www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall People Over 30 Should Be Dead

PEOPLE OVER 30 SHOULD BE DEAD

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According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

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 or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building our gocarts 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 street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits 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 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.

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. 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.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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 to deal with it all. And you're one of them!

Congratulations.

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors?


Just had to show this to everyone
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Wait until you hear this. About 6 months ago my 12 year old daughter who is in 6th. grade was being very bad. I spoke to her about it and she got smart with me in her reply. I told her if she ever spoke to me that way again I would ground her for a week. Here is what she then said.

She said if I ground her she was going to call the "Child Abuse Hotline" and report me for violating her civil rights to go outside and play. I asked her what she would say to them if they asked her why her father grounded her. She said she would tell them I grounded her because she was a "smart mouth". I told her to go ahead and call them!

True story.

Joe Prokopchak
father of 3 teenage daughters

Ain't it da truth !

james,proud to be 50'ish

Hi Lawrence,

That was a very nice post. It brought back some very good wholesome memories of growing up.

Alice

Wow! And when I read the title of this thread I immediately thought of the movie "Logan's Run".

When did KIDS get civil rights, LOL?
Ohhh Joe- the next 8 years are going to be...ummmm FUN!

Marya
(Been there/Done that>> Thanks be to GOd!)

Glad ours are older, but I do worry for our grand kids. If and when we get any of course

My mother has often said that "it was much much easier raising all three of her sons, than it was her one daughter".

Hritzko

I think many parents don't implement physical punishment anymore. I know that when I was younger, I was spanked with a belt countless times (and I was a very bad little boy). The same goes for my sisters. Not to toot my own horn, but now I've matured into a well-behaved young man. This same mode of discipline was used on my three younger sisters, and the results have come to fruition.

On the other hand, I know many kids whose parents have never laid a hand on them, and they are much worse off because of it.

Logos Teen

I would respectfully disagree.

It is quite possible to discipline effectively without resorting to inflicting physical pain.

There seems to be this notion that you either spank your kids, or you don't discipline. That's simply not true.

A number of folks have made remarks about how polite my kids are. I appreciate it very much - one of our aims is to raise civilized kids. This DOES involve discipline. It does NOT involve hitting kids.

I've worked too long around domestic violence situations to ever believe that one person hitting another person is the answer to much of anything. I don't want my kids to learn the message that because I am bigger than you, and I am in authority over you, it is OK for me to hit you. It isn't.

Discipline should bring respect, not fear.

Oh, and for the record, my parents spanked too. When my brother got bigger than my dad it was interesting for awhile.

Not at my house, thank you.

Sharon

I agree with Sharon.

Discipline does not have to involve physical correction, as my father called it. I was only spanked a handful of times myself, but I got hit upside the head gingerly more than once right after I would outrightly disobey my parents, but that was rare, too.

Discipline involved following through with the "threat", be it no tv for a week, extra chores, going to my room (which did not have a tv or game system at all), or whatever.

I watch my nephew get away with murder because no one ever follows through with the discipline that is "threatened". Indeed, the opposite happens; he is coddled. It really upsets me more because my niece, who is also my god-daughter, was treated quite the opposite and watching her brother get away with it only reinforces her crazy idea that her parents don't care about her. It's quite sad.

But back to the subject at hand, parents today are just as guilty as the children. And those parents were raised without playstations and dvd players. Everyone's at fault here, not just the kids.

Parents can't do that anymore. Kids are taught in school and reminded frequently that if their parents use physical force on them they are to tell the school nurse or teacher or principal or when home call the police. They are all given a toll free 800 number to call if their parents abuse them.

I agree with Sharon. You can discipline children by taking away some of their freedoms. No computer, no AOL chat, no phone calls to their friends, no listening to their music CD's, etc.

As Bob Dylan once said---"The times, they are a changin."

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

Here's another true story. This happened a couple of years ago to a fellow co-worker. His 8 year old son fell down the basement steps. No broken bones, but a nice big bump on the head and some bruises on his arms and legs. He took his son to the emergency room at the local hospitol. While there the attending doctors called the police. 15 minutes later he was being questioned by the police into what had happened. He asked why. The police told him they needed to investigate this because according to the doctor the wounds on his son looked like a case of child abuse.

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

As a public school teacher, I find that you just have to be creative when disciplining kids. No, we can't hit them anymore, and that's not a bad thing. I had a 14-year-old boy in one of my classes who apparently thought God had put him upon the earth to disrupt class. Every day he would show up in his Metallica shirt - he played guitar, by the way - with noise, smart remarks, and other disruptive behavior. He was definitely the heavy metal type. So when I had enough of his bad behavior, I had him write a theme on why The Backstreet Boys rule (they were a group girls liked and rockers hated) and read it to the class. He was about to cry. I think it would have hurt him less if I had gone ahead and hit him. He decided I was meaner than he was, so the bad behaviour stopped. Sometimes there is a problem at home or something emotional that is causing the disruptive behavior. In that case, I talk to the school psychologist and see what we can work out to stop the behaviour and benefit the student. But some kids are just mean and will try to see how much they can get away with.

Thanks for the memories. Yes, its a wonder we survived according to the norms of the day. But we know better dont we? Ah yes, we were more self sufficient and eons more confident than those kids today. I couldnt wait to leave home after college and go it alone. And guess what, I made it. No big thing. All you need is the mental attitude and the knowledge that you will make it and it will work out. I see too many young folk now living off their parents future and the parents are doing nothing about it. Im glad Im not one of them.

Joe