THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

Somebody sent me the following in a forwarded e-mail. Normally I just delete this sort of stuff, but something in this one struck a chord. So I decided to forward it to the whole world on this page.

When you look at today's kids, wrapped in metaphorical cotton wool with all traces of individuality, initiative and self-responsibility totally suppressed by parents and the state, maybe this article explains where we are going wrong.

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CONGRATULATIONS if, like me, you were born before 1970.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or bleach, no safety catches on doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Take-away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds or KFC. Even though all the shops closed at 5.30pm and didn't open on Sundays, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. None of our food had "sell by" dates on the packaging. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store to buy toffee, gobstoppers, bubblegum and fireworks. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in them, but we weren't overweight because...... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play out all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to contact us all day, and we were OK.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find we had forgotten the brakes. We built tree-houses and dens, and played in river beds. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii or X-boxes, in fact no video games at all, no hundreds of channels on Sky or cable, no video or DVD films, no mobile phones, no i-pods, no MP3 players, 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 cuts and bruises, broken bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. Only girls had pierced ears!

You could only buy Easter eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time, we were given airguns and catapults for our 10th birthdays, we rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Mum didn't have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet!

Rugby, football and cricket had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! Getting into the team was based on MERIT!

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes, and bullies always ruled the school playground. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora', 'Blade', 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility - and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

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, share it with your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

MUSIC!

BUSES