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Kids these days — 14 Comments

  1. How the fuck did we ever survive without mobile phones? By planning ahead when landlines were the only instant means of communication, though not more or a less a guarantee you'd actually speak to who you were phoning. Kids of today often go out to town without making any firm plans about where and when they're meeting friends. It's too easy.

    Not that I envy them, I'm glad I lived my formative years when most of us had freer lives than the modern brainwashed  kids and far more than our forebears. Golden days, though we didn't really appreciate how lucky most of us were. Mind you, some our generation are responsible for the subsequent wave of shite…

     

    • Life without mobile phones was certainly different.  Phone calls were a rarity, as people either wrote letters or called around in person.  There didn't seem to be any necessity in keeping in contact all the time. 

      I don't envy modern kids at all.  I would hate to be young again, with the way the world seems to be going.  My generation though is mostly retired by now so I don't think we can be blamed for the current mess.  I grew up in the era of peace and love [good old Hippies!] whereas I would guess most of the Puritans grew up in the era of punk rock.  Now there's a theory!!

  2. we lived and we lived large lives. friend's grand child was over to hers, didn't know how to hang up a phone (old kind of phone with a cord and wall connect) doubt the kid has ever drank from a garden hose on a hot summer day or told to get outside and don't come back till lunch.

    • We lived in a world of imagination.  Whether it was books, the radio or general play, we had to rely a lot more on our imaginations, whereas now everything is spoon-fed in glorious technicolour.  I wonder what the Grandkids would make of a good old fashioned phone box, with a dial and buttons A and B?  Heh!  They'd probably spend the first half hour looking for the screen?

      • "I wonder what the Grandkids would make of a good old fashioned phone box, with a dial and buttons A and B?"

        They do what I did I hope. Break a lolly stick in half and wedge it up the "B" slot. I made a fortune from all the calls that didn't go through.

        • Heh!  I used to use scrumpled paper.  It was quieter when the coins came down.  I also used to do the rounds of the boxes collecting where other kids had tried he same trick.  Happy days!

  3. A wonderful punchline to the story – "We lived, my boy.  We lived." This could become a new proverb for the 21st century:-

    "Switch off your TV set and live."

    • I had to laugh at his expressions of bewilderment but really it's not that funny.  Everything has to be manufactured for kids these days, but back in The Good Times we made our own toys [hurley sticks were great as rifles!] and just used our imaginations.  A tree could be a castle or a fort and the corner of the garden could be a desert island.  Nowadays, unless it comes with a remote control, it's useless!

  4. My grandson had the exact same response to no tv when I was a child! Sheer disbelief. I wouldn't change places with today's children though they have so much but I wonder f they can use their imagination as we had to. 

    • I forgot to ask him if he knew what a radio is.  They don't have one in the house as it's all television/computers/phones, so it's possible he has never heard one.  I must ask him next time I see him.

    • Indeed.  Of course, nowadays snowballs are strictly forbidden as it is "an act of violence" and shows discrimination against your fellow pupil.  And God forbid you should actually hit your target and they might be offended/hurt.

  5. Looking after the kids last night and asked my 7 year old grandson if he had a calculator and he said what's that?

  6. That was a fine answer you gave the lad. A fine answer indeed. For myself (and the wife as well), I used to change the course of mighty rivers when I was a young'un (well, sort of…), build fortifications and dams out of river rocks and explored the primeval forests of anywhere we happened to live that had more than a half a dozen trees nearby.

    Funny now that I haven't had a TV hookup of any kind for over 20 years in that I can't hear much without hearing aids, I need glasses to see correctly, my back is busted and my cane gets stuck in the detritus of mighty forests.

    …I can still comment though.

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