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The pussification of America

No... where is that list? I'd like to check it. I think I've had quite a few of the things in my childhood if my guess is correct.
 
Renee said:
I've been saying so for years - perhaps in another 50 the rest of the nation will catch up and something will change.

I was bitching the other day that I'm required to provide stickers to the preschool so that my son can visibly see how well he's performing. Every kid is going to get a sticker for everything they do - I've seen this with my other kids. I'm NOT buying the stickers. First off, I don't think children need to be praised for every little thing they do. It sets a really bad precedent - we are breeding a need for constant reward which isn't realistic. Secondly, my son doesn't give a piss about stickers. He's not impressed by them and it won't mean jack diddly squat to him. Thirdly this type of BS brainwashing creates a huge dilemma for parents that don't parent along these lines. And I'm not about to raise a child that can't handle being told that they are wrong, that they are not perfect, that they are not suited to their every dream. My child will know that we ALL have failings and limitations and there's NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Kudos to you for standing up for what is right. I just love it when kids are working and then they ask me for some type of reward-less homework, a "free" day, or a food/pop day. I reply in a rather incredulous manner- "You are doing what you are supposed to be doing!." :rolleyes:
 
Renee said:
First off, I don't think children need to be praised for every little thing they do. It sets a really bad precedent - we are breeding a need for constant reward which isn't realistic.

I've seen the consequences of that when they leave school. They are a real pain at work. They still think you've got to praise them for doing their job - even when they don't do it properly -, and won't do anything that they consider boring.
 
Halo said:
Yes. I'm in the UK and it's just as bad here. Most days in the paper you read about some children's pastime being banned because it's too dangerous for the little darlings - conkers is the example that springs to mind first. (For our non-British readers, I'd better explain that conkers involves taking the fruit of the horse-chestnut tree, sometimes cooking them in the oven to make them super hard, suspending them from a string and then having matches with a mate where you try to smash each other's conker - last conker remaining wins!)

YAY CONKERS! You can also coat them with vinigar... but that would be cheating :D

BTW, my 100er will beat your 10er :p

When I think back to my childhood (and no, I'm not thinking that far back, thank you :p ), our free time was spent playing round and about: exploring the jungle (OK, the shrubberies around our estate), scavenging for the materials and then making dens, swinging on rope swings, cycling without a safety helmet (though I think these are a good idea), climbing trees, camping out in our back gardens, whizzing down the icy road on old plastic sacks, attempting to make go-karts and hiking to nearby villages without an adult in tow. (Suddenly realises how much of a tomboy I was - :eek: ).
Did all the above! :D

This is hard to explain: We had this high raises secton of ground and then stairs would lead down to a lower level that had a car park. There was a very tall lamp post. The drop must have been about phew a good 20ft. We used to jump from the wall out into the open air and catch the lamp post to slide down!

Now, children are scared to even play in their gardens - I spoke to one 8 year old girl who wouldn't play in her front garden in case a bad man came for her. All very sad. :( Kids today have nowhere near as much freedom as I had, in the same way that I suppose I didn't have as much freedom as my parents did when they were young. Are there really more paedophiles around? Or is it just that we hear about it a lot more, when in the past it was probably hushed up.

I think it's simply the media. They live on fear mongering because that's what sells news. Paedophiles are the newest craze they have latched onto. Sure they isn't more than their used to be. It is very sad that there is so much fear now.
 
I am 22 years old and was raised mostly by my grandparents, my father was an alcoholic and my mother was working to pay the bills. So I was brought up in what would be concidered an oldworld kind of way. So i am a firm believer of discipline and concequences for your actions.
I have a 7 year old brother who just started the first grade, and my mother and father have chosen to reward him for going to school everyday withoutgiving them a problem, and I have a huge problem with that. His first week of school he called me (I do not live at home) to see if i could watch him so he did not have to go to school. Boy did I lose it. I asked him why he didn't want to go to school and he replied, its not fun and i don't no how to do some of the things. I told him it's not supposed to be fun, its school you go there to learn those things that you don't know. You do not have a choice you have to go. And he got angry at me. My mother and father don't help the situation, my dad is never there to help and my mother is to tired to argue so he 7 years old runs the house.
So i agree that children are running the house, they are children and do not have much of a say.
I may have gone way offtopic here, but it makes me mad how people are not supposed to spank or yell at their children if they do something wrong. Personally i was told that i would get spanked with a wooden spoon if i didnt do what i was suppoest to or if i was not behaving. I tured out fine.
Back to the discipline and stop giving rewards for things that are supposed to be done.
 
dangerous doings

I'm holding back a bit, because some of the things I did were actually stupid and dangerous! Like walking along the top course of a partly laid cinder block foundation with a fall of probably ten to twelve feet to the hard concrete floor below. But that was safe, because the blocks were, what, 8 inches wide! Safe, at least, compared to walking about 20 feet along the top 2x4 of a wooden picket fence, without thinking about the consequences of losing balance and coming down on the pickets. The clear 6 foot fall might have been OK compared to straddling the pickets. /winces/
Why parents get gray!
But of course they never knew.

And I made it, long long ago, way before seat belts and crash helmets, and when steel monkey bars and swings were still in playgrounds above hard concrete pavements.

The last of the breed :D
But not necessarily recommended :(
Peder
 
There were swings in the playground at my school. And steel monkey bars. And the slide from one of those 'towers' was apparently 'dangerous' - quite a few children have sprained hands and/or fingers - something I never did there, but did at excess when playing volleyball in gym-class. BAN VOLLEYBALL!!!!

I've climbed trees and I've fallen down. It hurt but I got back up. BAN TREES!!!!

I've fallen down stairs and hit my head pretty hard - I don't remember a bit of it because I was 3 or 4 I think - it did scare the living daylihgt out of my dad. BAN STAIRS!!!!!

I've run with a shovel in my hand when I was a kid - got it tangled up in my legs and WHAMMO! My poor poor knees were very bloody. BAN SHOVELS!!!! AND BAN RUNNING WHILE WE'RE AT IT!!!!!

I've managed to fall off a sleigh in winter and scrape all the skin on my chin off. BAN SLEIGHS!!!!! BAN SNOW TOO!!!!!

Summing up here I think it'd be safer if we just BAN BEING OUTSIDE!!!!!

And when I'm trying to teach the kids to play the recorder - they don't know the difference between left and right hand. Moving one finger at a time is dreadfully hard for them. Adjusting their finger to cover all the little holes in the instrument is close to impossible for some of them. And if they do manage to place their hands and fingers correctly they don't actually have enough strength in said fingers to close the holes...

I think children should be forced to climb more trees. Because not only are we raising our kids to never take any risks, we're also raising them to never do any form of physical exertion - why pray tell do people think obesity is becoming a continuous larger (hehe) problem? Because we teach our kids that it's okay to sit indoors and stare at the tv all day.

Lastly. I got hurt a lot when I was a kid - I must have been a bit of klutz, but those things never left any lasting damage. What did leave lasting damage was the fact that I liked to read and learn new things and thus became an outsider to be bullied in school.

Thus I say. BAN BOOKS!!!!! BAN LEARNING!!!! BAN KNOWLEDGE!!!!!

Uhhhhh I'm not in the right place for that, you say? Uhm okay, I'll just be over here... looking inconspicuous...

*slinks away in anonymity*
 
When my kids misbehave, we head out to the old car and after a short drive, they are ready to behave again.


th_speed.jpg



:D :D :D
 
LOL-I know, I posted it too small-you can't really see the police rader sign that shows the speed as being "99" in a 55 zone.
 
Peder said:
And I made it, long long ago, way before seat belts and crash helmets, and when steel monkey bars and swings were still in playgrounds above hard concrete pavements.

The last of the breed :D
But not necessarily recommended :(
Peder

Never thought about it, Peder, but my elementary school playground was asphalt. We had steel monkey bars and all that, too. The playground in the projects where we lived was gravel!

Now all you see is sawdust or wood chips.

I guess that's better, but I have always thought a few nicks and bruises built character.
 
Leckert,
Hmm, maybe I exaggerated in my recollection and it was asphalt, instead of concrete, but it was hard enough anyway. I agree that nicks and bruises oughtn't be pampered and shouldn't be much to be concerned about. I think it is more the broken teeth and bones that concern parents. And the lawsuits that concern the schools and playgrounds.

I remember a child with a broken front tooth once at a child care center during a NY World's Fair. He was smiling and perfectly happy, and he was attended by one very worried looking child-care attendant. The image flashed through my mind of the heart attack that the parents were going to have when they came back and caught their first look of their previously undamaged child. :eek:
Not good, not good. :D
So I guess I sympathize with the schools nowadays. At least where I am, they can't fight the parents, and I don't imagine they have any desire to.

Peder
 
Do you islanders remember a time when teachers could put kids up against lockers? Over on this side of the Atlantic pond, there use to be a time in which that happened. Now if you so much as frown, it requires a union lawyer and a due process hearing. :rolleyes:
 
Somehow this seems appropriate:

fouryork.jpg

Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"
[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]

The Players:
Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;

The Scene:
Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!
 
Peder said:
I like it, I like it! Got any more?!
Not that I can think of on this subject.

The Four Yorkshireman sketch is well known from the live shows of Monthy Pyton's Flying Circus but was actually written for one of it's predecesors At Last the 1948 Show

If that kind of sketch hits the nail with your sence of humour then it might be worth while exploring some of the influences on Python. Perhaps not the most oft quoted one Spike Milligan as his was a more sureal/absurdist humour; but you might like Peter Cook who was one of the main players in Beyond the Fringe ; a great collection of his work is Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook
 
Kenny,
You can bet your bippy I am going to look them up! Somehow the whole Monty Python thing eluded me :eek: -- and many other things as well. I must have been nose down at homework or lab reports for school or something, but there is a period of my life that seems to be missing, from other indications as well. :confused:
And, no, I am not a drinking man. :D
Many thanks,
Peder
 
ROFL! Thanks for that, Kenny! It reminds me of the old groaner "I used to have to walk three miles to school in snow up to my shoulders".
 
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