Are Children Any Different Today?

Than they were, say... 50 years ago?

Our instructor asked us that in class tonight. At the end of class he said we could write a one page reaction paper on what we discussed in class tonight. I had been taking notes all through class and already planned on writing a blog about it.

He said what he didn't want us to do was be judgmental and blame the parents. I think that's a large cop-out. Yes, technology and toys kids have these days are much more prominent now than when we were kids, but is that part of the reason?

I remembered during class reading an article a couple summers ago when I was back home about where all the kids were. You can view that Letter to the Editor here.

While trying to find this story, I came across many other letters to the editor about how people were blaming the parents for their children's behavior. Yes, kids will be kids. My parents had told us both that between the two of us, they feel they have dealt with everything. No, Mom, we both could have been a lot worse.

I didn't get into trouble at school because I was too afraid of the second punishment I would receive when I got home. Double jeopardy! Back in the day (before my school days) teachers were allowed to crack a kid on the knuckles with a yardstick. The most they did when I was in elementary school was send you to the principal's office. We had a part time principal who was only there in the afternoons. He was at another school in the mornings. Also, he was so old he knew my parents so whenever I got sent to his office, he was cool. And I mostly got sent to his office in 5th and 6th grade for leaving my History book out in the hallway intentionally so I didn't have to sit through Ms. Dehlinger's class.

But home punishments were worse. Writing sentences and bible verses over and over again: Galations 6:1 Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
I will not lie.
I will not steal.
25 times the first time. Doubled every time I got in trouble. 50. Then 100. then 200. I think I made it to 500 something before it was changed to something else.

Then again, not only was I afraid of the wrath of my parents, I was a scared little kid overall. I was afraid of everything. To the point where I never would be the first one to get out of the car, or the first one to go into the dark house upon getting home.
When we would go to church or up north for a weekend to Park Falls to visit Grandpa and the fam, I always made sure I took something of sentimental value with me so if the house spontaneously combusted while we were away, I wouldn't have lost everything.
I never put pictures or awards on the wall until late in my teen years because I was afraid of losing them to a house fire. I kept all my pictures and things like that in one drawer and thought if the house was on fire, that drawer would get tossed out the window with me.
I was afraid to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom for fear that strange men would be peeking in the windows looking at me.
I hated thunderstorms and if there was even a chance of a storm forecast overnight, I would sleep on the floor in my parents bedroom, gradually moved to the floor outside their bedroom door, then eventually to the couch in the living room right next to their bedroom.
I was afraid to be outside after dark by myself.
I was afraid of the vacuum cleaner because I thought I would be sucked up into it.
We lived right next to the railroad tracks. So close that when trains came by the house would shake like there was an earthquake. It scared our visitors. I was afraid of the trains. If I was outside and heard one coming or the lights came on, I would run into the garage or onto the porch so the train couldn't see me.
Yeah I was a freakish little kid.

But anyways, when we were kids, MOM knew what we were up to before we got home. Can we say the same for nowadays? Have we evolved into the age where neighbors are more your enemy than your neighbors?

I think that depends on your neighborhood. The reason I like living where I do now is because the majority of people are very friendly; the island has that small town feel where anyone can strike up a conversation with anyone and become friends. For the most part. But it's a completely different setting in the inner city, or in rural areas where your closest neighbor is a few miles down the road.

We lived in a very tiny town as kids. We had a bank, post office, auto parts store, elementary school, little store and of course a bar that was connected to the store. Our house was connected to the post office; there was a wall between my parents bedroom and the mail room. We could hear the mail carts being rolled across the floor in the early morning and in the evening if the mail truck hit the cement loading area too hard the entire house would shake. The closest town was about 10 miles away. So most Wednesdays after school I would stay "up town" and go to the library or something and then meet my parents at church at 6. One time on the way home from church, Mom told me that someone had seen me walking on Main St in town with one of my friends and called her, asking if I had permission to be in town! I begged her and begged her to tell me who it was, but she never did.

And we had one lady in town who would walk around every night and talk to everyone.... so when she saw us outside or would come over she would fill us in on the news around town. We had a weekly county newspaper and the closest radio station at that time was 30 miles away. She was our real live "twitter"!

In class we also got into a conversation about vehicles: are they a necessity or a priority? Again, I think it depends on where you live. Where I grew up, yes it was a priority because everything in town (except the school) was locally owned and operated, so the closest work was in town a minimum of 10 miles away or to the city 30 miles or more in any direction. As Ashton Kuchter said in one episode of That 70s Show: "you don't need to die to get to a better place, you just need to drive 30 miles n any direction." The grocery store was 10 miles away. Church and upper level schools were 10 miles away. Decent work was more than 10 miles away. If we missed the school bus once in 7th grade, if you didn't have a car, you didn't go to school that day. The nearest gas station was 10 miles away. For emergencies, the local trucking/farming company would let us use his pump to buy gas, but only if he or his wife were home.

For me now, no a car is not a priority nor a necessity. Yes, it would be nice to have one again, but that's pretty much what influenced my major decision to move back up here to La Crosse from home last summer when my car blew up. Here in La Crosse I could find a job in the city and walk or ride bike or take the bus to school or work. Back home I would have to rely on someone else to get me to work and probably wouldn't have been able to get to school, considering that was 90 miles one way either to La Crosse or Madison....

My parents didn't buy me my first vehicle until I was 23. Their philosophy was "buy a car, then you can get your license." Not only that, it wasn't in the budget at all. On the other hand.... you need money to get a vehicle to get to work to get money to maintain and drive that vehicle!

We didn't have Playstations or cell phones or satellite TV or Internet when I was a kid. We were lucky to get 3 channels on the TV.
Our first microwave didn't even appear in our house until I was 15.
And the first air conditioner wasn't too far behind that.
The first computer around the time I was 14, which had nothing more than DOS and a typing program on it.
We doused each other with Super Soakers and played in the puddles in the rain.
We built tree forts and went black raspberry picking in the woods.
We rode our bikes all over town and went sledding on the hill in our backyard.
We threw rocks at the trains and put pennies on the railroad tracks.
Ideas of fun was shooting aluminum cans off the posts with Dad's wrist rocket, using train turds for ammo.
Mom called us inside by screaming our name from the screen door. Dark was our curfew (that sucked in the winter).
Our parents pushed us outside to play and wouldn't let us sit in the house.
We were allowed to watch an hour of TV after school (usually something on PBS or something like Full House which used to be on at 4) and TGIF on Friday nights, and 2 or 3 hours on Saturday nights.
Ice cream and soda in our house was a treat, once a week to once a month at the most.
Chores were switched off between cleaning the school bus that Dad drove and brought home and doing the dishes after dinner.
We fixed our own bikes and built our own race jumps and obstacle courses.
Our parents met our friends parents before we were allowed to go anywhere with them, and their address and phone numbers were always handy.
Sundays and Wednesday were reserved for church.
Leaving the house without a parent meant telling them where we were going, how long we were going to be gone, when we were going to be back, and who we were going to be with. If they weren't home, it meant leaving a note on the table where they would see it, even if we were just going to the store two doors away.
Any movie rated above PG had to be watched with a parent, if it was even allowed into the house at all. I tell ya, some things rated PG today would have been R back then!

Did a lot of this have to do with where we lived? Yes I think it did. We made our own fun, we didn't need someone to entertain us 24/7. We didn't dare tell my mother we were bored. Her remedy was sending us to scrub the bathroom floor on our hands and knees with a toothbrush. Dad's remedy was trying to get us to stand on our heads and gargle with peanut butter. And hey, I think we turned out OK.

So would things be different for kids today if we didn't have the internet and a TV in every bedroom and a DVR and everyone having a cell phone? I'm not sure. Minus that, I still think we're breeding a generation of laziness because that article I posted earlier is true. Where are all the children?