Comments

Think of the Children — 22 Comments

  1. I would find it hard to argue with any of your points, I too grew up when boys were boys & supervision was at a minimum, you learned on the job so to speak, if it hurt you didn’t do it again or at the very least you were more careful.

    “For the sake of the children,” me hoop, who are the fucking adults?

    Pretty soon there will be an EU directive banning everything in front of Children, afterall water no longer Hydrates.

  2. Maybe the arguement should be turned round. Don’t sprout intolerant views and behave like fascists, think of the chiiiildreeen!

  3. Lafsword – I would love to transport some modern kids back to the 50s or 60s without any preparation.  I doubt they would survive a week!  For a start they would have to learn what walking is, because in those days it meant one hell of a lot more than a few steps out to the car.

    Welcome Lemmi!  Heh!  I like it.  If nothing else it would confuse the hell out of their argument.

  4. Not all kids are nice kids. Some queer kids seduce priests, wait ten years, and then complain to the police that they were victimized. We live in a culture were it is fashionable to be a victim.

  5. Ramrod – I fully agree with your first and last sentences.  The middle one is way off beam though and I doubt you will find anyone who agrees with you.  Kids may be devious bastards but they are not that bad.  It’s also a bit of an insult to all the thousands who were abused by the so called “religious”.

  6. Always on the edge there.
    Anyway, good one GD I could not agree more (for once). When I was a kid I either got the regular bus with all the folks going to work or, if I had spent my bus fare on a ciggy and a match, I cycled to school on busy roads with no cycle lanes.  Now cars have to stop in both directions on a 4 lane road with a center turning lane while a school bus stops every few yards to let the little bastards off. The result being they don’t even notice the traffic and learn no road sense whatsoever. Where’s Freddy Kreuger when you need him?

  7. Get on outa that, TT!  The number of times you have agreed with a “for once” clause….  😉

    I honestly believe that we are breeding a generation of kids who will not have a clue how to cope.  Their idea of “risk” is to try a different tactic when playing the latest Xbox game.  Their idea of “experience” is watching television.  Sad.

  8. Remember being told “No climbing up the cliffs” at the bay near us  .. Someone spotted us and grassed informed my parents … However we used the loophole that we were climbing down .. not up .. My mother still laughs at that one !!!

  9. How can kids experience real pain through an x box? Crap! I’m of the same era as you GD – we used to have great fun “out in the wilderness”. No x box game could provide that. When one of the lads fell off our rope swing into the river and broke his collar bone – we all agreed it was his fault for letting go!!! His dad cut the rope (the bastard) …. it was duly replaced the following day with a tow rope we’d purloined from a local lorry park … it was a definite improvement on the clothes line we’d been using.

    I used to work in education – tell me about H&S and overkill – I could probably quote you examples. We’re really not doing our kids any favours. A friend of mine once said – if his son got caught for half the things he’d got away with as a kid, he’d be in the shit.

    However, having survived to middle age, does this now mean I could fall victim at 60+ to fabric softeners,etc ? … bring back the rope swing !!! I’m going to come back to haunt someone.

  10. we were kicked out in the morning and back at dark..supervision??? nope! you learned the hard way and it weeded out the weak ones.
    seat belts? what are those? we’d just about break a bone to call “back back” of the station wagon ’cause it was fun rolling around smacking the side of the car when dad cornered too sharp. i clearly recall standing  on the seat making car noises while dad played along weaving the car. mamby pamby youngsters, far too weak, i blame hand sanitizers, bring back ingesting some dirt for your immune building! drink out of the garden hose!

  11. Grandad:

    I attended Catholic schools. Nobody claimed sexual abuse. Nobody even joked about priests and sex. Now that is fashionable to be a victim, I am supposed to believe that there was an epidemic of sexual abuse that I could not see.

  12. Grandad, my “spammy” addition follows:

    Priests are sexually repressed. They are guilt ridden. They have sexual fantacies and confess to sex acts that never happened.

    Do a google search on false confessions.

  13. Very good article; and to think I agreed with Bock that he should have you assassinated. You’ve redeemed yourself. 

  14. Fuck the little buggers back into Artane and the likes. There they can learn how to make boots, Post Bags, Farming, Dairy, Carpentry etc and the Religious can use the money to pay for their ‘mistakes’.
    No X boxes or Play Stations, unless the ‘lil buggers can make them, no drinking or teen pregnancies, if the Religious keep the fuck away. It’d be just like the old days…..oh! jasus, fukkit, are’nt we going back to ‘The Old Days’ anyway.

  15. This thread has changed from using children to win arguments into a criticism of children themselves. The father is no longer an authority figure. The father- if he is still around- is too cowardly to discipline his wife or children.

  16. Ramrod – I think the gist is still the same – that kids are way overprotected these days and that a bit more rough and tumble would do ’em a power of good.  The “think of the children” clause is just another symptom of the disease that is Safety and Protection.

    Slab – Reliving old memories again?  Heh!

    Bernard – Don’t mind Bock.  He’s just jealous of my handsome good looks and sparkling personality.

    Cat – Is drinking out of the garden hose on the Forbidden List?  Probably is.  Didn’t do me any harm.

    Cardi – I read today that a school in Canada banned all balls, from footballs and basketballs through to tennis balls.  they could only use foam balls.  Apparently anything harder than foam “might cause an accident” or even “scare” them.  For fuck’s sake!  We can’t have the little darlings being scared of a tennis ball, can we?

    Maverick – Welcome!  There were a few old lime-pits behind where I used to live.  They were absolute death traps – very deep water with steeply sloping sides and probably full of junk.  There were no warning signs or fences.  We kids were just smart enough to treat them with respect.  By the way, I liked your flying in Top Gun.

  17. Brilliant. I will have to send this page around to a few people.  I love the saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It’s a pity more parents don’t follow it.

  18. This reminds me of that time back in the nineties (I think) when lead based paint was banned due to worries about infants sucking the bars of their cots. My answer to that would have been simply to tell cot manufacturers not to use lead based paint on their products. See? Easy peasy! And it didn’t even take a commitee to work that one out.

  19. tt:
    The U.S.A. is no longer the “land of the free and home of the brave”. Most men are afraid to talk back to their wives; let alone, stand up to an oppressive government.

    I have a federal order of protection against me. Perhaps, you also have one; but, are too modest to brag about it.

  20. While working on a TV show aimed at mothers, which was staffed entirely by non-parents, I used to shamelessly abuse my status as a begetter to win arguments. “Well, speaking as a parent…” It seldom had any relevance. I just did it for badness when I was bored.

    I’m glad you included that Simpsons clip – saved me digging it out.

Hosted by Curratech Blog Hosting