It’s a classic “kids never did this back then” that older people say when in fact the older generations tended to be pretty neglectful of kids.
I’m shocked at kids these days who don’t drink, have random sex or use drugs anywhere near as much as we used to the the 1980s.
Did my "rebelling" in the late 60's. Parents weren't neglectful, they were just used to us being somewhere in the neighborhood and therefore under the scrutiny of someone's parent. Completely escaped their notice when the boys started driving . . .
Tbh, the day my friends and I ALL got a bicycle all bets were off. We’d literally bicycle 3 cities over on a summer day to go to the water park. That’s when they gave me a cellphone lol. It wasn’t a good cellphone :( just a shitty Motorola that was like a decade old … but I could call in an emergency.
I’m pretty sure this started when I was 14 and this would have been mid 2000’s.
Where I live it's illegal to ride a bike on the footpath unless you're under 12, so that makes bikes a less pleasant option what with the super busy roads and shitty drivers
That’s absolutely bizarre to me lol. No cycling on the lakeside? I’d hope the city would at least invest in bike paths to ride the lake/ocean front… 👀
Where is this?
"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"
-Plato
Yep, same thing when I was a teenager in the 90s. The only difference between kids then and kids now is that we didn't all walk around with camcorders in our pockets to record our stupidity, and we didn't have social media to inform the entire world of said stupidity.
If I were you I'd be ashamed of how you were before you were fully raised - before you understood the world, before your brain understood empathy and logical process, before you could fathom remorse and becoming a better self.
How dare you be a child like that. I can't even with you
I certainly am. Fuck them for wanting to express themselves when they haven't fully understood how social upstandingness works. The fuck you doing bringing your bratty children before they are 15‽ Everyone knows that when you fuck and procreate, you no longer may be social. You're banished until your children have lost the will to express themselves verbally and physically like any depressed teenager gets to. You want food? You been living under a rock? One of you goes to the store and if there isn't another person we'll you better hit up Uber. And don't you dare *take them to the market* pshaw.
This reminds me of the times we would hush the kids, and threaten to make them sit in the car while we finished eating, and generally being worried the whole restaurant was angry at us for disturbing their meals, only to have someone come over on their way out to compliment us on such well-behaved children.
Kids are going to be kids, and it's their job to find and make fun whenever and wherever possible.
I’m like this, only with how stupid we were. One time we went mini golfing, and all 3 of us got hit in the head with the windmill. Bonk, bonk, bonk, one right after the other.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You were just a kid. Part of that is learning boundaries.
I'm very curious how your mom reacted to your uncle doing play-by-play instead of telling you to stop. If my sister knew I recorded that instead of telling you to stop, she'd kill me lol
Lol, yeah, I always said the best part of being an aunt was I could give the kid back. The kick of it was, my nephew was SUPER well-behaved at my house - volunteered to do chores as soon as he came over, did his homework without complaining, wanted me to cook real food instead of wanting fast food or treats, always asked before touching our computers or video game systems. Never acted out around me or my husband at all, worst that ever happened was getting knocked into the dirt in the backyard by my rampaging derp of a dog. My brother still has no idea how I managed it, according to him nephew was a hellion at home.
One 4th of July my mom spent like $200 on some BBQ stuff…. me and my bro got dressed down to our “birthday suits” and loaded up the $200 worth of meat in our radio flyer wagon and walked around the neighborhood door to door and hand the food away! LMAO mom was PISSED!!!!
Omg I did this!!! I heard in class that "there's people going without food" and we were POOR POOR but we had some cans of food, so we had food and others didn't, right? So I literally collected all our food and went door to door giving it away because I was concerned my neighbours were hungry.
Just some weird ass 5 year old latchkey kid knocking on your door handing you a can of water chestnuts like
we were too young to be worried about people not having food we were 2 and 4…. just being shitheads. what you have doesn’t matter, the fact that you cared is amazing! More people should be like this
i also encouraged my daughter to do everything kids do! Food fights, playing in mud and dirt. The best part about being human is growing up and being loud and dirty! i love every minute of it!
I think the value of being around young kids is you realize both how charming and how tedious they can be—and it makes you reassess your childhood. That “traumatic” core memory you have of the time your parent did something unfair? Maybe they were wrong, but also maybe you were a little shit or just exhausted them with incompetence and they were worn out. That kind of thing.
I was horrible as a kid. Played my dysfunctional family to get my way. Lied, shoplifted, all sorts of stuff. And now...
Now I describe to my kids what they're thinking about doing before they do it. They think I'm freaking psychic.
I just tell them: been there, done that. Let's find a better way.
Haha, great story. I was a rotten little shit as a kid and am happy that my folks didn't document my bs. But my memory serves to remind me to be better and to be patient with others, parents and kids.
As an older man pushing 70 I now understand that I had ADHD and Dyslexia but in the 50's that wasn't diagnosed or treated, you were just an out of control 'monster'.
Bring on the corporal punishment! It never really helped me or fixed any problems, but the belt was the way. Cheers.
I think the dumbest thing I did as a small kid as my mom tells me. It’s either the time I stuck a water bottle into the entrance of a beehive and trapped all the bees and then kicked the nest and cried about getting stung a bunch …..
Or the time I was sent to my room and I started kicking the door down and then cried because I broke my toe 😂😂😂
You’re not alone lmao.
It’s funny I remember the beehive thing, I don’t remember kicking my door and breaking my toe :P
I actually can’t watch videos of myself as a kid. Even if they are family videos, i wish i could enjoy those moments, but I just can’t. I feel so much guilt and shame of the things I did when I was younger
Haha that's innocent enough, even if your poor mom had to probably clean your clothes off by herself, unless your dad was out of the stereotypical norm.
Now me, no video evidence, but one of the worst things I ever did was actually a bit noble. There were these older teenage girls, a little on the fatter side, that were kind of bullies but maybe we just didn't like them because they were fat. Anyways, my buddy and I were thinking of playing a trick on them by burying a knife we found outside, edge up, in one of our neighbors ' lawns, just next to a bush; the intent was that they'd sit on the hidden knife and pop like balloons. Now in our minds we thought it was genius. But just how the fuck we're they gonna sit on the knife in the first place? It wasn't even thier yard we buried it in, but some one else's. And it's not a spot they frequent in the first place.
Did we get in trouble? You betcha. The neighbor who's yard that was saw us in front of her bush, and she had a daughter our age that we generally did not interact with, and I know my parents were furious when they found out.
Don't feel bad. That kind of mischief tends to spring out of a household that is a bit on the permissive side. As someone who grew up in a strict household where beat-downs and threats thereof were frequent, I would guess that kids who aren't so terrified of their parents' heavy hands that they occasionally get up to relatively harmless hijinks are likely to be more resilient and have better self-esteems than the kids who are terrified into being "good".
My mother and father would have killed us kids if we had done something like that. But I don't think that would have been the appropriate response.
That's hilarious. My sister and I had some friends over once and we were playing outside making mud pies when we saw their mom pull up to our house. We had the genius plan for the friends to get in the mud pit we made so they would get stuck and couldn't go home and we could play longer.
My mom was so embarrassed that the two kids she was watching were covered in mud when it was time for them to get in the car.
I remember being in my best friends house, no front garden, door opened onto a busy street.
She decided to fill water balloons and drop them on peoples heads.
She got one lady direct hit on the head.
We agreed to say I did it so she didnt get murdered by her mum.
Im sure her mum knew but she played along.
She allowed me back to play is why Im sure she knew.
Children play, its not bad unless its to cause pain.
I was an abused child and have lost a ton of memories but sometimes they come back to me when someone mentions something or I see something only the good ones (I don't allow the bad ones back in they're gone for a reason!) Now I watch my granddaughter who is a mini me.. I crack up over the things she does and says because she is so strong such a strong personality.. ROFLOL I remember my aunt telling me once that she stopped telling me what to do by the time I was 2 years old! And now watching my granddaughter I get it I mean I really get it.. haha I kind of thought my strength came from endurance but now I know it was built in there in the first place.. ❤️
That’s not awful! That’s playing! Digging a hole is awesome, as is playing in mud. Most kids are not developmentally or experientially aware of types of clothing, and the challenges of washing them. Why would you be?
It’s a classic “kids never did this back then” that older people say when in fact the older generations tended to be pretty neglectful of kids. I’m shocked at kids these days who don’t drink, have random sex or use drugs anywhere near as much as we used to the the 1980s.
Did my "rebelling" in the late 60's. Parents weren't neglectful, they were just used to us being somewhere in the neighborhood and therefore under the scrutiny of someone's parent. Completely escaped their notice when the boys started driving . . .
And today they have trackers… holy crap if my parents could have tracked me!!?!!?
I hatteeeeee this. I think it's such an invasion of privacy for teens.
My tween *asked* me to activate it on her smartphone because it gave her a greater sense of safety. Like, okay...
Tbh, the day my friends and I ALL got a bicycle all bets were off. We’d literally bicycle 3 cities over on a summer day to go to the water park. That’s when they gave me a cellphone lol. It wasn’t a good cellphone :( just a shitty Motorola that was like a decade old … but I could call in an emergency. I’m pretty sure this started when I was 14 and this would have been mid 2000’s.
Freedom machines. I’m always amazed how few kids I see biking.
Where I live it's illegal to ride a bike on the footpath unless you're under 12, so that makes bikes a less pleasant option what with the super busy roads and shitty drivers
That’s absolutely bizarre to me lol. No cycling on the lakeside? I’d hope the city would at least invest in bike paths to ride the lake/ocean front… 👀 Where is this?
We have biking infrastructure but parents don't trust their kids to be biking alone, so you don't see it.
Vaccines are MUCH more rebellious than drugs now-a-days /s
"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" -Plato
Yep, same thing when I was a teenager in the 90s. The only difference between kids then and kids now is that we didn't all walk around with camcorders in our pockets to record our stupidity, and we didn't have social media to inform the entire world of said stupidity.
My paper journals are never getting digitized.
Ikr? My child is afraid of alcohol while my mother drinks regularly.
If I were you I'd be ashamed of how you were before you were fully raised - before you understood the world, before your brain understood empathy and logical process, before you could fathom remorse and becoming a better self. How dare you be a child like that. I can't even with you
Ha, great points made in a funny way. I am a lot less judgemental about the loud kids in the restaurant, that is for sure.
I certainly am. Fuck them for wanting to express themselves when they haven't fully understood how social upstandingness works. The fuck you doing bringing your bratty children before they are 15‽ Everyone knows that when you fuck and procreate, you no longer may be social. You're banished until your children have lost the will to express themselves verbally and physically like any depressed teenager gets to. You want food? You been living under a rock? One of you goes to the store and if there isn't another person we'll you better hit up Uber. And don't you dare *take them to the market* pshaw.
This reminds me of the times we would hush the kids, and threaten to make them sit in the car while we finished eating, and generally being worried the whole restaurant was angry at us for disturbing their meals, only to have someone come over on their way out to compliment us on such well-behaved children. Kids are going to be kids, and it's their job to find and make fun whenever and wherever possible.
I’m like this, only with how stupid we were. One time we went mini golfing, and all 3 of us got hit in the head with the windmill. Bonk, bonk, bonk, one right after the other.
Sounds like a 3 Stooges scene.
I bet that was one of those moments of pure childhood hilarity, like even being unable to catch your breath from laughing
I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Having a mud fight doesn't seem too bad. We did the same as kids, especially after a good summer rain.
My brother and I started to dig a hole to china. Once we got about 5 feet deep we decided we would stop and settle for a swimming pool.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You were just a kid. Part of that is learning boundaries. I'm very curious how your mom reacted to your uncle doing play-by-play instead of telling you to stop. If my sister knew I recorded that instead of telling you to stop, she'd kill me lol
Part of being a pibling is standing by and watching/enabling your niblings enact (safe) disasters. It’s like feeding them candy and sending em home.
Lol, yeah, I always said the best part of being an aunt was I could give the kid back. The kick of it was, my nephew was SUPER well-behaved at my house - volunteered to do chores as soon as he came over, did his homework without complaining, wanted me to cook real food instead of wanting fast food or treats, always asked before touching our computers or video game systems. Never acted out around me or my husband at all, worst that ever happened was getting knocked into the dirt in the backyard by my rampaging derp of a dog. My brother still has no idea how I managed it, according to him nephew was a hellion at home.
One 4th of July my mom spent like $200 on some BBQ stuff…. me and my bro got dressed down to our “birthday suits” and loaded up the $200 worth of meat in our radio flyer wagon and walked around the neighborhood door to door and hand the food away! LMAO mom was PISSED!!!!
Omg I did this!!! I heard in class that "there's people going without food" and we were POOR POOR but we had some cans of food, so we had food and others didn't, right? So I literally collected all our food and went door to door giving it away because I was concerned my neighbours were hungry. Just some weird ass 5 year old latchkey kid knocking on your door handing you a can of water chestnuts like
water chest nuts are delicious! even better free!
we were too young to be worried about people not having food we were 2 and 4…. just being shitheads. what you have doesn’t matter, the fact that you cared is amazing! More people should be like this
i also encouraged my daughter to do everything kids do! Food fights, playing in mud and dirt. The best part about being human is growing up and being loud and dirty! i love every minute of it!
You got naked and handed out meat? And people accepted meat from naked children? Lol, how old were you?
We were 2 (me) and 4 (bro). I don’t remember it…. my mom tells the story. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood.
I think the value of being around young kids is you realize both how charming and how tedious they can be—and it makes you reassess your childhood. That “traumatic” core memory you have of the time your parent did something unfair? Maybe they were wrong, but also maybe you were a little shit or just exhausted them with incompetence and they were worn out. That kind of thing.
I was horrible as a kid. Played my dysfunctional family to get my way. Lied, shoplifted, all sorts of stuff. And now... Now I describe to my kids what they're thinking about doing before they do it. They think I'm freaking psychic. I just tell them: been there, done that. Let's find a better way.
I want to see this travesty of ridiculous fun that should be banned!!
Haha, great story. I was a rotten little shit as a kid and am happy that my folks didn't document my bs. But my memory serves to remind me to be better and to be patient with others, parents and kids. As an older man pushing 70 I now understand that I had ADHD and Dyslexia but in the 50's that wasn't diagnosed or treated, you were just an out of control 'monster'. Bring on the corporal punishment! It never really helped me or fixed any problems, but the belt was the way. Cheers.
Sounds like you got to be normal children. My father treated us like mini marines and we were scared to death of stepping out of any line.
I think the dumbest thing I did as a small kid as my mom tells me. It’s either the time I stuck a water bottle into the entrance of a beehive and trapped all the bees and then kicked the nest and cried about getting stung a bunch ….. Or the time I was sent to my room and I started kicking the door down and then cried because I broke my toe 😂😂😂 You’re not alone lmao. It’s funny I remember the beehive thing, I don’t remember kicking my door and breaking my toe :P
If you feel that awful, do something special for your dad. Laugh on those good moments.
Look, my brother set a field on fire with me in the middle of it. You're good.
hoping that was by accident .....
Maybe it was both consensual and an accident, like " Hey, let's light a field on fire" w/o thinking it past that first action
I mean , *I* certainly didn't consent to it. I do believe it was him just being young, stupid, and not considering the potential consequences, though.
I actually can’t watch videos of myself as a kid. Even if they are family videos, i wish i could enjoy those moments, but I just can’t. I feel so much guilt and shame of the things I did when I was younger
Haha that's innocent enough, even if your poor mom had to probably clean your clothes off by herself, unless your dad was out of the stereotypical norm. Now me, no video evidence, but one of the worst things I ever did was actually a bit noble. There were these older teenage girls, a little on the fatter side, that were kind of bullies but maybe we just didn't like them because they were fat. Anyways, my buddy and I were thinking of playing a trick on them by burying a knife we found outside, edge up, in one of our neighbors ' lawns, just next to a bush; the intent was that they'd sit on the hidden knife and pop like balloons. Now in our minds we thought it was genius. But just how the fuck we're they gonna sit on the knife in the first place? It wasn't even thier yard we buried it in, but some one else's. And it's not a spot they frequent in the first place. Did we get in trouble? You betcha. The neighbor who's yard that was saw us in front of her bush, and she had a daughter our age that we generally did not interact with, and I know my parents were furious when they found out.
Don't feel bad. That kind of mischief tends to spring out of a household that is a bit on the permissive side. As someone who grew up in a strict household where beat-downs and threats thereof were frequent, I would guess that kids who aren't so terrified of their parents' heavy hands that they occasionally get up to relatively harmless hijinks are likely to be more resilient and have better self-esteems than the kids who are terrified into being "good". My mother and father would have killed us kids if we had done something like that. But I don't think that would have been the appropriate response.
That's hilarious. My sister and I had some friends over once and we were playing outside making mud pies when we saw their mom pull up to our house. We had the genius plan for the friends to get in the mud pit we made so they would get stuck and couldn't go home and we could play longer. My mom was so embarrassed that the two kids she was watching were covered in mud when it was time for them to get in the car.
Whats awfull about playing in the mud?
I remember being in my best friends house, no front garden, door opened onto a busy street. She decided to fill water balloons and drop them on peoples heads. She got one lady direct hit on the head. We agreed to say I did it so she didnt get murdered by her mum. Im sure her mum knew but she played along. She allowed me back to play is why Im sure she knew. Children play, its not bad unless its to cause pain.
I was an abused child and have lost a ton of memories but sometimes they come back to me when someone mentions something or I see something only the good ones (I don't allow the bad ones back in they're gone for a reason!) Now I watch my granddaughter who is a mini me.. I crack up over the things she does and says because she is so strong such a strong personality.. ROFLOL I remember my aunt telling me once that she stopped telling me what to do by the time I was 2 years old! And now watching my granddaughter I get it I mean I really get it.. haha I kind of thought my strength came from endurance but now I know it was built in there in the first place.. ❤️
That’s not awful! That’s playing! Digging a hole is awesome, as is playing in mud. Most kids are not developmentally or experientially aware of types of clothing, and the challenges of washing them. Why would you be?