posted April 08, 2010 08:58 AM         

Scenario :
Jack goes rabbit shooting before school,
pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1958 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his rifle & chats with Jack about guns.

2008 - School goes into lock down, Star Force called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his ute or gun again.. Counsellors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario:
Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1958 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.

2008 - Police called, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it. Both children go to anger management programs for 3 months. School board hold meeting to implement bullying prevention programs

Scenario:
Robbie won't be still in class, disrupts other students.

1958 - Robbie sent to office and given 6 of the best by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2008- Robbie given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. Robbie's parents get fortnightly disability payments and School gets extra funding from state because Robbie has a disability.

Scenario :
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.

1958 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2008 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison.

Scenario :
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1958- Mark gets glass of water from Principal to take aspirin with.

2008- Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario :
Pedro fails high school English.

1958- Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.

2008 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. AFRE files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario :
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a bull ant nest.

1958 - Ants die.

2008- Star Force, Federal Police & Anti-terrorism Squad called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, Feds investigate parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated. Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario :
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1958 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2008 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in Prison.. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

posted April 08, 2010 01:40 PM         

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 DO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

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.

posted April 08, 2010 07:47 PM         

quote:

---

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were

---

No, don't do this.

Because enough will ask you why it was YOUR generation that was the one to change it with their "innovation and new ideas." They may also ask if you loved it so much and it was so good then why didn't your generation give their children the same blessing.

And in my experience, your generation CAN'T deal with it (which is why they changed it).

posted April 08, 2010 09:58 PM         

but i do tend to agree the rose-coloured glasses ignore the obvious...it wasn't so great or the demand for change would not have been there.

as a grade schooler in the 50s i remember:

the school wanting to suspend me for "unladylike" behaviour cos the school bully came at me and i gave him a dose of his own medicine...and the fall broke two of his ribs!!

that corporal punishment was banned before i ever got to school!

children who disappeared because the kind old man down the road was seriously deranged..

the social conformity that was stifling and the apartheid that held on unofficially a hundred years after the civil war(i am from ny state)...

that "pedro" may have gone to summer school but he repeated the year, over and over again and ended up drunk in the bowery or dead in vietnam

and if jack had his rabbit gun in the car he was not in grade school!! but there was no reason to think he might be one of those kids who shot all his classmates because it just had not happened before.

and that billy's dad whipping him created a man who turned around and whipped his own kids because "it was good enough for me"

the fact that we have maybe gone too far in the other direction does NOT mean everything was a-okay before.

i remember the freedom i enjoyed as a kid, no one worried where we were unless we failed to show up by dark...i tried giving my daughter the same kind of freedom and it was seriously nervewracking because times had changed and so had the people around us.

a neighbour who let her daughter play out unsupervised was rewarded by having that 8 year old raped in her own backyard.

different times, different pressures, different mistakes. nobody everk wupped me with a belt or anything else and i still learned my lessons. no one will ever give any child in my family ritalin!! and i very much doubt that a teacher who comforted a small child with a hug will do any time for child molesting either...

posted April 08, 2010 10:25 PM         

I said this recently (I'm 24 btw so I was in highschool from '99 to 2003):

quote:

---

lol LEXX - I know exactly what you mean with the whole uniform rules..

I never staged a protest though.

I simply did *not* wear that.

For instance in summer - I wore my pants sometimes.. I was meant to wear the summer dress lol

When someone asked me about it, I told them it was very windy outside and my skirt slips up.. so I'd prefer to wear pants.

When they said that I should still abide by the uniform rules bla bla..

I said - well I'm actually very shy about that.. I have some issues - I'm seeing a psychologist and I'm trying to avoid a nervous breakdown... so it really would be best.. *insert nervous laughter* because last year I tried to cut my wrists and my parents think I should just wear what I please.. if it makes me *that* uncomfortable.

That's the sort of stuff I made up.
Because I KNOW it scares their pants off.

You mention suicide in high school.. they run around like headless chooks.. you can do whatever you like for the next month.

---

posted April 11, 2010 12:10 PM         

now they don't even allow the kids to play dodge ball. too dangerous.

since we took away playing hard and rough and actually going to bed tired and traded it for video games and dvd's and computer my-face it hasn't done us any favors.

it seems we have a younger generation in which depression and extreme violence is rampant. not sure why the tweens are so depressed, but a very high number have depression and i have to wonder if lack of fresh air and figuring out thier own problems and advanced technologies may be a contributer.

posted April 11, 2010 12:57 PM         

i also remember being about five and egging my mom to go fast enough over a certain bump in the road that we could bounce high enough to hit our heads on the ceiling...and my mom was not particularly lax in the area of safety...

AND i remember my first proper boyfriend was blind in one eye because he fell on a stick running through the woods as a child...just so we don't pretend those days were all good...

posted April 11, 2010 01:08 PM         

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

Do you ever stop for a moment to think about how amazing it is that technology has advanced as far as it has? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that a cell phone was something that only few were able to take advantage of. And let’s not forget the size of the original cell phones! What about laptops? They’ve become more and more affordable and at the same time smaller and more portable, while increasing performance. These days, it would be hard to imagine life without a computer in the home, but also the Wi-Fi Internet that allows us to roam around and access the Internet just about anywhere.

In this day in age, we’ve got GPS systems that help us find our way, cell phones that are practically mini-computers, cameras that instantly capture important moments in our lives, computers that connect us with people around the world, advanced video game systems, and the list goes on and on.

When I stop to think about all of the advances in technology I have witnessed in my lifetime, I can’t help but laugh when I view the video. Comedian Louis CK appears on the Conan O’Brien show and talks about how “Everything’s Amazing, and Nobody’s Happy.”

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We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique. --Benjamin Jowett