By lynnmosher | Leave A Comment
The Baby Boomer era is said to be the years between 1946 and 1964 so that would include me. I belong in the very first of the group, born in 1946.
As I brainstormed over topics for my first post for Timeless Bliss, I kept thinking about all the wonderful days I experienced growing up. We had so much fun. We had no idea we were deprived.
Deprived? Yup. We didn’t have things like …
- * air conditioning
- * computers
- * videos or DVDs
- * chat rooms
- * plasma screen TVs
- * cell phones
- * text messages
- * iPods
- * and the only blackberries we had came out of grandmother’s garden!
Forced to be outsiders, we actually got exercise by running around playing tag, kick ball, or roller skating. We circled the neighborhood subdivision on our bikes until dark and the bugs hit our teeth.
In summer, we played with the hose in the backyard and in winter, we made forts inside the house or played with Mr. Potato Head, Pick Up Sticks, or Clue. Saturday mornings caught us watching fun cartoons on the television.
Kids behaved in school. We respected our teachers, our parents, and other grownups. We said things like “yes, ma’am,” and “no, sir,” “please,” and “thank you.”
Every night we ate dinner together as a family at the kitchen table, except on Sunday night. Sundays we raided the fridge for leftovers and gathered around the black and white picture tube in the family room to watch Superman and Ed Sullivan.
The family car left in the driveway or on the street at night appeared exactly the same when the sun came up. Having a lemonade stand at the end of the street existed without the risk of its owners being abducted.
Ah, those days seemed to never end. Let’s see again…we were deprived of … what?
Deprived. Hmmm…I wonder which generation is really deprived!
What are your thoughts?
http://lynnmosher.blogspot.com
ABOUT lynnmosher
Lynn Mosher, on the older end of the Boomer years, was born in Kentucky and still lives there with h{read more}
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Gosh, I’m not even a boomer and I feel like *I* was deprived as a child! I didn’t have half those things back in the late 70s and 80s either. It’s really amazing how times change, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you this….one of my favorite things to buy little ones for birthdays is a Mr. Potato Head. The classics are still the most fun!
Definitely this generation is deprived. I’m often baffled over my need to encourage my children to go outside … when I was a kid (in the 70s) no one had to ask me twice! I love technology, but I wonder if it’s really worth it. Thanks for the reminder
Great post! Thank you for sharing with us.
Tiffany, What a great gift! I didn’t even realize that you could still buy Mr. Potato Head. Thanks for commenting!
Heather, I think it does get harder every year to get the kids to go outside. I’m with you. We loved playing outside. I appreciate your comment. Thanks!
Hey, Alli! Thanks so much for the comment! And I love that photo of you. Too cute!
I was born in 1953, so I’m about a mid-bbomer. We had such FREEDOM ….. we played outside year-round, did ballet exercises on our split rail fence (had a library book that showed us the “positions”), made Barbie furniture from scrap lumber and nails, played neighborhood games of Hide and Seek till dark.
That was our suburban life; I’m sure there were others in that generation who were hungry or abused or lived in terrible neighborhoods, but I was among those who lived protected by parents, schools, and society. We were allowed — expected — to be children.
That’s what worries me about the kids now. Not the video games per se, but the sexual and violent content of them. Not that they watch TV — we did, too — but that the shows have such a negative, overly-sexualized world view, in which adults are idiots, murders happen 16 times an hour, and every leader/priest/president is a pedophile, cheat, or closet freak. Too much adult content is shoved down their throats at way too early an age. They are not allowed to be children past the age of 5. If that.
When my younger daughter was in nursery school (and this was 1990!), she was taught Stranger Danger. It scared her half to death for years that she might be abducted and that she was expected to protect herself from “strangers” (read: all adult males other than Daddy or Grandpa). It took us years of reassurance that she was safe, that WE were responsible to keep her safe, that we would NEVER stop looking for her if she was lost ……… to get her to calm down enough to go to sleep at night.
Why should a 3 1/2 year old have to know this, no less feel responsible about this?
I worry for my grandbabies and for this current generation who are thrown into far more than that.
We did our part with our kids ………. protecting them, keeping them from TV shows, reading only appropriate things, allowing them/encouraging them to play outdoors or build things with wood scraps or make snowmen with all the neighborhood kids. Normal stuff.
I cherish that there are still families doing those normal things and pray that my kids and grandbabies can live that way, too.
Hi Lynn,
I am a young mum of three small children and I completely have to agree with your article. I worry that the pace of modern life and the fact that parents have to work such long hours now is not conducive to the ideal childhood for a child at all. Then there is the fact that children are not allowed to stay children for long enough, that they are given material posessions instead of time and attention and that too many don’t have enough access to extended family. Parents now have been so frightened by the media that we don’t let them roam outside and go off for adventures.
I try to rectify this in the ways I can, we have no TV, we spend Sundays in the countryside, we try to make things instead of buying them, we try to encourage them to join in with chores, cooking and gardening, we have worked around each other so our children have never been in daycare and our home is open house for friends and family so they always have a granparent or uncle or aunty staying. Overall though the situation for kids today could be better, but it seems we don’t live in a very child-friendly world. It’s nice to see so many families harking back to traditional values and ways though, it gives me hope.