THIS IS JUST A JOKE, SO PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY!!!

I am way over 35, so most of this stuff wasn't invented when my son was a baby:
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up... walking five miles to school every day... Uphill... Both ways... Barefoot... in the snow!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids... about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty-five, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a dang Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to read a book, or go to the stinkin library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen...on paper! Then you had to put it in an envelope, attach a stamp, walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! And then wait for their reply. Stamps were 10 cents by the way!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's/iPod's or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself !

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning of your favorite song and mess it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car.. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone, rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!
And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Pleeeease! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, the girl with cooties, your parents, your boss, the nosey neighbor, the debt collector... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' , 'PacMan' and 'Asteroids'. You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying??? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little 2010 rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh no!! No electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing the chores!


And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

Those of you who just love to drink only "half" of your juice boxes & ice cold Spring water bottles.... let me tell you something - we didn't have those back then, we had a pitcher a spoon and a kool aid packet. We even had to drink un-clean luke warm tap water from the kitchen sink - "imagine that" ?

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it toooo easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or anytime before that!

Regards,
The Over 50 Crowd

*giggles*

Wow... I never knew what a hard life you had back then. I would die if I didn't have my video games from today.

LOL Nova, we had to go outside and dream up of things to do....like make mud pies! But since we had never heard of video games, we never missed them. I would hate it if someone suddenly took away my computer!

It sounds like you're jealous

Could be Ian!! LOL But the real kicker is that in a few years, you will be telling yours kids the exact same thing!

In fact, I much rather those times - my parents wouldn't have let me go play all day outside if I had begged on both knees and thrown a fit. They were convinced that crazy maniacs would get me if I was left too long in the sun. At least in the 70s Freddie Mercury was still alive, you had good bands and you weren't stuck with those infernal hypersounds all day long. Electronics release those hypersounds and drive me bonkers - just having someone with a cellphone turned on in the same room makes my ears ache.

It's hilarious because I'm only 20 yet half of those things I had to deal with as well.

I didn't get a computer until high school. Even the one we did have before I got to high school you could only play cards XD.

No cell phone until high school and that was only for emergancies. No mp3 player either. I had a discman that you couldn't take anywhere unless you were sitting so still it wouldn't jump. More pointless when you didn't own any cd's anyway.

My first 3 t.v's had no remote and 2 of them were black and white. They were only useful when playing the nintendo which would sometimes not work because it either overheated or the catridge had dust in it.

We had call waiting but it never worked. Even now we still have no caller id.

No fancy bottle water either unless I got pocket money and brought it myself, which would cost all my pocket money anyway.

Ooo I couldn't afford most school camps of after school activities because mum never quite had enough at the time even just for a $20 deposit. So I went on free trips only or ones that my school EMA allowence could pay for. Even when I finally got to go to a camp in another state I only ever had enough to pay for my breakfast and lunch for the day. While everyone else spent $100's shopping everywhere we went.

Let me see...

My grandmother still bores me with the first part about great grandma. So, I still deal with that...

I could easily live without the Internet if i wanted to...I have tons of things in my room I could do...keyboard, drawing, legos, homework, chores, tons of books, etc...and my teachers still make us look through books in school for most information.

Email I could live without...there's no one I know that lives that far away...and if I had no internet, I wouldn't need it anyway.

I still get beat up , if I don't do what I'm suppose to SMACK! Ohh and once my mom broke the spoon

I don't listen to much music until this year, so could also live without that. I used tapes when I was younger...I remember rewinding them with my fingers, ohh so much fun! Then one of my favorite ones broke ...poor Winnie the Poo song.

Call Waiting? Never used that before...I always thought it went busy then you hang up and call again later.

I didn't have a phone until last year...and I usually leave it home...so that means I almost never text...why I have a cell phone I have no idea.

Caller ID...that would be annoying because we get so many phone calls I hate picking it up on certain people...I just let it ring!

Ohh I remember the Atari...it's in my attic! I wanted to take it out this winter...my dad said, "No, you have a playstation and you barely use that even." PacMan is the bomb!

I had that when I was little I believe...but I never use the guide, I just get up and change the channel...and yes, I get up, my remote is broken...so I can't see the guide even if I wanted to -_- It is horrible...so right now a show that I've never even watched before is on.

Cartoon Network doesn't have good shows...Disney Channel/ Nick.

What's the difference? It takes just as much time.

Outside is nice, play tag/hide and seek...I could deal with being out there...except for summer...that's when it gets...ahhhh!

LOL! My grandparents told me about them doing that to my mom and uncles! I would hate that with my mom...*coughbaddrivercough*

We use ice tea and use the tap water from the sink...use to use kool-aid when I was about 13 and under.Therefore, I can imagine that.

So, we don't have it as easy as you think and we are not spoiled rotten.
Ohh and I love the year 1965...I'd live in that time! Ever watch Back to the Future? That's the best time!

lol, i'm 20 [21 this year] and i can relate to a lot of that stuff XD i grew up in a poor farming/fishing town, there was only one family with a computer [not mine, although we did have one with one program, some typing thing, i used it a lot to write my stories] anyway, my friends and i use to go biking, we'd make up games to play, explore the woods, we were never inside. when i moved, i was bored one saturday, so i called up my new friends to play red rover in the park, and the responses i got, too hot, my show's on, i'm playing a game, my favourite response 'it hurts my wrists' and they hung up. i wanna play red rover again, i miss that game.

OH! there's this list i found one day of things this generation doesn't have/do, one was sword fight with paper towle tubes and make blanket forts [i STILL do that!] i never wanted kids, but now i'll probably adopt and teach them about the awesomeness of those things.

the problem is kids today don't have any imaginiation, and most parents as well forget about their childhoods and want to protect their kids from swings because one kid got their hair stuck in the chain, or slides because they get hot in the sun or teater-totters cuz someone would jump off [hee-hee, that was fun... i mean, i'd never do that ] i watched this documentary saturday about kids today and that at least 1/4 of the kids in the developed world are on Ritalin or diagnosed ADHD. so these psychiatrist did this exparament, they went to a typical playground in the UK and each day, they introduced something new for the kids [things to climb, chalk, colourful ribbons] well, my jaw dropped to the floor when they showed the 'playground' it was asphalt with a basketball net and maybe three kids playing with a jump rope on their own, everyone else was sitting and not doing anything.

that's wrong! when i was a kid [oh lord i've become one of THOSE people XD] we had a small area of asphalt where a big group of us would get a long jump rope and play jumping games together, but we had a slide, three different jungle gyms, a huge soccer field, and about twelve swings, i feel so sorry for kids today, they've got no imagination [then again, in the first grade i was diagnosed with an overactive imagination, just means i see the world like Willie Wonka or Jim Henson i guess ]

I'm amused I don't do quite a few of those things ;o

I don't text or use either of my mobile phones. If you want to talk to me, it's computer or face to face
I don't have any games consoles.
I don't watch cartoons.
There isn't a microwave in the other house.

And who drinks half a bottle? o.o

me. It's a common occurance for me to leave half a 390mL bottle around my room for two, three days. Unless it's Dr Pepper... in a 2L bottle. then it'll be lucky to see midnight.

And I reckon that the millenium kids would survive 5 minutes in the 70s. Not alot of tech. We got our first computer in 1995 so... yeah.

It's just that they don't have to survive in the 1970s. And they've adapted to the manufactured lifestyle produced for them (ironically) by people from the 1970s.

Go figure. The people from the 70s are the ones making the kids not be able to handle the 70s.

And then there's the millenium child's side of the coin. 1970s people struggle as much with the plethora of technologies available today as the 'Millies' would without it.

Unfortunately, it is still believed that past time travel is impossible so we can't send a big bunch of Millies back to the 70s and conduct a scientific study on the pros and cons of being a Millie kid with all the tech against the 70s kids who did the same things with different equipment.

It is at this point that I notice how sleep deprived I am at the moment and this is probably me just talking for the sake of it. But shortening it all, I think all kids can fit in with any environment they are placed in, provided they have the time and desire to adapt.

oh we can so do a study. simply while they sleep transform their house into a typical one of the 70's, and turn the whole suburb area they live into a Truman show style sinario where we force the kids [families too] to relive the 70's for a week or so, just to see what'll happen. i'm guessing they'll either sink or swim; the kids will either learn to use their imaginations and explore, or they'll sit inside crying about not having their stuff [hee, messing with peoples lives is fun, take that! no more x-box! lol, joking]

a week isn't long enough. needs to be atleast a month to force them out of the 'it's only a week, it won't be too bad' mentality.

I had to use a "TV Guide" in the 90s too now! That on screen thing didn't really come out till late "90s" or 2000s. But the kids are lucky, they have the web too. XD! To look up the guide I mean.