bull****! Now that I'm older than cave cheese, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. YOU‘VE GOT IT FRIGGIN 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!! Plus, there was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a freakin letter - with a freakin pen! Then you had to walk all the way to the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
Back then, 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 if we stepped out of line, because Child Protective Services only looked into cases of child cannibalism.
There were no MP3's or Napster or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Phones?? I’ll tell you about damn phones! We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, and tough s***! There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you were on your own. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends." OMG!!! Think of the horror...not being in touch with your BFF 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are while you're totally engrossed in butchering the English language in order to let someone know where you are every moment of the freakin day!!!
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 freakin chances, dude!
We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had "Pong." 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 your 22” TV! 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 damn channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! The closest thing to a remote we had was my little brother who had to sit in front of the TV and change one of the three stations when needed. 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-farts!!
And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Holy Betty Crocker!! Imagine that! The dish washer was whomever's turn it was to stand on the stool in front of the sink. And our parents told us to stay outside and play....all day long. There were no electronics to soothe and comfort our mushy minds. 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 her arm across your 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!
You snot sleeves have got it too easy today. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before because the first time any of you said you never heard of “American Bandstand”....they would have arrested you as a Russian spy!
Regards,
Grand Pappy Charlie
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About the Author
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- From: UncCharlie@xanga
- Name: Charlie
- Location: Spring Hill, Florida, United States
- About Me: I have been amused my entire life. 65 years old, retired and happily married to a heavenly paradox. I have also realized that I'm a seeker of truth which is often clouded within the swirling vapors of politics, religion and corporate brain wash. My greatest joy is writing. Stories, observations, poems and on occasion....nonsense! I hope you will take time and indulge yourself in a few of my wandering scripts and if you enjoy them, then I'm happy. If they are not to your taste, well then bite me. Thanks......Charlie
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Comments (17)
I <3 new technology. :)
LOL this is hilarious!! Even just a few years ago, we would have to call 411 for a phone number that we needed and didn't have... And now you can just google a phone number as opposed to spending $1 for that information :p
But you also had stay at home moms and home-cooked meals, I'll bet. You didn't have a packed afterschool schedule that kept you busy until 8 or 9PM, which is common in some communities now. You didn't have helicopter parents; you were allowed to learn that it's ok to fall, get hurt, fail, etc. before you reached age 20-some.
On the other hand, you did not have to get up at 5AM to do farm chores, or quit school at 10 to do work a factory job like kids in the 1800s (or in the developing world today).
Every generation has its challenges. These days, for children and adults alike, it's balancing the draw of electronic tools and entertainment with the need to live a healthy, fulfilling life in the physical world. You played outside because it was more fun than home. You watched less TV because there was less TV to watch. But now there is no one to play with outside, and TV is available all day, unless parents set artificial limits, and if they do, kids resent them for taking away their fun. Finding the right balance between learning and using technology versus overusing it is a delicate matter.
Now, I say this all as a 23-yo who grew up (unlike most of my peers) without video games or cable TV. My mom stayed home with us. I went to the park at least 3x a week afterschool until I was...probably 12 or 13. Unlike my youngest sister, strong efforts were taken to limit my computer and TV time. It was a different time, yes, but then, all times are different.
I think all generations have their challenges. The world is so much scarier than it was when I was a kid. I walked to and from school every day, walked to and from friend's houses (in the dark sometimes) and to and from the stores in the area. Never once was I ever approached by a creep. I wouldn't dream of letting my children so much as go to the playground outside our apartment building alone because the risks are too high. Plus, the more technologically advanced our world gets, the more resources our criminals have at their disposal. For example, internet predators. Back before the internet and cell phones, pedophiles had to snatch their victims from the playground or the high school parking lot. Not anymore! All they have to do now is pose as a 16 year old boy in a chat room, and bingo! They can get their hands on our underage children.
A few years ago when my sister was 15, her and her best friend (the friend was 13 at the time) decided it would be really cool to give out their cell phone numbers to random dudes on the internet and arranged to meet up with some of them. I found out about this insanely dangerous behavior, and nipped in the bud before either of them disappeared. So scary!
I do agree with the OP, though. A lot of things are easier now than they were even just 10 years ago, and some kids today are so ungrateful for what they have! Oh, and the whole texting thing.... I'm sorry all you teenagers, but when I'm talking to you, you'd better put that damn cell down and give your thumbs a rest, or I'm likely to whack you upside the head with your precious iphone!
Hahaha. I am only 21 but I remember buying TV Guides when I was really young. And just several years ago, having only one line for internet and phone so no one could call if we were online.
Every set of kids has challenges and difficulties. While some were harder than those presented now. I know how far my mom walked to school, and our winters are occasionally rather brutal. Her parents were considered amongst the "poor" class, so nobody went to the store for kotex. That's right, anybody here think about feminine protection? She actually gave me a demonstration one day how they took rags ( hence, she's on the rag) and folded them up to use during menstruation. During the depression the family all got together so the adults could eat once a day, and the kids could eat twice a day, and there was no heat, to the windows were thick with ice. I know there are things my mom did concerning our relationship and how I had to live with her, walking a mile and a quarter, which is nothing, home from school while I bled down my pants each month. It would be when I was in nursing school that I found out many of my childhood problems weren't normal, but since mom never went to a doctor, she was loathe to take me, and loathe to give me a ride home from school, for a week every month, even though she had a car and didn't have to work. Poverty warps people. I tried to do much better with mine, but they had their struggles as well, and now I look at little girls in the mall dressed like they are trolling for men. It's very very sad.
Good rant, three thumbs way way up.
Instant song select? You just type in the name of what you want and it plays? I'm sorry, I believe that using the "Rewind" and "Fast Forward" buttons until you got in approximately the right place builds character. And then you learned that if you did it too much you ruined the tape and you had to find a new favorite song.
You can't really compare the two generations when the worlds they live in are so different.
Because this was obviously meant to be taken literally.
I hope you aren't being serious....
It'll all catch up to them after high school. It's all fun and games and iphones until it's time to look for a job or a loan and the reality that this is the first generation to have it economically WORSE than their parents kicks in.
You had gas under $1 a gallon. You could go to an airport and get on a plane without the Big-Brotheresque red tape. You could drink at the age of 18. Graduating from college with a pile of debt and no job was atypical. My mom woke up one morning at the age of 16 and her friend took her to get her license with no permit, no parent, no drivers ed. You didn't have employers trying to internet stalk you before an interview. The bureaucracy was not finding its way into every creepy corner of your life.
The kids will never know.
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - Both generations share the same heartaches and fears, that's for sure.
@VampireOfSeduction@xanga - Totally 100% humor....read a few of my blogs and you'll see I make more fun of the baby boomers than anyone else...
CharlieKids also deal with more stringent learning guidelines in school with more pressure to preform better and better as students. They have to worry about school shootings/massacres, gang activity at school, pressures to have sex, pressures to do drugs, and other kids who just seem to get meaner and more vicious as time goes by.
Kids have to deal with a higher rate of anxiety and depression-related mental issues. They have to deal with watching every little thing they do to make it into jobs and colleges. They have to deal with a massively increased rate of childhood diseases, a massively increased rate of drug and vaccine-immune bugs that get passed around school.
They have to deal with more and more unhealthy food making it into their meals. They have to deal with a lack of "unnecessary" subjects in school (art, music, PE). They have teachers that just pass them along instead of caring and trying to help. They have increased class-sizes, longer school days, and less sleep. They have less supplies in school and have to pay for their own. They have more households with two parents working instead of just one. They have an increased percentage of their homes being in the lower tax brackets rather than middle and higher.
Younger and younger kids are getting jobs, even working under the table to help their families make their ends meet. They have less and less adult supervision, less motivation to do their school work, and less time for doing things they like to do (or things to do to de-stress).
Tell me, who exactly has it easier?
(I realize this post is satire, but the comment is for people who ACTUALLY believe kids have it "easy")
@Mangonese@xanga - These are all things that I dealt with growing up. Kids have always been cruel, we just hear about it more. The pressures to have sex were present by the end of elementary school. Gangs always had a presence. Mental illness actually becomes less and less taboo over time (although the stigma still remains) and mental illness is something that actually gets addressed in schools these days. I had issues as early as elementary school. I was just written off as a bad kid. I had learning disabilities. I was just written off as lazy when I would sit and stare at my worksheets in confusion. Everything you mentioned was every bit as much of an issue in the past as it is now. It only gets more attention now. My class sizes were gigantic, and we were lucky if we got Art music or PE during any given year.
My children do have it easy. They actually get a bus to school, their problems in school and otherwise get addressed. They have access to better healthcare than I did. I live in a neighborhood where gangs are non-existent and so is violence and crime in general. Art, music and PE are very important here. My daughter started playing violin in third grade, compliments of the school. She has academic trouble and goes to academic intervention 3 times a week.
Just sayin...
On another note, I loved this post. I tell my kids that back in my day, cartoons were only on from 7am to 7pm, and that's only if you had cable! Freakin brats, waking up at 5 am and having something to watch...