How did we do it?
First we survived being born to some 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 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 the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts, air bags or child proof locking doors. We drank water from the garden hose, pulled and ate veggies right out of the garden. We would share one soft drink right out of the bottle and we all lived. Oh yes we ate cakes, white bread, real butter and drank more than our share of pop with sugar in it and we weren’t over weight because….
We were outside playing.
We left home early in the morning and played all day and occasionally well into the night when we didn’t have to go to school. This was pretty much for 365 days a year. No one was able to reach us and we were OK.
We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, cable TV, VCR’s, DVDs, I-Pods, Internet Chat rooms… WE HAD FRIENDS and outside was the world we lived in.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and no law suits. We made up games with sticks, any ball we could and despite what we were told no one lost an eye. We rode bikes to get from here to there. If our bike had a flat or something else wrong we walked.
Football Teams had try outs and not everyone made the team. Score was kept for each game and yes there was a winner and a loser. There was disappointment when we were children that is how life goes once in awhile doesn’t it?
The children of these generations produced some of the best risk takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
We had freedom, failure, success, responsibility and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! I say CONGRATULATIONS to all those who survived childhood from the 40's to the 60’s for surviving under those miserable conditions. How did we do it? Kind of makes me feel like running through the house with scissors.
I cannot take credit for this. It was sent to my wife and I from a friend. I thought it was pretty much on point.