According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's or even the early 80's, probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking).

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing .

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students actually failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them! Congratulations.

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

...Showing my age again... :lalala

sounds like my mother hehe

That was brilliant Michel and so true....my how the world has changed since then and we have all still managed to survive...lol

LOL, I remember most of life being like that. I grew up in a small town in the 70's.......ahhhh, those were the days

I remember growing up like that. But I still see a lot of that today in the neighborhood. It's not that bad these day's.

LOL, we used to be able to go out all day and not be heard from until dinner. Not now. My kids are out of my site and I get antsy wondering where they are.

I love nostalgic well-done pieces like that. But then I also remember polio and how devastating that was before the vaccine. And how the improvements to contact lenses made life so much easier for teenagers and sports figures who needed to wear glasses. So there is really good and bad in every age when rearing children. Hopefully it all balances out and we grow up relatively well in spite of the obstacles...

Yes Mariclaire, we tend to forget the hardships also. After the Second World War when the UK nearly bankrupted itself from two World Wars in less than twenty years, there was a lot of poverty here and child illnesses that we had no cure for. I saw many of my friends die because of a lack of technology. Child mortality was very high at that time. So it was not all good.

Good Post!