Did we have it better?

I am one of 4 (not Borg) and have 3 kids of my own, they have the same freedom to go out and about as I did as child. I don't think we had it any better, just different.
 
To be honest I'd much rather be a kid nowadays than in my day. Everything is so much more accessible, I mean Spotify just about justifies that on it's own, in the olden days you have to listed to John Peel or read the Melody Maker/NME to hear about any slightly alternative music. Nowadays everything is but a click away.

As for people rambling on about kids being lazy, just playing video games all the time and always answering back then that's mostly just lazy stereotyping. All they are doing is reacting to society today and if there is any truth to it then it is more of a judgement on crap parenting rather than the kids themselves.
 
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Society has deemed it impossible to give the freedom to kids that we had. Too many nutters and weirdo's about now. (not that there weren't any in the past!)

I imagine there were just as many in the past. It's just now the internet has made it easier to groom children, share images etc etc if that is what they want to do. Also people are more willing to report it and challenge people in authority if they are perpetrating the crimes and not keep it quiet as used to be more common. Also it is easier to hear about such incidents through the 24 hour rolling media, possibly giving the impression that there is more of it.
 
Hell Of a good question in the OP

In Many ways , yes , in some ways , no

I guess as parents we strive to make our kids lives better than ours was , hence raising the expectation of what "better" actually is

Growing up in the countryside in Ireland we had to work when we were on our holidays , we worked on the neighbours farm , then at home and on the bogs doing turf , hard work yes but we didnt know any different , it was the done thing , everyone else that we knew was doing the same thing so there was none or very little "but look at them " attitude

The majority of people in general were poorer , people didnt or wouldnt live of credit or loans as they had been brought up to earn what they had & in turn respected it more ..

we didnt have smart phones or the internet at te blink of an eye , there was no or not as much peer pressure,
i dont think my parents understood the "value" of third level education so once we went to school , learned something , but behaved , we werent going to be in trouble ..

There is no doubt IMO the kids of today including our own have it way better than we had it as kids , BUT it comes at a cost , the cost has been a change in society a change in values & in turn a change in respect for whats urs or more importantly what belonged to others.


We had it better in a simpler way , we were easier pleased because we weren't bombarded & brainwashed by media advertising & the contrived version of what real life was ..
 
We were able to play in the street back then because there weren't many cars, but we had to walk to school because there weren't many cars
And what you haven't had, you haven't missed.

This thread was actually inspired by discovering the The Lady And The Tramp was made in 1955 :eek: years before I was born.
 
Great thread! I've not read all of it but I'm certainly glad I grew up 'back in the day' and enjoyed the endless outside days. I wouldn't swap it for what kids have today.
 
We were able to play in the street back then because there weren't many cars, but we had to walk to school because there weren't many cars
And what you haven't had, you haven't missed.

This thread was actually inspired by discovering the The Lady And The Tramp was made in 1955 :eek: years before I was born.
I played in the street when I was a kid, and got run over by a milk float. Bloody horse kicked me as well.:angry:
 
I never had a paper round, but my oldest brother was a milkman, and I can remember getting up at silly o'clock to go out and help him on his deliveries at week-ends to earn myself a bob or two. Used to help our local milkman as well. If I wanted extra money I'd go scrumping cooking apples, nick my mums scales and wander around the council estate we lived on, selling them for 3d a pound! If I wasn't scrumping apples, I'd be out picking blackberries, bluebells or primroses and doing the same.
Used to disappear for hours on end, be gone all day, and my old Mum wouldn't worry. We made our own fun, either playing football all day, walk for hours and hours to find the best chestnut trees and gorge ourselves silly on them.
The one thing I don't envy kids of today is trying to find a job. In my day, you just walked in somewhere, asked if they had any jobs and you'd start the following day! No interviews, no CV. You'd just get on with it. If you didn't like it after a week or two, you'd just leave and find another one.
 
I had a paper round.........for 1-day, no thank you very much!

Then had a mate who used to bunk off school and work at a piggery sloppin' out and feeding the pigs so I used to do that on odd days and early mornings, nobody sat with me in class if I went on to school after an early shifty, I was a bit ripe :(

The farmer let me use a real quality air rifle and used to pay me for shooting the rats around the farm and feed areas, I saved up and got myself a top notch rifle and it was at this point I knew my future was mapped out :smirk:
 
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I have a good laugh at my daughter yelling at her kids because their rooms are so untidy.
Both my daughters had Saturday jobs from the age of 14 [1986+]

My grandson seems to do most of the things I did.
The things he can't do would probably lead to his patents being charged with neglect.
I once caddied 3 rounds in one day when I was about 12, after the paper round of course.
I would go beating in the winter months from the age of 10, thin wellies and clothes that were a long way from Gore-tex. After the paper round of course.
 
The one thing I don't envy kids of today is trying to find a job. In my day, you just walked in somewhere, asked if they had any jobs and you'd start the following day! No interviews, no CV. You'd just get on with it. If you didn't like it after a week or two, you'd just leave and find another one.

^^^ This...

Couldn't agree more...
 
From what I see (and bear in mind that I am not a parent) kids are just not allowed to be kids anymore. TV, Music and media are all pushing them into growing up way before their time and they just do not get to enjoy a childhood. My mate's daughter is 12 and yet she acts and behaves in the same way that 15 or 16 year olds behaved when I was a kid.

The fact is that there is nowhere to hide kids from all of this now. With TVs in every room and internet access everywhere they are bombarded with an image that they feel that they have to achieve rather than be themselves. At the age of 12, the most desireable piece of clothing was a pair of Dunlop Green Flash, now kids have to have the right trainers, designer outfits the lot of they want to feel part of the group.

Give me growing up in the 70s any day of the week.
 
From what I see (and bear in mind that I am not a parent) kids are just not allowed to be kids anymore. TV, Music and media are all pushing them into growing up way before their time and they just do not get to enjoy a childhood. My mate's daughter is 12 and yet she acts and behaves in the same way that 15 or 16 year olds behaved when I was a kid.

The fact is that there is nowhere to hide kids from all of this now. With TVs in every room and internet access everywhere they are bombarded with an image that they feel that they have to achieve rather than be themselves. At the age of 12, the most desireable piece of clothing was a pair of Dunlop Green Flash, now kids have to have the right trainers, designer outfits the lot of they want to feel part of the group.

Give me growing up in the 70s any day of the week.

This. We also didn't have the peer pressure and easy availability of drugs to worry about; if we had a fall out with someone you might get a black eye or a split lip as it was settled with fists, not guns or knives as it is today. We didn't have computer games so went out and met other people, learnt to understand them and different points of view and were generally more tolerant.

I don't envy kids today one bit.
 
From what I see (and bear in mind that I am not a parent) kids are just not allowed to be kids anymore. TV, Music and media are all pushing them into growing up way before their time and they just do not get to enjoy a childhood. My mate's daughter is 12 and yet she acts and behaves in the same way that 15 or 16 year olds behaved when I was a kid.

The fact is that there is nowhere to hide kids from all of this now. With TVs in every room and internet access everywhere they are bombarded with an image that they feel that they have to achieve rather than be themselves. At the age of 12, the most desireable piece of clothing was a pair of Dunlop Green Flash, now kids have to have the right trainers, designer outfits the lot of they want to feel part of the group.

Give me growing up in the 70s any day of the week.

As I said before, a lot of this is crap parenting. And fitting in to be part of a group has not changed one bit in decades.
 
I never had a paper round, but my oldest brother was a milkman, and I can remember getting up at silly o'clock to go out and help him on his deliveries at week-ends to earn myself a bob or two. Used to help our local milkman as well. If I wanted extra money I'd go scrumping cooking apples, nick my mums scales and wander around the council estate we lived on, selling them for 3d a pound! If I wasn't scrumping apples, I'd be out picking blackberries, bluebells or primroses and doing the same.
Used to disappear for hours on end, be gone all day, and my old Mum wouldn't worry. We made our own fun, either playing football all day, walk for hours and hours to find the best chestnut trees and gorge ourselves silly on them.
The one thing I don't envy kids of today is trying to find a job. In my day, you just walked in somewhere, asked if they had any jobs and you'd start the following day! No interviews, no CV. You'd just get on with it. If you didn't like it after a week or two, you'd just leave and find another one.

Scrumping- one of my hobbies back then!
 
Scrumping- one of my hobbies back then!

Oh yes!! Mrs Jeffs garden had the best apples in our village! Not sure why we did it, never ate them, ended up throwing them at cars off the bridge on the A34.

What about conker fights? I once had a 33'r!!
 
This. We also didn't have the peer pressure and easy availability of drugs to worry about; if we had a fall out with someone you might get a black eye or a split lip as it was settled with fists, not guns or knives as it is today. We didn't have computer games so went out and met other people, learnt to understand them and different points of view and were generally more tolerant.

I don't envy kids today one bit.

Not 100% sure they all settle arguments with guns and knives. Or even 0.01% of kids arguments are settled with guns and knives to be honest.

And as for being more tolerant then looking at society today then I'm not sure the 'elder generation can give the younger generation any lessons on tolerance. As a lot of young people have grown up in a multicultural society, accept it and are less fearful of those nasty immigrants than people a lot more senior then them.
 
Not 100% sure they all settle arguments with guns and knives. Or even 0.01% of kids arguments are settled with guns and knives to be honest.

And as for being more tolerant then looking at society today then I'm not sure the 'elder generation can give the younger generation any lessons on tolerance. As a lot of young people have grown up in a multicultural society, accept it and are less fearful of those nasty immigrants than people a lot more senior then them.

IMO that is a somewhat romantic Blue Peter view of the attitudes of modern youth.

It may be true in the leafy suburbs where there is little real contact but that would be less of the case in many inner-city areas. Gangs are very rarely, if ever, multi-racial.
 
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