I love questions that explore generational differences. This has been going around the internet for a while and recently resurfaced, but it’s definitely worth passing along. A man was asked how kids survived back in the old days without all of the technological advancements, medical advancements, and social advancements that we have nowadays. His response will definitely bring up some memories for many of us, including myself. But when reading these responses, it’s important to keep in mind that many of the changes that have come about are good changes. Child and infant mortality rate back in the old days was quite high, and all you need to do is visit an old cemetery to see that. I myself had an uncle who died of food poisoning when he was a child, and another uncle who got hit in the stomach with a baseball bat and wasn’t take to the doctor. He died of a ruptured appendix or spleen or something (we don’t even know which it was). So many of the changes that have come about are good. With that said, I think this illustrates that it’s OK to relax some of the norms that have come about with modern times. Enjoy this list!
“If you are under the age of 40 you won’t understand.”
“My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn’t seem to get food poisoning.”
“Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can’t remember anyone getting E.Coli.”
“We went swimming in the lake, in a swimming hole in the creek or at the beach, not some chlorinated pool. No beach closures then.”
“We all took PE and risked permanent injury with a pair of sneakers instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built-in light reflectors that cost as much as a small car. I can’t recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.”
“We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline and we all grew up to accept the rules and to honor and respect those folk older than us.”
“We had 40-plus kids in our class and we all learned to read and write, do math and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter.”
“We all said prayers in school and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention especially when we got home.”
“I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.”
“I just can’t recall how bored we were without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-Box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. I can’t remember ever being bored.”
“Oh yeah, and where was the Benadryl and a sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!”
“We played King of the Hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, mom pulled out the bottle of Mercurochrome – it didn’t sting like iodine – and then we got our butt spanked. Now it’s a trip to the doctor followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mom calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.”
“Not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We never needed group therapy and/or anger management classes. We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn’t even notice that the entire country wasn’t taking Prozac. How did we ever survive?”
“Love to all who shared this era and to all who didn’t, sorry for what you missed. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
