Kids inthe 50"s,60"s and 70"s shouldn"t have survived.......

[snooky]

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes we wore no helmets,just flip-flops,shorts and brightly coloured clackers on our wheels.
As kids,if our family had a car,we would travel without seatbelts or airbags.Travelling in front was a treat.
We drank water from garden hoses and public fountains-not from a bottle.It tasted exactly the same!
We ate dripping sandwiches,bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it,but we were never overweight because we were always playing outside.
We shared one drink with four friends,from one bottle or one can and nobody ever got ill as a result.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill,only to find out we had forgotten about brakes!After running into stinging nettles and bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day,as long as we were home before it got dark.No-one was able to reach us all day and nobody minded.
We did not have Playstations and X-boxes,no video games at all.No 99 personal computers,no internet chat rooms.We had friends, we went outside and found them.
We played football. elastics and street rounders-and sometimes that ball really hurt!!
We fell out of trees,got cuts and grazes,broken bones and broken teeth and there were no lawsuits.They were accidents.We learned not to do the same things again.
We had fights,punched each other hard and got black and blue.We did not get assaulted-we simply lost the fight.We learned to get over it.
We walked to each others homes and to school.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live things,and although we were told it would happen,we did not have our eyes fall out and nor did live stuff grow inside us.
We rode our bikes in packs of seven and wore our coats by the hood.
Our actions were our own and the consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.They actually sided with the law.Imagine that!!

This generation has 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 them.

[bunuel]

but surely the people who are removing those freedoms (if they are but let's argue that to be the inference of your post), were also born in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

I guess not everyone had the greatest childhood....

I for one enjoyed apple fights in a nearby orchard

[Monika]

I blame the solicitors! I am not kidding: when we got a clip around the ear, we just took it. If we hurt ourselves by climbing over a barbed wire fence, we kept mum because we know we shouldn't have been there. Now, the child runs home, tells mum or dad who rushes off to a solicitor to sue. Have you ever heard the adverts (on, say, Classic FM) where you are actually encouraged to sue, sue, sue? So, now teachers are worried to look after children on outdoor activities, councils have to spend thousands of ££ to continually check their playground equipment, one is terrified even to raise one's voice against a child!

[lizzie]

I remember when I was a kid that, if one of the neighbours told me off for doing something, I would then get it at home off my mum for upsetting the neighbours...........

I used to play out in the street with all the other kids, and there were quite a lot as there were 3 or 4 big families in the street. We would play all kinds of games, ride our bikes, go to the park with bottles of pop and sandwiches all day in the summer. Walk to and from school, have snowball fights, roll down hills, make dens, all sorts of stuff.

Now, kids seem to be kept in their own sterile homes, it's no wonder there are all kinds of allergies kids seem to have now. There didn't seem to be as many when I was growing up.

When we would play out in the snow, one of the mums would come out with hot blackcurrant juice for us to drink.

I'm a firm believer in there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. Parents now don't seem to realise that a good lungfull of cold air kills all the germs off and you're much healthier for it.

My kids weren't kept away from mud (or Grockies kids)......and mine are very rarely sick

[Geoff]

I hope you are not suggesting being exposed to Grockies kids bolsters the immune system.
We played out all the time, football in road, rounders on the nice round grassy bit where the posh folk lived, catching newts, sticklebacks etc in the disused clay pit, walked to school (over a mile from age 5 and home for lunch) etc. When I worked I think I averaged one day off in 10 years now it is nearer one day off a month, especially in the public sector.

[garden_serf]

Geoff, FYI...its more than one day a month currently and due to increase soon.

"The current minimum statutory holiday entitlement is 4.8 weeks (24 days per annum for an employee working a normal 5 day week). This entitlement has applied since 1 October 2007 and is inclusive of Statutory Bank Holidays.

A further increase in entitlement from 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks (28 days per annum) applies from 1 April 2009.

Where the holiday year end is not 31 March, then employers must pro-rate the entitlement.

For example for an employee working a normal 5 day week with a year end of 31 December 2009 then their minimum holiday entitlement would be:

3 months x 4.8 weeks = 6
9 months x 5.6 weeks = 21

Total entitlement 27 days"

Since there are 'usually' 8 bank holidays, then thats 20 leave days and 8 bank holidays per annum.
Joanne

[Geoff]

I meant sick days and was thinking Public Sector absenteeism is something like 5% or one day in a twenty day month.

[garden_serf]

Oh sorry Geoff, misread that.

[lizzie]

I'm certainly not suggesting that about Grockies kids...........they're fab but give them a shovel and a bit of earth, and they're digging and covered in mud My son was the same. I don't see grubby kids, just happy, healthy ones who know how to sow seeds, pot on, plant out and eat the stuff they've grown.

[oldherbaceous]

Well if Grockies kids turn out anything like her, they will be the most hard working, kind and thoughtful people you are likely to meet.