Most kids these days will not experience going out with your friends on bicycle for hours all day, miles away from your home and your parents not knowing where you are or where you were the whole time.
Saturday morning cartoons. Specifically, waiting on Saturday morning for the channel to begin its “service day”. Which started with the national anthem.
Crawling on your stomach through shadows of the tree and behind the brush in your neighbor’s lawn so you can get close enough to kick the can without being seen first.
Yelling ‘IT’S OOOONNNNN!!!!’ to your mum, who’d done to make a cup of tea during the ad break and was about to miss the start of the second part of the tv programme.
Also, charging back into to the room at top speed when someone else yelled ‘IT’S ON!’ because you’d gone to the toilet during the ad break.
They can’t be clueless about something and be educated on it. Today it seems like you have to be on top of every topic, have a PhD level of understanding about everything otherwise you’re ignorant because we have access to information at our fingertips.
My kids play outside constantly on the street with friends. They’ve done hockey, baseball, basketball, tennis, and bicycled everywhere. They’ve drank straight from the garden faucet and fished in the neighborhood pond. They’ve made lemonade stands and bike ramps. They’ve sledded down hills and made a fort in the woods. We’ve got nothing on them.
Kids absolutely can do this, but I’m sure none of them will….
On recycling day in the summer, walking around garbage picking cans/ bottles around the neighborhood so we could ride our bikes into town hit the bottle return and then buy a pizza for ourselves while we hung out together
Having to wait hours or days for a song you liked on the radio. I couldn’t just Shazam Blister in the Sun, and find out the Femmes also did those other weird songs I liked.
It took forever to find out who was behind Detachable Penis, they played that song like once a week at best.
The freedom to behave like an absolute clown while knowing that there’s an almost zero chance that some asshole is recording you. Video cameras did exist but they were big and obvious enough that you’d have to be vision impaired to not notice someone recording.
I was recently in the little country town I holidayed in (which isn’t so little anymore) and there were kids riding their bikes down a slipway into the water, dragging them back out and going again (something that I did a lot in the same spot). There were also a mid twenties couple standing way back, phones pointed at them and over the top tiktok reacting to every little slip hoping that they’d catch one falling off.
Going outside to play every single day, no parents around, kids climbed over the back fence to play with us, or we met them in the street. Totally safe and no trash anywhere. When I was five years old (1969).
Biking to the mall without a bicycle helmet.
Packing 8 of your friends into the family sedan to go somewhere.
From the ages of 10+ I was allowed a free radius of about 3 miles (spanning the park, “downtown,” school, ice cream/bait shop, every friend’s house in between, etc). All without any electronic connectedness. We would bike MILES on a daily basis without any of our moms winging our exact/relative location. My mom was one of the more tougher ones at the time and always wanted to know who I would be with, etc., This was in the late 80s and 90s in an inner-ring suburb of a major city.
Being free to wander the neighborhood solo. My parents had no idea what we were doing or where we were. Heck, my grandparents had a golf cart we drove all over the seniors only complex they lived in. I wasn’t even 10 when we drove it everywhere.
Playing Kick the Can, Cops and Robbers, Capture the Flag, and similar games across entire neighborhoods with all the kids in the neighborhood. We’d play these well into the twilight of late summer evenings with no supervision. Parents expected us home by 10pm, but until then, summer evenings were ours.
If you missed an episode of your favorite show, then you missed it.
You had to wait and hope for reruns.
Waiting for next week’s episode was actually pretty great. It gave us something to look forward to.
That and going to the movies and having almost no idea what was going to happen.
Gen X here. So today’s kids will never experience freedom. No helicopter patents. Free to make mistakes. Free to get hurt. Free to explore our immediate world.
Comments
Had to get rid of the party line and get a private line so we could get dial up internet.
Thinking about life
(77m) The 1950’s.
How many of my cool toys ended up being recalled for actually murdering children
Most kids these days will not experience going out with your friends on bicycle for hours all day, miles away from your home and your parents not knowing where you are or where you were the whole time.
Meeting a WW1 veteran at the local VFW.
nintendo 3ds
Going with your parents on a Friday/Saturday night to rent a movie at Blockbuster
Saturday morning cartoons. Specifically, waiting on Saturday morning for the channel to begin its “service day”. Which started with the national anthem.
Boredom
Rabbit ears TV
Uncorporate internet
Playing outdoors.
Physical punishment, such as caning or flogging from your teachers at school.
Saturday mornings……I’m just a bill……..
What a dial-tone sounds like or waiting by the phone for that one to call.
Being able to make prank phone calls and hang up because no one knew your phone number.
Crawling on your stomach through shadows of the tree and behind the brush in your neighbor’s lawn so you can get close enough to kick the can without being seen first.
Life without internet.
Playing in the smoke when the DDT truck slowly came down the street every night.
I’m sure I lost something on that one.
Yelling ‘IT’S OOOONNNNN!!!!’ to your mum, who’d done to make a cup of tea during the ad break and was about to miss the start of the second part of the tv programme.
Also, charging back into to the room at top speed when someone else yelled ‘IT’S ON!’ because you’d gone to the toilet during the ad break.
Coding… (which isn’t bad)
having a paper route or other ways to make money
Annoying curly phone cords that always wound up curling into a big ball no matter how long they were
Rewinding a VHS tape
The smell of cigarette smoke in the air at the McDonalds indoor playground.
Being able to get away from everyone for hours on end.
discipline
Using a Rotary phone at home or phone booth
The terror of calling your crush’s house phone and her father answers
Collecting snakes and toads outside. Pretending I was Steve Irwin. (I might still do that now at 30 at my own house……)
gettin’ beat 😛
Calling someone and getting no answer or voicemail
Since I live in the province, I would say that going to the beach at early morning and return home once it’s low tide
go to parks for a walk I’m guessing
Asking me to get off the phone so they can get on the internet.
“Pagers”
Safe schools….
Waking up early like 6:30AM on a Saturday morning to watch back to back TV cartoons eating cereal like Cocoa Pebbles…
Climbing trees to the top where they were real skinny and you swayed back and forth, what a view.
Their mother telling them to leave the windows up when she’s smoking in the car and it’s winter time
Watching music videos on MTV.
Your friends screaming your name for you to come outside
Kids can’t say, “oh I didn’t know that”
They can’t be clueless about something and be educated on it. Today it seems like you have to be on top of every topic, have a PhD level of understanding about everything otherwise you’re ignorant because we have access to information at our fingertips.
Being smoked out in the house by your parents and every other relatives house, car, restaurant etc…
The excitement of finally having a VCR.
Getting up to change the tv channel.
My kids play outside constantly on the street with friends. They’ve done hockey, baseball, basketball, tennis, and bicycled everywhere. They’ve drank straight from the garden faucet and fished in the neighborhood pond. They’ve made lemonade stands and bike ramps. They’ve sledded down hills and made a fort in the woods. We’ve got nothing on them.
Reading.
See, i could say Y2K but that would be a cheap copout.
p2p file sharing programs!
Smoking on airplanes.
Woods porn
No internet, no cable tv .
Childhood
Kids absolutely can do this, but I’m sure none of them will….
On recycling day in the summer, walking around garbage picking cans/ bottles around the neighborhood so we could ride our bikes into town hit the bottle return and then buy a pizza for ourselves while we hung out together
Waiting for a movie you enjoyed to come out on video so you can rent it and watch it again.
Having to wait hours or days for a song you liked on the radio. I couldn’t just Shazam Blister in the Sun, and find out the Femmes also did those other weird songs I liked.
It took forever to find out who was behind Detachable Penis, they played that song like once a week at best.
Calling your crush at home and having to talk to her dad first 😨
Being so excited to get the Sears Wishbook so you could look at & circle all the toys you wanted from Santa
The freedom to be silly and try new things without the fear of having to worry about it being filmed on Snapchat
Having to get up and change the channel on the tv
Not always knowing where everyone else was or what they were doing at all times of the day and being able to enjoy that same freedom.
Playing all over your neighborhood. We had a fenced in parking area at one end when we lived in Buffalo and used to go up there to ice skate.
The glory days of Mtv.
Calling adults Mr./Mrs/Miss/Ms.
Leaving the house for hours and being completely unreachable and unlocatable
Needing a dime for the pay phone.
Playing in the vacant lots between the houses in your neighborhood without getting in trouble for it.
Dine-in Pizza Hut
Waiting for the radio to play a certain song so you can hit record to make a mix tape for the girl you like.
Toys R us
Financial stability
Housing
playing outside with the neighborhood kids all day, everyday, and knowing to come back when the street lights turned on
My entire life was not documented on Facebook. My mom has probably posted new pictures of my niece every single day since she was born. She’s 4 now.
Loading a game to your computer via floppy disk
“In the arms of an angel”.
The unmistakable sound of dial-up internet connecting. Someone comment the onomatopoeia, I’ve tried and can’t do it.
The freedom to behave like an absolute clown while knowing that there’s an almost zero chance that some asshole is recording you. Video cameras did exist but they were big and obvious enough that you’d have to be vision impaired to not notice someone recording.
I was recently in the little country town I holidayed in (which isn’t so little anymore) and there were kids riding their bikes down a slipway into the water, dragging them back out and going again (something that I did a lot in the same spot). There were also a mid twenties couple standing way back, phones pointed at them and over the top tiktok reacting to every little slip hoping that they’d catch one falling off.
Corporal punishment in school with the blessing of the parents who paid for that education and discipline.
Going outside to play every single day, no parents around, kids climbed over the back fence to play with us, or we met them in the street. Totally safe and no trash anywhere. When I was five years old (1969).
Biking to the mall without a bicycle helmet.
Packing 8 of your friends into the family sedan to go somewhere.
Chickenpox
Recording your favourite songs from a radio on a cassette tape.
Not being afraid of getting shot at school. I never had to worry about that.
From the ages of 10+ I was allowed a free radius of about 3 miles (spanning the park, “downtown,” school, ice cream/bait shop, every friend’s house in between, etc). All without any electronic connectedness. We would bike MILES on a daily basis without any of our moms winging our exact/relative location. My mom was one of the more tougher ones at the time and always wanted to know who I would be with, etc., This was in the late 80s and 90s in an inner-ring suburb of a major city.
Affordable housing
Waiting for a wristband to wait in line for concert tickets. Also first come first serve movies.
Being free to wander the neighborhood solo. My parents had no idea what we were doing or where we were. Heck, my grandparents had a golf cart we drove all over the seniors only complex they lived in. I wasn’t even 10 when we drove it everywhere.
Playing Red Light/Green Light throughout the neighborhood. We were welcome to run through everyone’s yard.
Information was not at our fingertips. We had to physically go looking for it….usually at a library.
Free ranging in the neighborhood and coming home when the street lights come on.
Car cigarette lighters
Democracy
Saturday morning cartoons and staying up until the TV station closed for the night with the national anthem.
Riding bikes after school, only way to find your friends is by luck running into them. No cell phones, had beepers and quarters for pay phone.
An a$$ whoopin
Dial up internet and the insane noise it made.
Their old man smoking Winston Cigs with the windows rolled up
Delivering newspapers to the houses in your neighborhood on your bicycle every morning at 4 AM
Burning songs onto a CD that came from Frostwire
Playing Kick the Can, Cops and Robbers, Capture the Flag, and similar games across entire neighborhoods with all the kids in the neighborhood. We’d play these well into the twilight of late summer evenings with no supervision. Parents expected us home by 10pm, but until then, summer evenings were ours.
Rotary phone
Mall vibes around Christmas
If you missed an episode of your favorite show, then you missed it.
You had to wait and hope for reruns.
Waiting for next week’s episode was actually pretty great. It gave us something to look forward to.
That and going to the movies and having almost no idea what was going to happen.
Hating people with a lot of 9’s or 0’s in their phone number because you had to wait for the rotary wheel to go all the way back around
Penny candy…miss those.
Getting burned by the car cigarette lighter or emptying the car ashtray
Gen X here. So today’s kids will never experience freedom. No helicopter patents. Free to make mistakes. Free to get hurt. Free to explore our immediate world.
Being the remote control for the family.
The kind of freedom and innocence we had.
Scrambled porn channels
Youtube without ads