My Parents Didn’t Always Do the Right Thing…and I’m Not Dead
I’ve always pissed and moaned about how hyper-sensitive Americans are these days about things compared to when I was a kid. I mean, by today’s standards, I shouldn’t even be alive (no seat belts, mom smoked during pregnancy, rode bike without helmets).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for seatbelts and safety. Despite (or because of) my “reckless” upbringing, I’m actually a very cautious person as an adult.
But, as I blogged about only a few days ago, the litigious society we’ve become is something I find rather boring.
Anyway, here’s the text of the email my parents sent* (it was just one of those emails that people forward). I did delete the last two paragraphs which nonsensically started rambling on about god.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank KoolAid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING ! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all (well, except Pong), no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms…WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law (not that I ever broke any laws, of course)!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
*Can you tell I can’t think of anything to write today?
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Totally agree!
“the fear” seems to have started with the first bit of halloween candy was found to have pins or rat poison or whatever in it. then came the milk cartons with missing kids on them. now we have that 20something generation that grew up on those fears who trust their laptops more than the person theyre sitting next to. *the legal stuff that comes of this fear is really unfortunate, but hey, its lawsuits that keep the economy nice and strong!!
Implicit but not explicit in that letter is a statement of something in which I believe very strongly–between mass usage of antibiotics and the current germ paranoia, Americans are oversterilized. We’re raising a generation of kids who won’t have much resistance to the common cold and flu and a hundres other problems because they’ve not been exposed to these diseases and haven’t developed antibodies.
The Today Show has been running a feature all week on where germs are hidden. They advocate sending kids to school each day with packs of antiseptic wipes to swab each and every desk they sit at during the school day, and a pump container of a special no-water antiseptic hand wash and using it at least once an hour, preferably every half hour. Start a first grader on this regimen, and you’ll have a roaring neurotic by the time he or she hits puberty.
Okay…here comes the unpopular view of Ye Olde Hetero Breeder, but… how many serial killers were stalking kids to make post-coital stew of them back in Them Thar Good Ol’ Days when we all hung out and rode our bikes everywhere? Whose bb guns were mistaken for cop-killers resulting in a ten year old being shot and killed by someone with a REAL gun? Cars were far fewer in numbers and far greater in substance. And way back when, was anyone concerned that the water supply might have been tampered with by terrorists or some miscreant fuckwit somewhere? No. It is simply, and sadly, a different world. Were there always pedophiles? Sure. Were there always freaks and child abusers? Absolutely. Were they given lessons on How To Abduct A Child on the internet or CNN every day? Hell, no. Where are the Gacy’s and Dahmer’s of the day? Maybe, on the whole , they had just not become THAT fucked up yet, or they were too scared to come out and act on it.
Don’t get me wrong – I agree, generally with the message you posted. Life is wacky and I wish we could go back to a simpler time and a simple life, but unless you’re Paris or Nicole, it’s not looking really likely. Especially if you have kids. You are forced to look at things differently after you become a parent and almost any chance seems too great.
I draw the line at anti-bacterial stuff because I think it’s terrifying, but I do carry and make the chitlins use Purell hand pump stuff in the car because of W.’s respiratory disease, and the fact that it is convenient for using after school, grocery store, library, wherever eleventy million OTHER germy hands crawling with e.coli and staph and who-knows-what have been pawing around. But usually hot soapy water does the trick, just like in The Old Days.
The point is not lost, though… there is much to be said for the old way of doing things.
So. Hate me much?
I was having a conversation with a friend, Terra (yes, given birth name)…who runs an organization called The Land Connection, which raises funds to acquire farmland in central IL and then hook the land up with folks who want to get into organic farming, creating an organize “zone”. Her family is born/bred in farming … her brother Henry runs one of the biggest farmer’s markets in the city and downstate. And it’s fantastic to watch in operation, I visited for a weekend and helped out, seeing all these folks doing everything that’s good for you — being outside, working hard, contributing, blah. ENNIS-way, as we’re watching all this work go on at the farm, especially discussing Henry’s kids who are just AMAZING at helping out doing everything….she mentioned how apparently there are cases of kids who are AFRAID of going outdoors because of all the fearful germ phobias that have been ingrained in the public these days. There is actually a psychology practice that helps kids overcome their fear of being outdoors. On some of the farm tours, they have had kids who are afraid to sit on the lawn, or touch dirt, or a plant. Getting your hands in the dirt and growing food is one of the most therapeutic things you can do — and we’re growing sterilized bubble kids who are AFRAID of it all. That’s freaky sad.
Dave In Chicago (2) raises a great point. One day when I brought the kids in for an impromptu visit for sudden symptoms (normally they are scrubbed within an inch of their lives prior to visits!), I was apologizing to our esteemed pediatrician for their grubby faces, dirty nails, etc., saying that we had been in the garden and so forth blah blah. She applauded this, saying that it is a refreshing change and that kids totally need to dig in the dirt more often and roll around in the shit outside.
I make a point of letting them get good and dirty; it really is good for them. (But the grocery carts are terrifying. And I’m keeping my Purell for that.)