I was just thinking...

[joesfolk]

I saw something on this site that got me to thinking about how different my dd's growing years are from my own. We were city dwellers but I remember my childhood being filled with pollywogs, crayfish,hornets nests, huge games of hide and seek, ice skating, and foursquare. But dd's life is full of computers, cell phones and mp3's. While I am glad that we can manage to afford all of this technology for her I can't help but feel that she is missing out on a great part of life yet none of today's kids seem to miss any of that fun and none of them have or miss all of the neighboorhood friendships that big outdoor games require. Of course their world is filled with virtual friends but when that is almost all you have , well, it just seems very sad to me.

 

[pacanis]

I had forgotten all about four square.

 

[Snip 13]

I so agree, I have managed so far not to buy any of the TV, Video and computer games. We never had trouble entertaining ourselves without all this nonsense. We played outside all the time! The worst for me is watching girls my daughter age wearing mini skirts, wearing make-up and acting like grown women. It's shocking what some parents allow! I'm probably one of the few uncool moms left but I'll keep it that way. Don't want my kids sitting indoors and becoming part of the playstation generation!

 

[roadfix]

I had forgotten all about four square.

Same here. Do they still have them on playgrounds and schoolgrounds?
I loved playing tetherball and dodgeball.

 

[pacanis]

I know the grade school I went to replaced the tetherball pole with some game you toss a ball up into and it comes out a random chute to be caught. Kinda cool, but not tetherball. They probably aren't allowed to have a rope hanging off a pole anymore. Hmmm, although Napolean Dynamite still had a tetherball pole...
I don't know if they still have four square anymore or not. It used to be in the corners of the basketball court. I still drive by that school once in a while.

Mem---or---ies----
like the corners of my mind----

 

[joesfolk]

The really sad part is that dd used to be an "outside child." But all of her neighborhood friends insisted on playing indoors..it's too hot or it's too cold or they didn't have appropriate clothes to go sliding on the hill. At one point I took to buying snowpants and mittens at rummage sales to loan to these kids but eventually they won out and now dd would rather sit around with her computer on her lap than do almost anything active and her weight shows it. At least these kids still like to go swimming although many of them won't swim in a lake or river, just a pristine pool. We may have gained a lot with our technology but we have lost a lot too.

As for the foursquare thing, we used to play in my girlfriends paved drive which had a perfect foursquare separation in the cement. If we couldn't do that we used bits of drywall left over from construction sites to draw the squares wherever we could find a paved surface. We spent hours and hours playing that.

 

[Aunt Bea]

The mention of pollywogs made me smile!

When we were little we brought home a mason jar filled with pollywogs and frog eggs. My mother gave it a place of honor in the middle of the dining room table. We watched it with great interest until one day it went away, and so did the smell!

Fireflys were big on our agenda also!

We were range free or feral children all year round and our parents and grandparents encouraged it. It was great fun but more important than the location was the development of our imaginations. Today it seems like people can't do anything without buying a book or taking a course. I think a lot has been lost. Just my opinion and not an old geezer rant!

 

[Rocklobster]

I drive myself nuts trying to get my 13 year old to do stuff. She has no intrest in so many things like you have mentioned. Trying to get her to go for a bike ride or come with me to walk the dog is a very frustrating experience. I give her options and she usually decides to stay home.
She keeps busy though. Not really on the social network sites. More reading, crafts, Sims, Architecture games..etc. My wife is mobility challenged so we aren't very active as a family group. When I try to get her going with me, she usually chooses to stay home. She does well in school(4+), has decent friends, is very well behaved and seems happy, so I guess I shouldn't try to transpose her personality. Each to his/her own, I guess.

 

[Snip 13]

By the sounds of it I should be grateful that my kids still play! I must brag just a little, I'm really proud of my 2 baba's. Caitlin's 9 now and she's a straight A student, just started Taekwondo this year and she's already won 2 medals in her first Taekwondo tournament.
We don't have any of the new playstations or WII or Nintendo etc. She still plays hop scotch, tends to her fairy garden daily, makes sand castles with her little brother Daniel (4), and does little shows for us at night! My kids still believe in Santa, the Toothfairy and the Easter bunny!
It's not easy keeping things this way, I do have to work hard and play and run around with them but I think it's worth it seeing how my kids still get to be kids in todays society.

 

[joesfolk]

By the sounds of it I should be grateful that my kids still play! I must brag just a little, I'm really proud of my 2 baba's. Caitlin's 9 now and she's a straight A student, just started Taekwondo this year and she's already won 2 medals in her first Taekwondo tournament.
We don't have any of the new playstations or WII or Nintendo etc. She still plays hop scotch, tends to her fairy garden daily, makes sand castles with her little brother Daniel (4), and does little shows for us at night! My kids still believe in Santa, the Toothfairy and the Easter bunny!
It's not easy keeping things this way, I do have to work hard and play and run around with them but I think it's worth it seeing how my kids still get to be kids in todays society.

You are a very lucky person. I hope things stay that way for you for a long, long time.

 

[Snip 13]

You are a very lucky person. I hope things stay that way for you for a long, long time.

I am blessed I will carry on doing everything I can to keep them as innocent as possible. I think being a kid at heart makes it easier for me to do things like sneak into my daughters room when she's lost a tooth and sprinkle fairy dust from the window to her shoe and placing a few shiny coins inside and removing the tooth and flushing the evidence, baking cookies for santa on Christmas eve,
reading bedtime stories each night and playing in sandpits and getting covered in mud etc.
I think I'll stop now before I bore everyone to tears but there is just nothing like having the innocents to believe in all things magical when you're a child and I want them to play as mush as possible while they still can and have fond memories to look back on when they're all grown up

 

[Claire]

My husband and I were just laughing about this. You can't turn back the hands of time, and overall you probably wouldn't want to. But, yes, you do wonder about family togetherness, for one thing, and childhood obesity for another. I can remember when my parents were first able to have a second phone jack in the house. I still had my two youngest siblings living at home, and when I visited I mentioned the location of the phone. This was in the late 70s or early 80s, and my sibs weren't allowed to have TVs or telephone extensions in their bedrooms. Mom wanted to know what they were seeing and who they were talking to. Privacy for teenagers wasn't considered an option. You want privacy? You turn 18, graduate from high school, get a job, and rent your own apartment! We always did a lot of family stuff; camping, walking, sledding, skating, bike riding, card and board games. Part of the time we lived overseas and that, by itself, limited television time. My escape was always books, but even then, Mom would say, "GD-it Claire, get your nose out of that book and go outside and play!"

 

[Andy M.]

I'll be showing my age with these comments.

The biggest difference I see in comparing my childhood to the childhoods of today's children is organization.

When I was a child, I came home from school and disappeared from home until dinnertime. I sought out my friends and we played outdoors until I was called for dinner (Mom or Sis would yell my name from the front porch). During the Summer months, I was gone all day. We ate lunch at one of the kids' homes. Again, I had to be home for dinner.

Today, it seems every minute of a child's 'free' time is carefully planned with either organized activities such as soccer, Little League, music lessons, language lessons or playdate appointments. Kid's have fuller calendars than I ever did.

SO works as a home manager and she either has to make sure the kids are ready for the music tutor's arrival for a lesson or be running around dropping off and picking up from different appointments.

 

[CookingMamaof2]

It's a hard balance as a parent now to make sure that your child has the technology skills they need to get by in the world and also to make sure they are able to be kids. I am constantly amazed by my 3 year old at how easily she picks up and figures out how to do things. She can take our phones and figure out how to get to the app that she wants to play. She got ahold of my nook and turned it on, and searched for the book she wanted to read without me showing her how. That said, they have very little computer/screen time and we do a lot of playing, tea parties, parks, etc. I feel kind of bad because my parents bought them this video game that is a bike and I think they've played it a total of 3 times since Christmas.

 

[Claire]

Yes, very much the same. I had to come home from school and do homework, period. Then I was allowed to run around our neighborhoods with my girl friends. But my parents didn't have unlimited use of two or more cars, so didn't have the ability to drive me wherever I needed to be for structured activities. Athletics were definitely discouraged for girls in those years (and I wasn't so inclined then anyway) unless you were a cheer-leader. Nowadays, kids have such full social calendars, and usually two working parents, that I have no idea how they cover it all.

 

[Snip 13]

I was never allowed friends during the week, only on weekends. I did netball, swimming, shotput, high jump and sang in the choir. We always had to eat dinner at the table, I had to help my mom cook and started cooking the meals when I was 8 yrs old. My mom was away half of each month working and I was tired of steak and fries or KFC..lol! My dad can't cook to save his life!

 

[LPBeier]

Good topic Joesfolk!

A few years ago I led a girl's group and the lesson one week had me telling them what life was like for me at their age (8/9).

I told them about putting beads or playing cards on my bike tires to make noise when I road. They asked me how many speeds and they were shocked when I told them "just one and we peddled backwards to put on the brakes! Other shocks that we had only 2 channels on our black and white TV until we got cable which gave us a total of 7 channels! They didn't know what a record was or 8 tracks! They asked what did I do for fun. I mentioned tetherball, foursquare, skipping, marbles, etc. They were really amazed.

It was a fun way to see how things change....and I remember thinking I was the same at their age wondering how my parents managed without all the stuff I had!

 

[CookingMamaof2]

I was the same, Snip. No friends during the week, in bed by 10. My parents ran me around to soccer, piano, and more soccer. It was because of all my activities that I learned to cook. My sister and I had to have dinner on the table when my mom got home from work so we could eat and go to practice. We hated having the same thing all the time, so we got creative.


I'm amused at how much different my kids' lives are than mine. I remember when we got the internet when I was a senior in highschool, but "skype" was one of my daughter's first 100 words.

 

[Snip 13]

I was the same, Snip. No friends during the week, in bed by 10. My parents ran me around to soccer, piano, and more soccer. It was because of all my activities that I learned to cook. My sister and I had to have dinner on the table when my mom got home from work so we could eat and go to practice. We hated having the same thing all the time, so we got creative.


I'm amused at how much different my kids' lives are than mine. I remember when we got the internet when I was a senior in highschool, but "skype" was one of my daughter's first 100 words.

I loved my activities and chose to do them, luckily come 8pm when I had to go to bed I was knackered anyway..lol!
I wouldn't say I'm too strict with my kids but they must go to bed by 8, do homework, say prayers at night, no friends during the week either. I spend a lot of time playing with them and letting them help out in the kitchen if they want to. They seem happy and don't complain about not having playstations etc. Just hope it stays that way for a few more years at least