True, I get that, as most of that is pretty familiar to me as I grew up in the 80s and 90s as well. The constant evolution of technology, and the speed at which new things come out are likely a factor in this. 5 years ago you'd have never expected a 5 year old to have an iphone, now it seems to be shockingly commonplace. Well...what if I have to get a hold of them, right? Can't call a home phone anymore, since I don't have one. Doesn't explain to me why they have such an expensive device and not a Jitterbug-mini, but whatever I guess.

I think it's natural to look back nostalgically at life when you were a kid, but yeah, i don't want to go back to pre-internet days and days when your favorite college football team could only be on TV 3 times a year.

"Just looking at kids-- they're safer (it doesn't seem that way, but statistics say they are)."

not to be my normal snarky self but where is the stats I could not find them either way?

I'm with Happy on this one.

It was better. Life was better. America was better. Yes, it was.

Anyway, someone's gotta post this link.

"The Four Yorkshiremen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEIApUNVBKg

Everyone makes their judgement based on their own experience. My experience of childhood and adolescence was great! Even then I knew it was great! We were indeed, much more active than kids today. But in fairness, I suppose, everything we did was an activity. We did not have any other choice other than reading or drawing. There was no computers, no internet, no cell phones. TV was limited to 3 channels and programming was aimed at adults, not kids (with the exception of Saturday mornings). Our schools were based on proximity to where you lived, so you knew everyone you went to school with and did things with them after school and on weekends. We played outside pretty much all the time riding bikes and making forts out in the woods and such.
Were we tougher than the current generation of youngsters? Absolutely. And the generation before mine was tougher than us. Are we smarter than the current generation? Probably not. They will discover and learn things we never dreamed of.
Most people will always have a longing for things that they remember with fondness. Its human nature.
I wish that my grandkids could know some of the things that I remember, but I'm also glad that they dont have to worry about polio. I wish that they could appreciate a slower pace of living, but it would mean nothing to them, becasue its not their norm.
So, I will appreciate the times that I have had and hope that when they have grandkids, they can appreciate theirs.

We were indeed, much more active than kids today.

You are still more active than a lot kids today.

I still like playing.

sorry that i have a credibility issue with you, but it did happen exactly as written. I'd be happy to provide you references from the Krajcas, loves, owens, lees, potous, feders, and mattthews kids in the neighborhood that witnessed it. or show you the scars on my head and elbows from it.

i also have a brother that was riding his 10 speed down what was known as suicide hill because it was so steep, and a lady backed out of her driveway and he hit the fender of her car and flew about 30 feet over it and was all road rashed and concussed as a result...caved in his front tire and left a huge dent in her fender...she brought him and his bike home, about 8 miles from her house.

oh, and i can still ride a mean wheelie on my bike, but have upgraded from the 1-speed to a 27 speed...

nah man, nothing snarky about asking for evidence.

www.psmag.com/culture/the-kids-really-are-all-right-58651/

here's an article about a guy calling for less supervision (like some in this thread are wanting) BECAUSE kids are so safe:

healthland.time.com/2012/05/17are-your-kids-safe-alone-at-the-park/


now, keep in mind i'm talking about safety from crime/abuse. i fully conceded the obestiy health issue.

BBB, I don't think you can question/compare intelligence or smarts across generations really. And if I had to pick a side, I'd say past generations were more likely to be intelligent. Today, you don't need to be smart to get anywhere, you only need be able to look up the answer, and for most of us, the answer is in our pocket a few button presses away.

Before, people had to actually know things. Until we develop a bio-mechanical interface that we can use to plug information into our brains all Matrix-style, I think average human intelligence is likely to decrease due primarily to not needing to know things.

ETA: Go add the card catalog research section back into the standardized testing models and see how kids freak out

In most ways, I agree that times are not as good for kids these days. I get the health and safety improvements that have been made, and those are great, but kids today don't get a chance to be kids for very long. Their innocence is lost way too early these days compared to even just 20 years ago. Now, they are inundated with $ex and violence at levels not seen since the middle ages I would guess. Now, schools go 12 months a year in some places and there's no summer break when kids used to explore their neighborhoods and woods just to find out about the world, and play games outside in the fresh air with other kids sans worry. I feel bad for kids these days, they will never know that carefree world (to a large degree) that I grew up in, and I'm about as old as Happy.

And it's not just childhood safety. violent crime rates are constantly going down and are currently the lowest since the 60's. And i'm not sure you could call then or before it the "good old days" because, you know, civil rights.

Rates are down, but publicity/exposure of what does happen is up, so from the media consumer's perspective, it's a more violent world, because when you were kids, you weren't hearing about all this! That couples with the lost innocence factor.

Child of the 80's class of 88 I wrote my senior term paper on Star Wars and I am not talking about the movies.

As a kid I enjoyed the drills having us hid under our desks just in case we got nuked. I was the kid in class that had to put his nose on the board because I asked what good is getting under a desk if it is a nuke?

Played all day rode bikes for miles and miles a day. If there was a sport or game going on nearby it did not matter if I did not know them I would just stand nearby and in a short time some one would invite me to their team. I did also get to play video games and play on computers, writing my own programs and hacking software for the teachers as school. (that is illegal nowadays in case you did not know) ^_-

But man my mother did not have a tracer chip on me and she trusted me and her fellow man I would not get killed when I stayed out from morning to night with out checking in.

It could also be where the crimes are being committed, much much less in the inner city than before and slightly greater in suburbia (what I would have expected to see in the citation but was omitted)

Maybe our parents were worried sick and we just didn't know it.

did we do stupid things as kids - most certainly. I once slid off Loveland Pass on the continental divide on summer snow/ice falling about 30 feet into rocks...someone saw me and notified the rangers on station and they sent a helicopter to rescue me, it arrived right after i climbed back up and punched my brother in the stomach for pushing me on the snow! my dad and stepmom were highly embarrassed about the ruckus i caused (don't know they knew up until that point it had happened, but i was awfully bloody from the rocks. still have many of those scars)

Or the time we were playing kick the can and I thought hiding in a mimosa tree was a great place - until the branch broke and i fell on my head. I think that was my 3rd or 4th concussion.

Or how the neighborhood kids used to make ramps and jump each other with our bikes or skateboards...yeah, that didn't always end well.

or touch football in the streets that more often than not resulted in at least one "oops" tackle.

or playing hotbox and once i was hit with the baseball in the eye and the stitches cut my face and looked like i was wearing a baseball in my eye (if only i could have kept scarring from that, it looked really cool)

or the time my brother and i thought we would re-enact a barbarian fight scene with baseball bats...yeah, that didn't end too well.

or when we discovered that a ping pong paddle could make your nose bleed really bad if you were hit with it.

or when we would dare one another to touch the neighbors electric fence they had to keep their dogs from jumping it

we often wonder how we lived to adulthood.

Happy, your stories remind me of those of my mom and aunts and uncles. There were 5 girls and 7 boys in the family. Someone was always daring another to do something stupid. Like the time my uncle jumped off the roof and broke both his wrists...and they laugh and remember those times fondly?

It appear that a good portion of the lack of safety statics in the 70's was nothing more than the Gilmore household.

Gotta bring up those civil rights, you know. After all we now have GMI to collect. We just can't emphasize our differences enough these days. We celebrate diversity by cramming it down each other's throats, in new and different ways too.

Yeah, well we're comparing today to the past. it's kind of one of the big differences. Should we just ignore it?

yeah, it probably gets brought up in a lot of cases where it shouldn't be. But even so, i think your temporary annoyance is an imporovement over the situation in the past.

Those of us raised in the 70's, 80's even 90's got hurt a lot more, because we were always outside tearing up the world, using our imaginations to see what worked and what didn't. So I don't doubt the safety item. I basically lived outside, I didn't go in unless I was forced to, even slept in a tent outside with my friends in our yard whenever allowed to. We had daily chores, and didn't dare say no to our parents, or our friends parents!

Back to the first post - there just isn't as much trust anymore, people pull over to 'help' and they get killed for gang initiation, or for drug money. There are younger and younger kids getting involved in so many drugs, even being tricked into doing them. So we have all become afraid to get involved...and it isn't fair, but is what the world has become. Everyone is ready to sue you for anything, so preservation takes over.

Just my 2 cents.

And I totally believe Happy's story - somehow I can imagine it like I was there....

We didnt think of it as stupid at the time....
Ok, yeah sometimes we knew it was stupid from the get go, But if you did it and survived.....cool city!!

When considering the advancement of civil rights over the past 50 years or so, it would seem that we have so often confused pandering with progress. Less liberty for all is no improvement.

"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"