Will’s Thoughts – When I look At The Childhoods That Kids Have Today…

children growing up today

Will's Thoughts When I look at the childhoods that kids have today, I fear for our future. I’m not saying that our childhoods were picture perfect, they were just a whole lot different. We were not bombarded by a digital world, offering a dizzying array of choices, it was a much simpler time. Our friends actually lived in our neighborhoods, and we knew their Mom’s names. Our decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney-mo”, and our mistakes were set straight by shouting, “Do over!”

Our financial futures were managed by dice, and whoever happened to be the banker in “Monopoly”, our version of ‘Star Wars’ was catching fireflies on a warm summer evening, and water balloons were the ultimate long range weapons. The term ‘best friends’ meant a group of at least three or more, and anyone over 18 years of age was considered ‘old’.

Horrified When Uncles Stole Our Noses

Instead of watching beheadings in the middle east on YouTube, we were horrified when our uncles ‘stole our noses’, the worst socially transmitted disease we could catch from the opposite sex was ‘cooties’, and the only weapons brought to school were spit wads, straws and slingshots. The only drugs found on school grounds were things just too heavy to carry, and all the syringes found in playgrounds were designed to baste turkeys.

Now, as pretty and nice as all them women on TV back then were, there were simply none prettier than Mom, who laughed at our silly jokes, and also happened to be the best nurse in the world, as she kissed away our scrapes and bruises, and made them all better. Back then boys had ‘chores’, girls had ‘housework’, and backyards were where we went, not where we were sent.

Gum Looked And Tasted Like Pepto-Bismol

We bought gum that looked and tasted like Pepto-Bismol in order to collect sports cards, but instead of sticking them in boxes under beds, we used them in the spokes of our bikes transforming them into roaring motorcycles and us into muscular thugs cruising for trouble. There were no ‘tall enough to ride’ signs at amusement parks yet and the counterculture ‘got high’ by dropping Mentos into Coke.

Our older siblings were our worst tormentors, but also our fiercest protectors and spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down not only seemed like a good idea, it was actually really fun. “Oly-oly-oxen-free” made perfect sense, girls and boys had separate clubhouses and it was a socially acceptable rule to exclude the opposite sex.

Picture Perfect Childhoods

Now, I ain’t saying that our childhoods were picture perfect in the days of yesteryear, but they were a whole lot different. So, when I look at the childhoods that kids have today, I truly fear for our future, for ice cream has become ice milk, baked goods are now bought goods and playing together is done on screens, not streets.

Dang childhoods…