That's a huge difference (no pun intended). I am constantly amazed at the number of genuinely enormous kids I see. It's really sad. Nobody I know looked like that in the 80s except for that fat kid in Goonies.
The flip side of that is that I knew a lot of girls in the 90s with eating disorders. But is that any less healthy, really, than celebrating your fatness like today?
I see so many obese children where I live, it's heartbreaking. Half of our population of approx. 2000 is Native American (we're intertwined with reservation land). The kids from the rez are battling Eel River Athabaskin fat genes as it is, they are programed to put on weight, but on top of that - let's face it, their diets suck. Junk food, every day. And like almost all kids these days, not enough exercise in the great outdoors. The many Hispanic kids we've got here are mostly in terrible shape, too. Healthy food but OMG the sugar. They are endlessly indulged - I see moms giving two year olds sodas and ice cream every single day. The older kids do the same. The whole demographic is getting sent down the path to diabetes, as are the native kids. The white hippy kids do better in general, their moms resist the pleas for sugar and pour on the kale. The rancher (read that "redneck") kids are rarely fat; they are expected to work hard starting quite young. Sorry if this sounds "racist", but it's just the way it is. This is a great place for doing studies, and we've had 'em.
That's all the toxins in their diets plus the empty calories. Metabolic Syndrome at birth. Coming from the fat, sick, toxic parents raised on poison instead of nutritious food.
Glyphosate loaded chips instead of vegetables and sodas instead of milk or water, (the only two choices I EVER had as a kid!) and toxic shots are literally wiping out generations on American kids.
WTFU.
Give over everything other than Paleo, or high quality vegetarian plus some eggs and fish. Eat the food God intended you to, not some experiment ala mad scientists and Bill Gates.
We are already in food hell in the U.S.
Watch "Where To Invade Next," and look at what French kids eat in school compared to American kids.
We are starving our children by feeding them garbage instead of real food, and, .....
DRUGS DO NOT REPLACE FOOD. But that's where our poor kids are today in the U.S.A.
Absolutely true. Lamb as well is a very healthy meat. But, I confess, I am too much of an animal lover to eat those with big brown eyes, lol, or those poor creatures who have endured feed lots and slaughter houses...
Chickens in coops as well. Watch "Kiss the Ground" if you haven't already. Plants and animals need each other and feed each other and us, if we don't break the system Mother Nature created.
Less meat, sure, but healthy meat for certain! Better for them and for us. 💚❤
It sounds good, but I can only imagine how much my property taxes would have to increase in order to pay for French-style school lunches here in Houston. Hell, I'd like to eat French-style lunches!!
I'm 100% with you on the tax issue; we are horrifically overtaxed, here in the US with 90% going to unproductive pig trough style handouts to government largess "consumers!" In my own opinion.
However, quality food is, perhaps, the most basic requirement for a healthy, intelligent and mentally stable population.
Our children are simultaneously being starved of nutrients and absolutely bathed in, injected with, and fed toxins.
This is a nightmare for our nation.
In France food is high quality, in many cases locally produced, with the same sustainable farm techniques used for generations, and prepared fresh. Natural herbs and spices are made use of which are both medicinal and nutrients dense.
The local food, slow food, CSA, organic, etc., food movements need to get into our schools and start feeding these kids something other than toxic pig slop!
France gets it right in that department. Watch the Documentary. It's mind blowing, as is "Kiss The Ground."
America can feed itself and feed itself well, if we'd just stop listening to lies, damned lies, and "government" propaganda!!
In my class in 50s & 60s, there were children whose only hot meal of the day was school dinner (free for them), for some it was their only meal of the day.
Which would you rather have, overfed or underfed kids? Ask a mother in Africa.
These kids aren't fat because they are over fed. They are far because of toxic empty calories in bags full of processed poisons starving them of neccessary nutrients while feeding them with empty calories. Obesity is Metabolic Syndrome. Our "fat" population fared so poorly with Covid because Obesity is a disease, not an abundance of nutrients.
Thin metabolically fit populations had virtually no Covid deaths compared to our sick, fat, and half dead American poor.
Back then Coke, et al, where made with cane sugar not high fructose corn syrup, which your body metabolizes differently and greatly contributes to diabetes and obesity. Where I live in San Diego we can easily get Mexican Coke (no, not *that* kind) which is still made with sugar. Not exactly a health food, though it does taste better than the domestic version.
Oh, and we drank 10 or 12 oz. glass bottles of Coke growing up (or out of cans with pull tabs which came complete off). Today 32 oz. is considered "one serving", drank from a plastic bottle laden with BPA, phthalates, and other toxins. That's OK though, Big Pharm has a pill for that.
Yet somehow we managed to play outside unsupervised for hours without wearing helmets, knee pads, and face masks.
We had buses, but just short routes in my small town. Free for students. But I still rode my bike to school every day. I rode my bike EVERYWHERE. Never locked it unless I was going to the mall.
Didn't get a "free" bus pass until college. Wasn't really free: the university tacked it onto our fees so we didn't have choice. By then I had a car. I have been infected with gasoline fumes since I was 10 and built my first car from salvaged parts at 14.
I made the mistake of giving my son a car (well, small truck) when he was 17. He wrecked it in less than a month. So we got another carcass from the junkyard and he spent the next month taking good parts of the two trucks and making one that ran and drove. It was a critical turning point in his life, learning how to spin a wrench and get things done so he didn't need to ride the bus. Redeemed myself too ;-).
Ha! My first solo chemical explosion happened at grade 11: nitric acid decomposing in ethanol inside a separators funnel. I released more nitrogen oxides than all Dutch farmers could ever do, and my hand got yellow stained for weeks. Suddenly I miss the 80s...
There are those that do. Some of us only learn that way :-). My father and I didn't see eye to eye back then much of the time, but I was blessed that he understood learning by trial, error, fire, the occasional blown fuse and minor explosion. And blessed too that my mom understood, even if she didn't have the "take it apart to see how it works" gene, that I did and it was essential to my being. Still is! It helps to find a soul mate who gets it, too. She doesn't share all my passions (addictions) but enjoys the result: she always has a car to drive and my tour schedule gets me out of the house enough she can stand me (for 35 years)!
This will sound made up. My parents made me start taking the bus to school because there were cobras on several occasions on the shortcut from our apartment to primary school.
Yep...but watch out for Gardner. He got hooked up for wearing a gorilla mask and robbing an ATM with a sledgehammer. On the plus side, we had a pretty good night out on the proceeds. 👍🤓👍
😂 Girls I think a little more subtle we could fit our hands into the cigarette machine to grab a pack or two. Wasn't easy but worked well enough when we had no change.
I caught a copperhead when I was 6 and it bit the hell out of my arm. My parents got so mad at me for bringing it in the house that I was too scared to tell them I got bit. Lol. I was lucky because it never used any venom on me and I never got sick, but damn were we dumb.
Fun fact: I was in 7th grade in metro-Atlanta. I found a coral snake (yes I know the difference) on my way home from school. Took my Dad back to show him, and he said, "They ain't supposed to be around here."
Yep, Saturday morning was for Cartoons. That was the best. We had 13 channels, but only 8 on the dial actually worked, the rest were static. Then we got cable and had 30 channels, and some pay channels we didn't subscribe to. You could almost make out what was happening since you could hear it. Once in a while you could see something between the squiggly lines on the screen.
I remember. What I could not handle is the cobra guys having their helicopters and airplanes shot down, with everyone safely escaping via parachute. No one died. They "nerfed" combat.
The same goes for the live action "The A-team." On one episode a helicopter crashes into the face of a cliff, and all occupants survive.
And the fully automatic weapons where no one is killed, even by accident.
Heh, late Gen Xers, they're so soft! Like early millennials. Proto-millenials.
I lived in Hawaii and had to walk up the worst hill to go home, like 45 degree incline for an hour (at least it felt that way). We were the second to last house at the top of the hill. It went past the golf course and one day I ran into the guy who played Mr. Miyagi, he was playing golf and I yelled “MR MIYAGI!!!” He smiled and waved. The funny thing is, in Hawaii at the time, he was more famous for the bank of Hawaii commercials than the Karate Kid. Always remember those days.
At around that age my parents went on business trips for a week at a time leaving my two brothers and I alone in the house. With neighbours and phone numbers that were never required. We loved the adventure and always cleaned up as well as we could before they returned.
All the time. My father was in AA, but kept a bar for guests, and my brothers carefully diluted/watered all stocks back to appropriate levels as part of the cleanup. We also managed to eat, sleep and get to school.
On a recent trip back home, my husband went to make himself a drink and found that dad‘s liquor was still watered down from the boys high school escapades! 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Oh yeah, it was always easier when it was clear booze, but that didn't stop us.
What's funny is I basically drink wine now...and a cocktail now and then.
But the craziest thing is I was never a gin drinker until Covid started. I started it during the 15 days to slow spread and haven't had another type of cocktail since then. Just gin and tonics with fresh made lime juice.
I was put on a train alone by my parents to travel 250 miles to my aunt and uncle and stay there for 2 weeks every year in October, starting at age 6, so that they could go on a vacation on their own.
They did tell the conductor to look after me from time to time, and, honestly, I loved all of it.
I also learned a huge life lesson after one of these trips:
My mother gave me the princely sum of 20 DeutschMarks as pocket money for those 2 weeks.
When I returned without any change, after having spent the rest on fruitgums and a Donald Duck book just before boarding the return train, she gave me a huge dressing down, making it very clear to me that there was no need to spend it all just to have spent it.
Stuck with me immediately and ever since. Bless her and RIP.
I was travelling as an unaccompanied minor between Canada and Germany from the age of six. I got totally spoiled, got to meet the pilots in the cockpit, hang out in the VIP lounge, given airline swag. Those were the days!
I was flying between Israel and France, i wanna say I was 8 the first time. A flight attendant walked me from the gate to the plane, and from the plane to the exit...haha
At 11 (1965) I was riding a New Orleans Public Service bus each day to and from school. If you went to one of the mega large parochial schools you did the same. It took about 1 hour and two transfers… plus a mile or two of walking to and from the bus stops. It was in the midst of desegregation and fights frequently broke out at certain bus stops. If I ran late from basketball practice (or from detention) I would take the more direct, 30 minute shorter, route through the Desire Projects... but not often. No cell phones. I could go anywhere in New Orleans, one way, on 25 cents. Did wonders for my self confidence and potential trouble radar.
By 12? I was on public transport by myself far earlier than that!!! My sister & I were even on a PLANE by ourselves at only 6 & 7 (domestic) then 8 & 9 (international).
I was given the bus fare but I walked the 2 miles each way and used the money to buy sweets or play penny against the wall to hopefully win more money.
Walking! We had to walk everywhere. And it was like 10 times faster to jump the fence to the military base than walk to the front gate, and every time we got caught we got chewed out by the MP’s. We knew the tunnels and sewers and could get under the highway to the Jack N The Box lol.
The post-war "Baby Boom." Yeah, and I agree that generational stereotyping is a little lazy. Kind of like all members of the "Greatest Generation" taking credit for storming the beaches of Normandy (even if they spent those years doing jack squat).
I know where it came from, but still annoys me. I am vintage 1959 (born the same year as Jimmy Page's guitar BTW). People call me "boomer" but I'm not really that generation, I mean, it was 14 years after the ware, right? Neither of my parents were old enough to serve during WWII though my mom was in the guard in FLA around 52-55. All 5' almost of her, there wasn't a man in the unit that would cross her!
people whose greatest achievement is opening the laptop and connecting to zoom meetings. real life, hardship and strife is nonexistent. connoisseurs of tiktok.
He also signed a law banning criticism of the terrorist enclave of Israel and their fifth column in the US. Anyone who tells you there is any more pressing threat to the American people than Israel, the Jewish lobby, and their American goyim Sayanim is either lying to you, or is too ignorant to have an opinion.
I am 60 in October, but I resemble this remark. My Momma would call us in at dark for supper and casually ask, "Well, what did you do today?" Good Times!
the tail end of the baby boom and beginning of GenX is its own generation (stealth generation). There are several things unique to this group, born between 1959 and 1965 -- we were too young to be hippies and Vietnam was our older brothers and sisters. We did not get to take advantage of the benefits of being on the tip of the spear, but kind of got the leftovers.
On the other hand, our generation did not have the draft and by the time the next war rolled around, we were already around 30yo.
One other fun fact is that ours is the ONLY cohort to be able to live our entire reproductive lives with access to birth control and "safe, legal" abortions. Roe v. Wade was before our puberty, and ended after our menopause.
And yes, I was almost kidnapped about 5 times and definitely roamed freely without parent interference or wondering about my whereabouts. I lived by my wits, and my wits and providence saved me on countless occasions. Sometimes I am amazed that I am still standing.
MAJOR work ethic! Growing up, NOT working wasn’t an option. It’s what you did! I had a job throughout hs and worked full time right out of hs. I retired last year after working 40 years straight (1981-2021). And it was a forced retirement. Lol!
Almost but not quite. My son works hard and understands the value of it.
Lost his job during the shutdown as the HVAC company he worked for was forced to close by lord high Newsome. A friend of mine had a couple businesses he was able to reclassify to skirt the shutdown orders, but was having trouble finding people willing to work when they could sit home playing vid games collecting government "free" money instead. He called me and asked "did your kid find a job?" and I said "not a permanent one yet" and he called my son and offered him the job. He told me later he figured no kid of me and my wife's would turn down work, and he was right.
Back in the 90s, our local newspaper ran a feature entitled “Generation Jones,” which talked about the people born at the tail-end of the Baby Boom, although the years were 1957-64. The idea was that this group was more cynical and more practical than their older brothers and sisters, and they were “Jonesing” for being left out of the notoriety of that Boomer generation. We were too young for Woodstock, the Vietnam draft ended in 1975 (my husband actually wanted to register but no longer had to), and had to face gasoline rationing, the energy crisis and double-digit inflation in our teen years.
When I was a 20-year old sophomore at college, I went with an acquaintance, a teaching assistant who was 30, to see the Woodstock movie that was showing in the student union. I was fascinated by it, being a big rock music fan, and the general atmosphere of the event. At one of the intermissions, he turned to me and remarked that he would have liked to have been there, but he was in Vietnam at the time. All at once, our age differences were laid bare in stark relief. I remarked that I was eleven years old, and my world then consisted of family, school and riding my bike around the neighborhood with my friends. Woodstock? What was that? It sure wasn’t on my radar then.
I would say that this generation has been given the short shrift for entirely too long. The screw-ups of some of the Boomers (not all of them, as I know many who turned out to be normal, productive people), can’t be pinned on us.
i agree. we are not "boomers" like the older ones. but i believe the "generation jones" term was from strauss and howe, and came from jesus jones song (right here right now). i remember hippies when i was a kid. some of them were really cool and others were creepy and scary. i was too young to have had any sense of missing out on woodstock. the evening news always began with a daily body count from vietnam and riots, and i thought it was as normal as the weather report.
IIRC Strauss & Howe classify Boomers as 1940-60 (pure demographics be damned, they're looking at generational commonalities and attitudes), and "13th Generation" (their version of Gen X) as 1960-80.
I was born in 1965, and friends of mine born 1961 are a lot more similar to me than people born just a few years before.
But I do remember a bunch of other formative things from my childhood growing up in the MD suburbs of DC.... I don't remember JFK, but I do remember RFK, Martin Luther King Jr, riots, Charles Manson, Vietnam war (on television! and yes, normal like the weather reports), and wearing miniskirts, fishnets and go-go boots. Too young for Beatlemania, but I appreciated all of the 60s/70s music, just through the eyes of a child/teen. I did not fully appreciate what my parents were going through with the inflation crisis and gasoline rationing, as I was not yet driving... and the Iran hostage crisis was at the tail end of my teens. Then came Reagan.
Born in 59, I was 10 when Woodstock happened, and while I wasn't there (living on the opposite coast) I was at several major festivals on the west coast thanks to my mom. My limited sample of humans from this vintage is that we share key values, found success in finding our innate talents and passions, and finding a way to turn that into a practical use that also makes a living. Hard work is the common scale factor ;-). Of course my sample set is biased as it includes only people who share enough in common to put up with me.
I lived alone from 15. Entered College at 16. Drove alone, twice, the summer of 1976 from Florida to upstate New York.
(Gas shortage. No cell phones or apps, lol. Wandered sleepy little backwater towns to find fuel along the way...at 16.)
Did Wilderness Guiding on Horseback in the Adirondacks from 15 on.
Dealt with male aggression, two date rapes, (from "boyfriends" no less,) as well as domineering, controlling behavior from many. Raised a daughter as a single mom, and watched her be severely vaccine injured in the 1990s. Doctors almost killed both of us with their toxic meds, which were much more dangerous to me than the recreational ones common in the 1980s. In fact, even with all the "high risk" behavior in my life, the greatest harms I ever experienced came from Medical Doctors! Go figure.
Grew up with the Kennedy assassination plus MLK, Bobby, and Malcolm X.
Had one brother drafted for Vietnam and 2 up next when it ended.
Listened to Watergate in Highschool and read the Pentagon Papers at 16.
Owned Hotels, bankrupted by Covid lockdowns, that my father built. Was Chair of a Soil and Water Conservation District Board and worked with Federal, State and County Governmental Agencies to move some policies in a positive direction, in my home county, but eventually quit in disgust and moved away.
As long as the people are ignorant the government will be in the hands of the corrupt.
That's the underlying reason for all the mess we are in. The People are not well informed or well educated enough to figure out when they are being lied to!
My survival as a young, unprotected woman depended, over and over again, if I could tell fact from fiction. I learned, I promise you!
This Covid Coup could only be pulled on the ignorant and the gullible.
So sorry to say this, but it's true.
And most "educated" people have decided they cannot think for themselves, but must be told what to do by "experts."
This is the kiss of death because all our "experts" that have the 🎤 are bought and paid for by the enemies of human freedom and human health.
Just look at the results in America!! One in thirty boys are AUTISTIC. Our nation is dying right in front of our faces, and NOT from SARS-COV-2.
Please people, read Kennedy's "LETTER TO LIBERALS!" And,
send to everyone! It's a FREE PDF.
ALL LEGISLATORS. ALL MEDIA. ALL MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS. ALL ACADEMICS.
Or just pick one favorite target and send to him or her!
WE HAVE LOST ALL OUR FREEDOMS, OUR RIGHTS, OUR HEALTH, OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH, THROUGH THE COVID COUP. (Or what we had left after the onslaught of toxins and lies post 1986 and 2001.)
If someone is not awake now, they may be completely hopeless. But, at least 40% know something is very, very wrong, and just need to find the truth tellers.
Kennedy and CHD are BIG ones. As are Mercola, Naomi Wolf, Del Bigtree, Dr. Mike Yeadon. Everyone with the Great Barrington Declaration and the FLCCC.
Epoch Times and the Expose. Whitney Webb and Unlimited Hangout. Jerm Warfare from South Africa, Blaze Media, and the dozens of high quality Substacks and Telegram Channels.
We need to be fully informed, and informing our elected officials, endlessly, until they get it.
Freedom is not easy, nor is it the normal human condition. If you wish to live in it, you will have to create it. There is no other way.
You can consider the entirety of Gen X having access to safe, legal abortions as well. The youngest Gen Xers are in their early 40s. Yes they can get pregnant but they can also drive. The other thing about Gen X is that we generally don't like it when people try to tell us we're a victim.
My mom used rules and food. I remember he telling someone once (when I was an adult with a kid of my own) that "they always found their way home when they got hungry".
We were allowed to stay out until the street lights came on. Unfortunately, I never noticed when that happened. I don't recall getting into serious trouble over that, however. This is late 50's, early 60's.
We would break out chalk and draw 4-Square courts on the street under the lights, then we would play till it cooled down enough to go inside. Almost nobody had air conditioning.
In Australia here we would play cricket until we couldn’t see the ball anymore. If it bounces off the roof you have to catch with one hand for an out. Also kick the can and the person had to stand under the streetlight. We would regularly go “exploring” including in a gigantic aqueduct and would be miles away from our house. If the parents had decided to come look for us they would have had no clue where to find us.
True! We were latch-key kids. We were out all summer and only came home to eat. I walked to and from school from age 6. I survived a 'kidnapping attempt' but my sister would have been taken - she wanted the sweets! Life was good. I feel sorry for today's kids.
True! I was outside all day and one summer a man was driving around showing little kids his “big stick” if you know what I mean. I ran away coz he was weird. Different times.
I grew up in the forties and fifties. Creeps trying to lure kids in my area (North Georgia) were not treated kindly by the local cops. Once someone would report one hanging around a schoolyard, the police would pick him and take him to jail for "questioning". The perp would also have several "accidents" in custody. Then they got put on the next bus and sent somewhere else.
I'm amazed any of us Gen X's took the poison, we know you can't trust those guys, we didn't have a heavy vax schedule growing up, and noone cared if we had the flu or a cold.
I think people forgot about their childhoods...or perhaps many felt neglected in childhood and wanted to cling to something they thought was better (like govt lies ha ha ha).
I was surprised how many of my Gen X patients took the jabs, actually. I thought they'd know better, too, but no, for the most part they're just sad little humans who can't think for themselves.
1. Risk was measured in whether or not an activity could result in a broken leg.
2. Riding our freestyle bikes, dozens of times, from San Diego to San Clemente....on I-5!
3. Played war with pellet guns and built actual prisons for POW's.
4. As I've mentioned before; poured Kool-Aid in Wonder Bread, rolled it in a ball and swallowed in one fell swoop; then chased it with a cold hot dog out of fridge.
5. Syphoning gas from parents when funds were running low.
6. I have 85 stitches in 7 different spots.
7. Played 4 games of baseball with a fractured arm - parents refused to believe it was broke.
8. Duct tapped my younger brother to the kitchen table and left him there all day because he was playing with my Star Wars figures too much.
Okay. #7 is perfect. It took several hours for my mom to finally bring my sister to the hospital after a sledding accident. She insisted my sister was "faking it" when she kept saying it hurt to walk on her leg (we had to pull her home from the sledding hill on one of our sleds). Yep, it was broken (and did I mention my sister was a cancer patient at the time?). Oh, different world back then.
My hubby’s mom made him go to school for three days with a collapsed lung from a baseball. Such a different world. We are definitely not hypochondriacs in our family now and I basically avoid the doctor at all costs, but I do feel a little sorry for these kids looking back.
We used to tie my brother up in the basement (no windows) and leave him there because he was afraid of the dark. He’s tough as they come and a very successful person now! And I take credit :):):)
The kool and and wonder bread thing made me laugh!!! But we never got wonder bread. That was a brand name and too expensive. I’m not complaining! Amazing memories!
This is the exact problem with the Zennials - they were never given the chance to grow into functional humans via free play, unsupervised by Mom. I'm not sure how you grow those networks in the brain past 20 years old, so it's pretty devastating.
Some of us are trying! My (unvaxxed) kids are 13 and 9, don't have phones, are at old-school outdoor sleepaway camps right now, and don't even have bike helmets :) The older one can decently cook. But they are still light years away from where we were as kids. I don't know what else to do--it's their peers. If my kid says "hey, let's go down to the creek or run around in the woods," the neighbors will say "but there's bugs and it's hot. let's go play X Box."
And, hang on to your gut instinct when it comes to technology. My oldest got his phone at age 15. I don’t regret waiting that long. My 13 and 10 year old are already asking for phones. Nope. They’ll be in high school before that happens.
You have to be OK “swimming upstream” and having just about every other family and parent think you’re nuts, but I think it’s worth it.
We've been checking out Gabb phone; it can talk and text but has no social media, apps, or Internet. Of course the 13 yo says she'd rather not even have a phone because it's so dorky, but it's up to her. Gabb phone or bust!
More context: eldest kid started asking for a phone when all of his friends were getting one somewhere around sixth or seventh grade.
He bemoaned the fact that he would be the very last kid in his grade to get a phone. For a year or two, I held out hope that maybe a few other parents would join me in solidarity, but ahe was actually the very last kid to get a phone in his grade. Now, I tell all my other children just to be prepared: you will be the very last kid in your grade to get a phone! Deal with it. Sorry not sorry. When you’re 30, please let me know if you think I made a grave mistake.
It took the 15 year old (2 weeks before 10th grade) a full day or two to figure out everything he needed to know, so he was not as “far behind” as he thought he might be.
I think those extra 3–4 years without technology in his hand allowed him to establish more meaningful ways of being in the world. I want my kids to have as many years as possible to build up a love for being outdoors, reading books with real pages, learning how to talk to people face-to-face, etc. Because once that thing is in their hands, things really do change. I wanted them to have strong memories of what they used to do for fun, release, entertainment, relationship-building before their lives got tech heavy.
We are by no means a perfect family. We have teenagers, a 10 year old, and a toddler. Our marriage has actually improved quite a bit lately because we are “in the fox hole” together. We have to be on the same team or these kiddos are going to take us down, especially the teenagers. 😂
We moved to a smaller mountain town when my two boys were little. Their childhood was much like mine. They spend all day outside. But my god they do have helmets the terrain they ride on their mountain bikes sending it all the way down it’s a life saving device. Some safety measures are just progress full stop. Helmets are in that category.
yes, this is the tough part (the other kids). Even other homeschooling families we know will not let their kids roam. They have to stay in the garden. Mine are allowed to bike around by themselves but they don't want to go *by themselves* because it's boring.
Keep it going, Paula! Sounds great. It took me five kids, but I think I finally learned enough so that the last one has a shot at being an independent and fully launched human being when he leaves our house and we won't still be paying for his cell phone when he graduates college. My husband and I always say that we bought into the lie that the childhood we had (growing up in the 70s and 80s) was somehow deficient or even "neglectful" or "abusive." Wish I could do it all over again with my older kids...
Maybe it's not that everyone over 40 something is a bad@ss, maybe it's that those under that age have been coddled. A friend of mine has a son in his mid 20s that she is still supporting; he is living in her house, and after several years, has found an unpaid job in his field.
Conversely, I have two stepsons in the same age group. Both are working and are self sufficient. The younger is married, has a son and another on the way.
Not ALL young people fit into the categories, just like all baby boomers aren't rabid liberals.
I live 9 house down the street from a tiny park in an increasingly safe neighborhood. My neighbors are afraid to let their kids go there unsupervised. When we get invaded, the US is dead.
This is a major reason I let my hubby move us back to the Netherlands. I could not handle the spastic parenting in the USA. It drove me insane. The kids here have way more autonomy and risk tolerance. The awesome urban planning helps a lot.
It is wild, the kids next door don't ever want to to go outside. They've all been in private school their entire lives and the oldest is about to go away to a huge public university. He is in for a shock.
I’m 67. Middle of boomers. We’ve screwed up a lot of shit. A whole lot of shit. But two things most of us did as kids are gonna come in handy in the future. First, Since schoolyard brawls were an everyday thing, we learned how to fight and a hell of a lot of us can still hold our own. Second, we learned how to circle the wagons as needed. Kind of like the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Oh, and we got kicked out of the house every Saturday morning and told to not reappear until dinner time. And we rode our banana seat high handlebar bikes off steep jump ramps without a helmet in sight.
I think a lot of us are ready to circle the wagons and kick some ass.
Ha ha we used to take turns pulling a kid on my backyard swing about twenty feet off the ground then letting it rip through the bushes and hit the stone wall opposite. Why?!? Shits and giggles. All of the kids on our dead end street fantasized about moving back and raising our kids there. Million dollar homes now.... at lest we have the million dollar memories!
so when they hit the wall, did they push off with their feet????
What this in the US?
Shortly after we moved to the US, (I was 9 and we lived in Germany, my parents are both from Holland) I had some incredible learning experiences, both learning American English, and also play ground fun. I recall so many super dangerous extraordinarily exciting and fun antics on the play ground. Remember Dodge ball? That was rough, and Red Rover!
HI Rosemary! I'm a terrible correspondent--sometimes I can't navigate back to the thread immediately (the app is hit or miss with this) and then I forget about it until I check email on my desktop. But I did want to respond because we are on opposite journeys! I was born and raised in Hawaii where the swing is still in the backyard, but I have been living in Holland for almost half my life now. Gave birth to the kids here, then moved them back to Hawaii for three years. So much had changed in the intervening years I didn't really feel at home anymore. One major issue was a low tolerance for risk among the current crop of American parents. I much prefer the European, and specifically Dutch, approach. No bike helmets, massive amount of autonomy and even plenty of opportunities to learn by failure in the natural playgrounds in every neighborhood. If you still have contacts here, maybe they discuss it too. Most of the time I feel it was the right choice for the kids, though of course if I could give them the same experiences I had as a child I would have done that too. Alas we can never go back in time. I did love Dodge Ball (as does my eldest!) and Crack the Whip was also pretty savage! Fun times. Enjoyed reading your memories. No pushing off the wall, I think that would have caused more injury, but just got shook up real good!
when I was a kid, my parents garage was the place to be. My daddy for some weird reason put old carpeting in the entire garage even though the cars, most times were on top of them. We also had two short book shelves for toys and books and a "record player" it was red and white. When it was really hot, or we were lazy, we would hang around in our garage and drink koolaid
Oh yeah I agree. I loathe it as well. Of course back in the early 70s we didn’t call it that. There was no need. Things going shitty and you needed to talk. There was the RAs room in the dorm Or the local dive. Or both!
I used to be an expert back in the day (I’m 51). Fun fact: I had to go through the motions to get my Canadian drivers license a few years ago and not a single “driving instructor” could drive standard and the “teacher” of the course insisted that automatic transmission is “much safer” these days 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦
My oldest isn't allowed to drive the sports cars until she successfully gets the '05 Jetta manual moving from a dead stop on an incline without stalling or rolling back more than half a car length. :)
The gap in life skills with some young people is mind blowing. It’s not their fault. But what a brilliant time to be alive in terms of comfort but a brutal time to be alive in terms of personal growth.
I had a Renault Dauphine back in the day. A real POS. I had to do that rolling start every morning to get to work. After the initial start, it would start on the starter fine, but would never start like that after it sat overnight.
Oh my gosh, we had one of those back in the 70s in Belgium.
I called it a clown car. My brother and I would go to the grocery shop when ever we could (drink up all of the milk) and one time he stayed in the car and while I was in the store he took the entire steering console apart.
I was kind of pissed and made him put it bk together
My parents hid the extra key in the track of the garage door, so when they were gone and the car wasn't there we had to pile a bunch of random shit high enough to be able to climb up and reach it.
My parents didn't hide an extra key, so if I didn't have mine I had to wait outside until they came home. We had a pool, so if the weather was nice, I would swim until they got back.
we didn't lock our house as it was a safe neighborhood. my sister and i were often there alone. the instructions were to not let anyone in, especially government officials and jehovahs witnesses. we knew the emergency numbers for police and fire (pre- 911), and i still remember the phone number of the lady down the road who we were supposed to call if needed.
just to clarify- the government officials we were warned against were the local tax assessors. we had an ocean view from the second floor, though nobody would know that just by going to the house. my mother didn't want to risk getting a higher tax assessment. as children, we understood this.
I couldn’t cook a full meal by 7, but I could cook. Everything else on that is pretty spot-on, to include the evasion of kidnappers (for reals). Adults stuck together too. If you broke someone’s property, parents chatted about it and paid out for damages. No parent worth their salt ever tried to dodge that shit; and you got a smack too. Also left out was that we dealt with actual racism, like, straight out in the open racism. I was from a mixed family. My dad was very dark but Hispanic and mom is white as can be. And in the 70s, people looked sideways at interracial marriages. I never gave it much thought. Sometimes someone would drop the “N” bomb on me and I’d just laugh. I wasn’t even black. Racists are so stupid. But ya. Yelling the the “N” word at you in public wasn’t common but it happened. We were poor as fuck too. But my mother never went on welfare. She thought it was too corrupting; she didn’t want to pass that on to us. I started working summers in San Fran. My brother and I would get on a bus or train and go from Washington to San Fran, by ourselves when I was 14 (brother was 13). And bud trips that far was...an adventure. Played a lot of “army” and watched a lot of westerns. Carried BB guns around town. Those were days. You learned a lot about yourself and people, back then. I wouldn’t say society was designed to raise capable adults. It was just the way it was. But today it does seem as if society is designed to raise sheeple.
Love this as a rallying cry! I’m between generations (generation MY SO CALLED LIFE) but close enough. For anyone following astrology on this, we know this pluto-in-Leo generation won’t give up power till we wrench it from their cold dead hands. It’s why we have so many mummies still calling the shots, they can’t get off the stage!
I hate these posts about Gen X! I have to read every single comment, saying to myself; "yep", "check. check", "me too", "not me, but most of my friends", etc, etc... Don't you guys know that I have a ton of stuff I'm supposed to be doing right now??? Consider all of your comments "liked". ;-)
He forgot the part about knowing how to take a bus/train by 12….
We didn't have buses or trains where I grew up, we rode bikes everywhere. BMX like in ET.
Hell Yeah! Weren't too many tubby kids back then.
That's a huge difference (no pun intended). I am constantly amazed at the number of genuinely enormous kids I see. It's really sad. Nobody I know looked like that in the 80s except for that fat kid in Goonies.
How many fat kids in a class...maybe one or two. That's all I remember. Now it's just the opposite
high fructose corn syrup, "new coke" etc.
Yes, exactly. High fructose corn syrup and palm oil are the two biggest villains.
I see you beat me to the punch...
The flip side of that is that I knew a lot of girls in the 90s with eating disorders. But is that any less healthy, really, than celebrating your fatness like today?
I hear ya. But I don't remember that in the 70's or 80's. Maybe it just wasn't talked about.
Intermittent fasting is a good thing, but not to the extent some girls took it in the 90's.
I see so many obese children where I live, it's heartbreaking. Half of our population of approx. 2000 is Native American (we're intertwined with reservation land). The kids from the rez are battling Eel River Athabaskin fat genes as it is, they are programed to put on weight, but on top of that - let's face it, their diets suck. Junk food, every day. And like almost all kids these days, not enough exercise in the great outdoors. The many Hispanic kids we've got here are mostly in terrible shape, too. Healthy food but OMG the sugar. They are endlessly indulged - I see moms giving two year olds sodas and ice cream every single day. The older kids do the same. The whole demographic is getting sent down the path to diabetes, as are the native kids. The white hippy kids do better in general, their moms resist the pleas for sugar and pour on the kale. The rancher (read that "redneck") kids are rarely fat; they are expected to work hard starting quite young. Sorry if this sounds "racist", but it's just the way it is. This is a great place for doing studies, and we've had 'em.
And that one kid was actually funny and didn't give a damn about fat acceptance.
Exactly. Had to be they clown. Like the kid in Sandlot
That's all the toxins in their diets plus the empty calories. Metabolic Syndrome at birth. Coming from the fat, sick, toxic parents raised on poison instead of nutritious food.
Glyphosate loaded chips instead of vegetables and sodas instead of milk or water, (the only two choices I EVER had as a kid!) and toxic shots are literally wiping out generations on American kids.
WTFU.
Give over everything other than Paleo, or high quality vegetarian plus some eggs and fish. Eat the food God intended you to, not some experiment ala mad scientists and Bill Gates.
We are already in food hell in the U.S.
Watch "Where To Invade Next," and look at what French kids eat in school compared to American kids.
We are starving our children by feeding them garbage instead of real food, and, .....
DRUGS DO NOT REPLACE FOOD. But that's where our poor kids are today in the U.S.A.
Amen! Grass fed and finished beef too.
Absolutely true. Lamb as well is a very healthy meat. But, I confess, I am too much of an animal lover to eat those with big brown eyes, lol, or those poor creatures who have endured feed lots and slaughter houses...
Chickens in coops as well. Watch "Kiss the Ground" if you haven't already. Plants and animals need each other and feed each other and us, if we don't break the system Mother Nature created.
Less meat, sure, but healthy meat for certain! Better for them and for us. 💚❤
It sounds good, but I can only imagine how much my property taxes would have to increase in order to pay for French-style school lunches here in Houston. Hell, I'd like to eat French-style lunches!!
I'm 100% with you on the tax issue; we are horrifically overtaxed, here in the US with 90% going to unproductive pig trough style handouts to government largess "consumers!" In my own opinion.
However, quality food is, perhaps, the most basic requirement for a healthy, intelligent and mentally stable population.
Our children are simultaneously being starved of nutrients and absolutely bathed in, injected with, and fed toxins.
This is a nightmare for our nation.
In France food is high quality, in many cases locally produced, with the same sustainable farm techniques used for generations, and prepared fresh. Natural herbs and spices are made use of which are both medicinal and nutrients dense.
The local food, slow food, CSA, organic, etc., food movements need to get into our schools and start feeding these kids something other than toxic pig slop!
France gets it right in that department. Watch the Documentary. It's mind blowing, as is "Kiss The Ground."
America can feed itself and feed itself well, if we'd just stop listening to lies, damned lies, and "government" propaganda!!
Yeah. T2 diabetes by teenage years now. Crazy. Food pyramid got ‘em.
Its all the carbs and seed oils and garbage in food these days
In my class in 50s & 60s, there were children whose only hot meal of the day was school dinner (free for them), for some it was their only meal of the day.
Which would you rather have, overfed or underfed kids? Ask a mother in Africa.
These kids aren't fat because they are over fed. They are far because of toxic empty calories in bags full of processed poisons starving them of neccessary nutrients while feeding them with empty calories. Obesity is Metabolic Syndrome. Our "fat" population fared so poorly with Covid because Obesity is a disease, not an abundance of nutrients.
Thin metabolically fit populations had virtually no Covid deaths compared to our sick, fat, and half dead American poor.
💯
Back then Coke, et al, where made with cane sugar not high fructose corn syrup, which your body metabolizes differently and greatly contributes to diabetes and obesity. Where I live in San Diego we can easily get Mexican Coke (no, not *that* kind) which is still made with sugar. Not exactly a health food, though it does taste better than the domestic version.
Oh, and we drank 10 or 12 oz. glass bottles of Coke growing up (or out of cans with pull tabs which came complete off). Today 32 oz. is considered "one serving", drank from a plastic bottle laden with BPA, phthalates, and other toxins. That's OK though, Big Pharm has a pill for that.
Yet somehow we managed to play outside unsupervised for hours without wearing helmets, knee pads, and face masks.
Full disclosure - we did have "toughskins" jeans for the knees. :)
Purchased from a then-still-solvent Sears. Hated them though because they never faded.
(edit: the jeans, not the store)
Someone who says it so much better than I.
https://youtu.be/xIlv17AwgIU?t=121
Here in CA I see so many obese people carrying around a Big Gulp....that's 44 ounces of soda, folks!
Gotta love the Sleestak!
Nice avatar...I think I saw every episode of that weird show...Sid and Marty were smoking some strange stuff.
We had buses, but just short routes in my small town. Free for students. But I still rode my bike to school every day. I rode my bike EVERYWHERE. Never locked it unless I was going to the mall.
Didn't get a "free" bus pass until college. Wasn't really free: the university tacked it onto our fees so we didn't have choice. By then I had a car. I have been infected with gasoline fumes since I was 10 and built my first car from salvaged parts at 14.
I made the mistake of giving my son a car (well, small truck) when he was 17. He wrecked it in less than a month. So we got another carcass from the junkyard and he spent the next month taking good parts of the two trucks and making one that ran and drove. It was a critical turning point in his life, learning how to spin a wrench and get things done so he didn't need to ride the bus. Redeemed myself too ;-).
Ha! My first solo chemical explosion happened at grade 11: nitric acid decomposing in ethanol inside a separators funnel. I released more nitrogen oxides than all Dutch farmers could ever do, and my hand got yellow stained for weeks. Suddenly I miss the 80s...
There are those that do. Some of us only learn that way :-). My father and I didn't see eye to eye back then much of the time, but I was blessed that he understood learning by trial, error, fire, the occasional blown fuse and minor explosion. And blessed too that my mom understood, even if she didn't have the "take it apart to see how it works" gene, that I did and it was essential to my being. Still is! It helps to find a soul mate who gets it, too. She doesn't share all my passions (addictions) but enjoys the result: she always has a car to drive and my tour schedule gets me out of the house enough she can stand me (for 35 years)!
I used to take things apart in order to built a robot. Never quite worked out...
No robot. A bunch of motorized 2-wheelers and eventually a '64 VW.
This will sound made up. My parents made me start taking the bus to school because there were cobras on several occasions on the shortcut from our apartment to primary school.
Shelbys or the little 6 cylinder kind? 😂
This. This is why I come here. LOL
Yep...but watch out for Gardner. He got hooked up for wearing a gorilla mask and robbing an ATM with a sledgehammer. On the plus side, we had a pretty good night out on the proceeds. 👍🤓👍
😂 Girls I think a little more subtle we could fit our hands into the cigarette machine to grab a pack or two. Wasn't easy but worked well enough when we had no change.
Story of my youth - all those girls were a bad influence ;-). That and tequila. But I was able to give up tequila :-).
No kids, stealing is not ok and I do not support AOC and her ilk
Heh, no Mustangs in Singapore in 1980.
https://expatliving.sg/snakes-in-singapore-cobras-pythons-and-many-more-species/
That is awesome! I was a snake collector as a kid. At one time I had 7, including a baby rattlesnake. My dad made me let it go.
I caught a copperhead when I was 6 and it bit the hell out of my arm. My parents got so mad at me for bringing it in the house that I was too scared to tell them I got bit. Lol. I was lucky because it never used any venom on me and I never got sick, but damn were we dumb.
You ain't right, hound
Thanks! 👍
No, no, Cobras, bullies from the local Cobra Kai dojo. XD
My husband used to catch baby coral snakes at the bus stop. He was in 7th grade (he was 11). Coral snakes were everywhere.
Meanwhile I obliviously swam with gators and water moccasins almost every day from 7th grade to college and never got hurt. God protects the fools.
Fun fact: I was in 7th grade in metro-Atlanta. I found a coral snake (yes I know the difference) on my way home from school. Took my Dad back to show him, and he said, "They ain't supposed to be around here."
I remember a boy being bitten by a coral snake in NC as a child….
Was the Baronness with them? That was a terrorist I could really get behind, if you catch my meaning.
Wait, you can be Gen X and have watched GI Joe?
My husband is 44 and can probably recite every episode.
In 1983? Yeah, of course.
Yep, Saturday morning was for Cartoons. That was the best. We had 13 channels, but only 8 on the dial actually worked, the rest were static. Then we got cable and had 30 channels, and some pay channels we didn't subscribe to. You could almost make out what was happening since you could hear it. Once in a while you could see something between the squiggly lines on the screen.
Tuning the UHF dial like a safecracker might work as the perfect shibboleth for Gen-X youths.
You had 8?? We had about 5, and two of those were local TV...so not worth attention. Not like Creature Double Feature or old style WWF wrestling
Or when MTV started up and sat for hours watching it and waiting for another Van Halen video to arrive.
Knowing's half the battle!
I remember. What I could not handle is the cobra guys having their helicopters and airplanes shot down, with everyone safely escaping via parachute. No one died. They "nerfed" combat.
The same goes for the live action "The A-team." On one episode a helicopter crashes into the face of a cliff, and all occupants survive.
And the fully automatic weapons where no one is killed, even by accident.
Heh, late Gen Xers, they're so soft! Like early millennials. Proto-millenials.
(I'm being facetious).
Duuuude, another nice reference. I pictured Cobra Kai bullies.
I had to find a little stick so I could pick up the little baby krait and drop it down the toilet before I could use the bathroom one day. Nyaaaaah!
I hope you had an Okinawan sensei to learn to fight back against those annoying cobras.
Wax on, wax off.
You mean the snakes? 😉😜
My eyes are watering...your comment, the replies....too good!!
Walking to school up hill both ways in the snow...
I lived in Hawaii and had to walk up the worst hill to go home, like 45 degree incline for an hour (at least it felt that way). We were the second to last house at the top of the hill. It went past the golf course and one day I ran into the guy who played Mr. Miyagi, he was playing golf and I yelled “MR MIYAGI!!!” He smiled and waved. The funny thing is, in Hawaii at the time, he was more famous for the bank of Hawaii commercials than the Karate Kid. Always remember those days.
No hills or snow in New Orleans. Only heat & humidity. :-)
At 12 I was flying between the UK and Canada by myself.
At around that age my parents went on business trips for a week at a time leaving my two brothers and I alone in the house. With neighbours and phone numbers that were never required. We loved the adventure and always cleaned up as well as we could before they returned.
I'm sure you never had any "parties"!...;-]
All the time. My father was in AA, but kept a bar for guests, and my brothers carefully diluted/watered all stocks back to appropriate levels as part of the cleanup. We also managed to eat, sleep and get to school.
On a recent trip back home, my husband went to make himself a drink and found that dad‘s liquor was still watered down from the boys high school escapades! 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
lmao. travesty...
Oh yeah, it was always easier when it was clear booze, but that didn't stop us.
What's funny is I basically drink wine now...and a cocktail now and then.
But the craziest thing is I was never a gin drinker until Covid started. I started it during the 15 days to slow spread and haven't had another type of cocktail since then. Just gin and tonics with fresh made lime juice.
Damndest thing.
That may have been your subconscious calling out for the quinine in tonic water and its supposed antiviral effects, plus whatever is in gin as well.
"Better off Dead" movie comes to mind.
I was put on a train alone by my parents to travel 250 miles to my aunt and uncle and stay there for 2 weeks every year in October, starting at age 6, so that they could go on a vacation on their own.
They did tell the conductor to look after me from time to time, and, honestly, I loved all of it.
I also learned a huge life lesson after one of these trips:
My mother gave me the princely sum of 20 DeutschMarks as pocket money for those 2 weeks.
When I returned without any change, after having spent the rest on fruitgums and a Donald Duck book just before boarding the return train, she gave me a huge dressing down, making it very clear to me that there was no need to spend it all just to have spent it.
Stuck with me immediately and ever since. Bless her and RIP.
I was travelling as an unaccompanied minor between Canada and Germany from the age of six. I got totally spoiled, got to meet the pilots in the cockpit, hang out in the VIP lounge, given airline swag. Those were the days!
Ditto! lol
I was flying between Israel and France, i wanna say I was 8 the first time. A flight attendant walked me from the gate to the plane, and from the plane to the exit...haha
♥️
At 11 (1965) I was riding a New Orleans Public Service bus each day to and from school. If you went to one of the mega large parochial schools you did the same. It took about 1 hour and two transfers… plus a mile or two of walking to and from the bus stops. It was in the midst of desegregation and fights frequently broke out at certain bus stops. If I ran late from basketball practice (or from detention) I would take the more direct, 30 minute shorter, route through the Desire Projects... but not often. No cell phones. I could go anywhere in New Orleans, one way, on 25 cents. Did wonders for my self confidence and potential trouble radar.
By 12? I was on public transport by myself far earlier than that!!! My sister & I were even on a PLANE by ourselves at only 6 & 7 (domestic) then 8 & 9 (international).
10 for me, and I was also responsible for my two younger sisters. Didn’t have keys for the house because it was never locked…
I was given the bus fare but I walked the 2 miles each way and used the money to buy sweets or play penny against the wall to hopefully win more money.
:-)
And swimming in whatever water reservoir or irrigation ditch that was around... i e, robust immune system!
Oh shit I remember swimming in a water reservoir full of tadpoles and green algae. What was I thinking.
Walking! We had to walk everywhere. And it was like 10 times faster to jump the fence to the military base than walk to the front gate, and every time we got caught we got chewed out by the MP’s. We knew the tunnels and sewers and could get under the highway to the Jack N The Box lol.
And write a check. I know old fashion
And hunting/fishing/trapping and learning how to prepare/eat those things by age 8.
Every month, my mom gave me a roll of nickels for the bus! I was definitely under 12.
Ron DeSantis is a GenXer. Just sayin’.
Yeah I can't stand this generational division. When did the term 'boomer' come into being?
The post-war "Baby Boom." Yeah, and I agree that generational stereotyping is a little lazy. Kind of like all members of the "Greatest Generation" taking credit for storming the beaches of Normandy (even if they spent those years doing jack squat).
Waddaya mean? They were having sex! Hence the "baby boom!" LOL
😂
I know where it came from, but still annoys me. I am vintage 1959 (born the same year as Jimmy Page's guitar BTW). People call me "boomer" but I'm not really that generation, I mean, it was 14 years after the ware, right? Neither of my parents were old enough to serve during WWII though my mom was in the guard in FLA around 52-55. All 5' almost of her, there wasn't a man in the unit that would cross her!
Boomer became a pejorative term to the Millennials and Zoomers. You could be a anyone and get called a Boomer for saying something unwoke.
Ok i'll bite - what is a "zoomer" ???
people whose greatest achievement is opening the laptop and connecting to zoom meetings. real life, hardship and strife is nonexistent. connoisseurs of tiktok.
When our children decided we weren't worthy of their respect? Boomer so trendy; Baby boomer just descriptive.
I first heard it 2 years ago (alone, without "baby" attached, as in "ok boomer"), and it smacks of a CIA psyop term.
That Brandon, FL stunt he pulled was classic asshole Gen X.
So you're saying it was pretty cool..
He also signed a law banning criticism of the terrorist enclave of Israel and their fifth column in the US. Anyone who tells you there is any more pressing threat to the American people than Israel, the Jewish lobby, and their American goyim Sayanim is either lying to you, or is too ignorant to have an opinion.
I doubt you get much sympathy for your narrow minded anti-Semitism here. The people here are way too smart for you.
Try Buzzfeed. They're more your style.
Yup, say the magic words, and all valid criticism is waved away in one motion. Your handle is quite apropos.
You're right in a sense though, the articles are repetitive and the comment section an echo chamber.
I am 60 in October, but I resemble this remark. My Momma would call us in at dark for supper and casually ask, "Well, what did you do today?" Good Times!
the tail end of the baby boom and beginning of GenX is its own generation (stealth generation). There are several things unique to this group, born between 1959 and 1965 -- we were too young to be hippies and Vietnam was our older brothers and sisters. We did not get to take advantage of the benefits of being on the tip of the spear, but kind of got the leftovers.
On the other hand, our generation did not have the draft and by the time the next war rolled around, we were already around 30yo.
One other fun fact is that ours is the ONLY cohort to be able to live our entire reproductive lives with access to birth control and "safe, legal" abortions. Roe v. Wade was before our puberty, and ended after our menopause.
And yes, I was almost kidnapped about 5 times and definitely roamed freely without parent interference or wondering about my whereabouts. I lived by my wits, and my wits and providence saved me on countless occasions. Sometimes I am amazed that I am still standing.
We are quite formidable.
"There are several things unique to this group, born between 1959 and 1965"
Geez, now I find out I'm Gen-1960's societal special forces... You forgot to mention, most of us have a natural revulsion to anything 'woke' or 'pc'.
I’d say about half of us carry that aversion. The other half seems to embrace it. 🤦🏻♀️
People keep calling me a "boomer" and I always tell them nope, not me.
But then I tend to defy labels anyway. I make up my own and live by simple rules and it's been working OK for 6 decades so far ;-).
Yeah, I don’t do labels, either.
I resemble that remark. I think we are the last generation with a real work ethic, who knows what elbow grease is and how to use it, too.
Work ethic and DIY!
MAJOR work ethic! Growing up, NOT working wasn’t an option. It’s what you did! I had a job throughout hs and worked full time right out of hs. I retired last year after working 40 years straight (1981-2021). And it was a forced retirement. Lol!
Almost but not quite. My son works hard and understands the value of it.
Lost his job during the shutdown as the HVAC company he worked for was forced to close by lord high Newsome. A friend of mine had a couple businesses he was able to reclassify to skirt the shutdown orders, but was having trouble finding people willing to work when they could sit home playing vid games collecting government "free" money instead. He called me and asked "did your kid find a job?" and I said "not a permanent one yet" and he called my son and offered him the job. He told me later he figured no kid of me and my wife's would turn down work, and he was right.
There are a few good ones. Glad you have one in your family. We need all of us.
Yes!!! Latchkey kid at 9. Mom worked after Dad left. Got myself off to school and started dinner for Mom after homework. '65 gen x
Similar story here.
Back in the 90s, our local newspaper ran a feature entitled “Generation Jones,” which talked about the people born at the tail-end of the Baby Boom, although the years were 1957-64. The idea was that this group was more cynical and more practical than their older brothers and sisters, and they were “Jonesing” for being left out of the notoriety of that Boomer generation. We were too young for Woodstock, the Vietnam draft ended in 1975 (my husband actually wanted to register but no longer had to), and had to face gasoline rationing, the energy crisis and double-digit inflation in our teen years.
When I was a 20-year old sophomore at college, I went with an acquaintance, a teaching assistant who was 30, to see the Woodstock movie that was showing in the student union. I was fascinated by it, being a big rock music fan, and the general atmosphere of the event. At one of the intermissions, he turned to me and remarked that he would have liked to have been there, but he was in Vietnam at the time. All at once, our age differences were laid bare in stark relief. I remarked that I was eleven years old, and my world then consisted of family, school and riding my bike around the neighborhood with my friends. Woodstock? What was that? It sure wasn’t on my radar then.
I would say that this generation has been given the short shrift for entirely too long. The screw-ups of some of the Boomers (not all of them, as I know many who turned out to be normal, productive people), can’t be pinned on us.
i agree. we are not "boomers" like the older ones. but i believe the "generation jones" term was from strauss and howe, and came from jesus jones song (right here right now). i remember hippies when i was a kid. some of them were really cool and others were creepy and scary. i was too young to have had any sense of missing out on woodstock. the evening news always began with a daily body count from vietnam and riots, and i thought it was as normal as the weather report.
IIRC Strauss & Howe classify Boomers as 1940-60 (pure demographics be damned, they're looking at generational commonalities and attitudes), and "13th Generation" (their version of Gen X) as 1960-80.
I was born in 1965, and friends of mine born 1961 are a lot more similar to me than people born just a few years before.
my experience has been the same.
But I do remember a bunch of other formative things from my childhood growing up in the MD suburbs of DC.... I don't remember JFK, but I do remember RFK, Martin Luther King Jr, riots, Charles Manson, Vietnam war (on television! and yes, normal like the weather reports), and wearing miniskirts, fishnets and go-go boots. Too young for Beatlemania, but I appreciated all of the 60s/70s music, just through the eyes of a child/teen. I did not fully appreciate what my parents were going through with the inflation crisis and gasoline rationing, as I was not yet driving... and the Iran hostage crisis was at the tail end of my teens. Then came Reagan.
Born in 59, I was 10 when Woodstock happened, and while I wasn't there (living on the opposite coast) I was at several major festivals on the west coast thanks to my mom. My limited sample of humans from this vintage is that we share key values, found success in finding our innate talents and passions, and finding a way to turn that into a practical use that also makes a living. Hard work is the common scale factor ;-). Of course my sample set is biased as it includes only people who share enough in common to put up with me.
I lived alone from 15. Entered College at 16. Drove alone, twice, the summer of 1976 from Florida to upstate New York.
(Gas shortage. No cell phones or apps, lol. Wandered sleepy little backwater towns to find fuel along the way...at 16.)
Did Wilderness Guiding on Horseback in the Adirondacks from 15 on.
Dealt with male aggression, two date rapes, (from "boyfriends" no less,) as well as domineering, controlling behavior from many. Raised a daughter as a single mom, and watched her be severely vaccine injured in the 1990s. Doctors almost killed both of us with their toxic meds, which were much more dangerous to me than the recreational ones common in the 1980s. In fact, even with all the "high risk" behavior in my life, the greatest harms I ever experienced came from Medical Doctors! Go figure.
Grew up with the Kennedy assassination plus MLK, Bobby, and Malcolm X.
Had one brother drafted for Vietnam and 2 up next when it ended.
Listened to Watergate in Highschool and read the Pentagon Papers at 16.
Studied History, Biology, English, Philosophy, Ecology, Psychology & Religion in College.
Homeopathy, TCM and Osteopathy afterwards.
Owned Hotels, bankrupted by Covid lockdowns, that my father built. Was Chair of a Soil and Water Conservation District Board and worked with Federal, State and County Governmental Agencies to move some policies in a positive direction, in my home county, but eventually quit in disgust and moved away.
As long as the people are ignorant the government will be in the hands of the corrupt.
That's the underlying reason for all the mess we are in. The People are not well informed or well educated enough to figure out when they are being lied to!
My survival as a young, unprotected woman depended, over and over again, if I could tell fact from fiction. I learned, I promise you!
This Covid Coup could only be pulled on the ignorant and the gullible.
So sorry to say this, but it's true.
And most "educated" people have decided they cannot think for themselves, but must be told what to do by "experts."
This is the kiss of death because all our "experts" that have the 🎤 are bought and paid for by the enemies of human freedom and human health.
Just look at the results in America!! One in thirty boys are AUTISTIC. Our nation is dying right in front of our faces, and NOT from SARS-COV-2.
Please people, read Kennedy's "LETTER TO LIBERALS!" And,
send to everyone! It's a FREE PDF.
ALL LEGISLATORS. ALL MEDIA. ALL MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS. ALL ACADEMICS.
Or just pick one favorite target and send to him or her!
WE HAVE LOST ALL OUR FREEDOMS, OUR RIGHTS, OUR HEALTH, OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH, THROUGH THE COVID COUP. (Or what we had left after the onslaught of toxins and lies post 1986 and 2001.)
If someone is not awake now, they may be completely hopeless. But, at least 40% know something is very, very wrong, and just need to find the truth tellers.
Kennedy and CHD are BIG ones. As are Mercola, Naomi Wolf, Del Bigtree, Dr. Mike Yeadon. Everyone with the Great Barrington Declaration and the FLCCC.
Epoch Times and the Expose. Whitney Webb and Unlimited Hangout. Jerm Warfare from South Africa, Blaze Media, and the dozens of high quality Substacks and Telegram Channels.
We need to be fully informed, and informing our elected officials, endlessly, until they get it.
Freedom is not easy, nor is it the normal human condition. If you wish to live in it, you will have to create it. There is no other way.
You can consider the entirety of Gen X having access to safe, legal abortions as well. The youngest Gen Xers are in their early 40s. Yes they can get pregnant but they can also drive. The other thing about Gen X is that we generally don't like it when people try to tell us we're a victim.
You are never to young, or too old, to be a hippie :-).
(1959 vintage, grew up on the 60s music and hippie scene)
We got the whistle. Mom still has the loudest whistle I've ever heard.
my mother had a great farm holler
Mine too. 'Bout gave her a heart attack when I popped up from underneath the deck she was standing on.
Sounds like my mum! 😀 !
My mother used a brass bell. So did I.
My mom used rules and food. I remember he telling someone once (when I was an adult with a kid of my own) that "they always found their way home when they got hungry".
It was the truth.
We were allowed to stay out until the street lights came on. Unfortunately, I never noticed when that happened. I don't recall getting into serious trouble over that, however. This is late 50's, early 60's.
never truer words. my wife won't listen to me though!...;]
That is hilarious. That is how mine called us too...😂
My mom used a coach’s whistle to call us in at dark
Yep when the street lights came on it was time to go home
We would break out chalk and draw 4-Square courts on the street under the lights, then we would play till it cooled down enough to go inside. Almost nobody had air conditioning.
In Australia here we would play cricket until we couldn’t see the ball anymore. If it bounces off the roof you have to catch with one hand for an out. Also kick the can and the person had to stand under the streetlight. We would regularly go “exploring” including in a gigantic aqueduct and would be miles away from our house. If the parents had decided to come look for us they would have had no clue where to find us.
My mom would tell us what time to be home for dinner, and if we were late, we didn't eat.
How to teach punctuality to kids!
Probably be hauled up on charges today for letting kids learn that way. And that explains a lot!
True! We were latch-key kids. We were out all summer and only came home to eat. I walked to and from school from age 6. I survived a 'kidnapping attempt' but my sister would have been taken - she wanted the sweets! Life was good. I feel sorry for today's kids.
True! I was outside all day and one summer a man was driving around showing little kids his “big stick” if you know what I mean. I ran away coz he was weird. Different times.
I grew up in the forties and fifties. Creeps trying to lure kids in my area (North Georgia) were not treated kindly by the local cops. Once someone would report one hanging around a schoolyard, the police would pick him and take him to jail for "questioning". The perp would also have several "accidents" in custody. Then they got put on the next bus and sent somewhere else.
I'm amazed any of us Gen X's took the poison, we know you can't trust those guys, we didn't have a heavy vax schedule growing up, and noone cared if we had the flu or a cold.
My neighborhood had mumps and chicken pox parties! I’m 56
I remember when my mother, a nurse, found out that the neighbor kids had chicken pox and sent me over to get chicken pox!
Natural immunity is best by far
I think I had something like 7 or 8 vaxes as a kid. Now there are like 30. It’s crazy.
Try 72 in total. Some are more than one , two or more mixes at a time. Not joking!!
About the same here… & most weren’t at birth.
Yeah, that's something I'll never understand.
I think people forgot about their childhoods...or perhaps many felt neglected in childhood and wanted to cling to something they thought was better (like govt lies ha ha ha).
I was surprised how many of my Gen X patients took the jabs, actually. I thought they'd know better, too, but no, for the most part they're just sad little humans who can't think for themselves.
About ready to turn 52. The good old days:
1. Risk was measured in whether or not an activity could result in a broken leg.
2. Riding our freestyle bikes, dozens of times, from San Diego to San Clemente....on I-5!
3. Played war with pellet guns and built actual prisons for POW's.
4. As I've mentioned before; poured Kool-Aid in Wonder Bread, rolled it in a ball and swallowed in one fell swoop; then chased it with a cold hot dog out of fridge.
5. Syphoning gas from parents when funds were running low.
6. I have 85 stitches in 7 different spots.
7. Played 4 games of baseball with a fractured arm - parents refused to believe it was broke.
8. Duct tapped my younger brother to the kitchen table and left him there all day because he was playing with my Star Wars figures too much.
I could go on...:]
Okay. #7 is perfect. It took several hours for my mom to finally bring my sister to the hospital after a sledding accident. She insisted my sister was "faking it" when she kept saying it hurt to walk on her leg (we had to pull her home from the sledding hill on one of our sleds). Yep, it was broken (and did I mention my sister was a cancer patient at the time?). Oh, different world back then.
My hubby’s mom made him go to school for three days with a collapsed lung from a baseball. Such a different world. We are definitely not hypochondriacs in our family now and I basically avoid the doctor at all costs, but I do feel a little sorry for these kids looking back.
Please go on! I am dying laughing whst you did to your brother!!!
He's better for it.
We used to tie my brother up in the basement (no windows) and leave him there because he was afraid of the dark. He’s tough as they come and a very successful person now! And I take credit :):):)
The kool and and wonder bread thing made me laugh!!! But we never got wonder bread. That was a brand name and too expensive. I’m not complaining! Amazing memories!
I’ve got some weird scars coz nobody ever went to the doctor for cuts and bruises.
Exactly! If it ain't broke..."fix" at home AND with time...;]
Trampolines were somewhat new, unburied/no nets and only a few bruises hitting the ends occasionally.
Playing kick the can all night after which you hear a parental unit yelling out the front door to come home.
Remember how special our parents thought we were whenever we didn’t want to do something? They would say, “What do you think, you’re special?”
This is my nee line. Thanks
This is the exact problem with the Zennials - they were never given the chance to grow into functional humans via free play, unsupervised by Mom. I'm not sure how you grow those networks in the brain past 20 years old, so it's pretty devastating.
Some of us are trying! My (unvaxxed) kids are 13 and 9, don't have phones, are at old-school outdoor sleepaway camps right now, and don't even have bike helmets :) The older one can decently cook. But they are still light years away from where we were as kids. I don't know what else to do--it's their peers. If my kid says "hey, let's go down to the creek or run around in the woods," the neighbors will say "but there's bugs and it's hot. let's go play X Box."
Check out “How to Raise an Adult”.
I’ve bookmarked every page.
And, hang on to your gut instinct when it comes to technology. My oldest got his phone at age 15. I don’t regret waiting that long. My 13 and 10 year old are already asking for phones. Nope. They’ll be in high school before that happens.
You have to be OK “swimming upstream” and having just about every other family and parent think you’re nuts, but I think it’s worth it.
We've been checking out Gabb phone; it can talk and text but has no social media, apps, or Internet. Of course the 13 yo says she'd rather not even have a phone because it's so dorky, but it's up to her. Gabb phone or bust!
Same. My 13 year old says no way to a Gabb phone. 🤷🏻♀️
We did let him use an old Apple Watch SE. There is text capability (& phone calls, though they arent ideal) but not much else.
More context: eldest kid started asking for a phone when all of his friends were getting one somewhere around sixth or seventh grade.
He bemoaned the fact that he would be the very last kid in his grade to get a phone. For a year or two, I held out hope that maybe a few other parents would join me in solidarity, but ahe was actually the very last kid to get a phone in his grade. Now, I tell all my other children just to be prepared: you will be the very last kid in your grade to get a phone! Deal with it. Sorry not sorry. When you’re 30, please let me know if you think I made a grave mistake.
It took the 15 year old (2 weeks before 10th grade) a full day or two to figure out everything he needed to know, so he was not as “far behind” as he thought he might be.
I think those extra 3–4 years without technology in his hand allowed him to establish more meaningful ways of being in the world. I want my kids to have as many years as possible to build up a love for being outdoors, reading books with real pages, learning how to talk to people face-to-face, etc. Because once that thing is in their hands, things really do change. I wanted them to have strong memories of what they used to do for fun, release, entertainment, relationship-building before their lives got tech heavy.
We are by no means a perfect family. We have teenagers, a 10 year old, and a toddler. Our marriage has actually improved quite a bit lately because we are “in the fox hole” together. We have to be on the same team or these kiddos are going to take us down, especially the teenagers. 😂
Safety first culture. That's why the Covid hysteria is sticking in North America.
We moved to a smaller mountain town when my two boys were little. Their childhood was much like mine. They spend all day outside. But my god they do have helmets the terrain they ride on their mountain bikes sending it all the way down it’s a life saving device. Some safety measures are just progress full stop. Helmets are in that category.
True on helmets. However, the mandatory wearing of them to cruise around on the driveway with training wheels feels like overkill.
yes, this is the tough part (the other kids). Even other homeschooling families we know will not let their kids roam. They have to stay in the garden. Mine are allowed to bike around by themselves but they don't want to go *by themselves* because it's boring.
Keep it going, Paula! Sounds great. It took me five kids, but I think I finally learned enough so that the last one has a shot at being an independent and fully launched human being when he leaves our house and we won't still be paying for his cell phone when he graduates college. My husband and I always say that we bought into the lie that the childhood we had (growing up in the 70s and 80s) was somehow deficient or even "neglectful" or "abusive." Wish I could do it all over again with my older kids...
Maybe it's not that everyone over 40 something is a bad@ss, maybe it's that those under that age have been coddled. A friend of mine has a son in his mid 20s that she is still supporting; he is living in her house, and after several years, has found an unpaid job in his field.
Conversely, I have two stepsons in the same age group. Both are working and are self sufficient. The younger is married, has a son and another on the way.
Not ALL young people fit into the categories, just like all baby boomers aren't rabid liberals.
I live 9 house down the street from a tiny park in an increasingly safe neighborhood. My neighbors are afraid to let their kids go there unsupervised. When we get invaded, the US is dead.
This is a major reason I let my hubby move us back to the Netherlands. I could not handle the spastic parenting in the USA. It drove me insane. The kids here have way more autonomy and risk tolerance. The awesome urban planning helps a lot.
It is wild, the kids next door don't ever want to to go outside. They've all been in private school their entire lives and the oldest is about to go away to a huge public university. He is in for a shock.
I’m 67. Middle of boomers. We’ve screwed up a lot of shit. A whole lot of shit. But two things most of us did as kids are gonna come in handy in the future. First, Since schoolyard brawls were an everyday thing, we learned how to fight and a hell of a lot of us can still hold our own. Second, we learned how to circle the wagons as needed. Kind of like the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Oh, and we got kicked out of the house every Saturday morning and told to not reappear until dinner time. And we rode our banana seat high handlebar bikes off steep jump ramps without a helmet in sight.
I think a lot of us are ready to circle the wagons and kick some ass.
"And we rode our banana seat high handlebar bikes off steep jump ramps without a helmet in sight."
I spent a week in bed after doing that about 48 years ago.
and we made our own skate boards out of a piece of wood and roller skates.
And stood on it and went down the hill street.
I am 67 too.
We also road our bikes with no hands
my friends and I regularly rode our bikes down steep grassy hills just for fun, and crash into bushes.
Ha ha we used to take turns pulling a kid on my backyard swing about twenty feet off the ground then letting it rip through the bushes and hit the stone wall opposite. Why?!? Shits and giggles. All of the kids on our dead end street fantasized about moving back and raising our kids there. Million dollar homes now.... at lest we have the million dollar memories!
so when they hit the wall, did they push off with their feet????
What this in the US?
Shortly after we moved to the US, (I was 9 and we lived in Germany, my parents are both from Holland) I had some incredible learning experiences, both learning American English, and also play ground fun. I recall so many super dangerous extraordinarily exciting and fun antics on the play ground. Remember Dodge ball? That was rough, and Red Rover!
It was, for me, surreal
HI Rosemary! I'm a terrible correspondent--sometimes I can't navigate back to the thread immediately (the app is hit or miss with this) and then I forget about it until I check email on my desktop. But I did want to respond because we are on opposite journeys! I was born and raised in Hawaii where the swing is still in the backyard, but I have been living in Holland for almost half my life now. Gave birth to the kids here, then moved them back to Hawaii for three years. So much had changed in the intervening years I didn't really feel at home anymore. One major issue was a low tolerance for risk among the current crop of American parents. I much prefer the European, and specifically Dutch, approach. No bike helmets, massive amount of autonomy and even plenty of opportunities to learn by failure in the natural playgrounds in every neighborhood. If you still have contacts here, maybe they discuss it too. Most of the time I feel it was the right choice for the kids, though of course if I could give them the same experiences I had as a child I would have done that too. Alas we can never go back in time. I did love Dodge Ball (as does my eldest!) and Crack the Whip was also pretty savage! Fun times. Enjoyed reading your memories. No pushing off the wall, I think that would have caused more injury, but just got shook up real good!
LOL. Great memories eh?
Plus we also had ‘safe spaces’ before they were cool. Like the local dive in your college town. Damn we had a lot of fun.
I hate that term 'safe space' - definitely a term that was thought up in some 'how do we enslave those bastards' meeting.
when I was a kid, my parents garage was the place to be. My daddy for some weird reason put old carpeting in the entire garage even though the cars, most times were on top of them. We also had two short book shelves for toys and books and a "record player" it was red and white. When it was really hot, or we were lazy, we would hang around in our garage and drink koolaid
Oh yeah I agree. I loathe it as well. Of course back in the early 70s we didn’t call it that. There was no need. Things going shitty and you needed to talk. There was the RAs room in the dorm Or the local dive. Or both!
also more likely can drive a standard transmission
and shoot you.....
Do you remember how to "bump" start a manual transmission, without cables, going downhill by yourself?
Takes real good timing and you have to leave the driver side door open.
I used to be an expert back in the day (I’m 51). Fun fact: I had to go through the motions to get my Canadian drivers license a few years ago and not a single “driving instructor” could drive standard and the “teacher” of the course insisted that automatic transmission is “much safer” these days 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦
Unbelievable. A stick is the ONLY way to know how to drive safely
My oldest isn't allowed to drive the sports cars until she successfully gets the '05 Jetta manual moving from a dead stop on an incline without stalling or rolling back more than half a car length. :)
The gap in life skills with some young people is mind blowing. It’s not their fault. But what a brilliant time to be alive in terms of comfort but a brutal time to be alive in terms of personal growth.
We used to teach our pledges how to drive a stickshift by making them drive us to go get beer. Hazing AND education.
Hahaha. So true.
I had a Renault Dauphine back in the day. A real POS. I had to do that rolling start every morning to get to work. After the initial start, it would start on the starter fine, but would never start like that after it sat overnight.
Oh my gosh, we had one of those back in the 70s in Belgium.
I called it a clown car. My brother and I would go to the grocery shop when ever we could (drink up all of the milk) and one time he stayed in the car and while I was in the store he took the entire steering console apart.
I was kind of pissed and made him put it bk together
Yeah. Cracking me up
Still have to do that sometimes with my VW!
Love it!
Yes! LOL
Manual trans is now a security device, not a gender type. Lol.
Diving a stick is the only way to drive!
Sprained ankles can be murder as well.
My mom brought surgical needle and sutures when my parents brought their 8 kids camping.
This really isn't that far off from the truth.
I was full-on feral for most of my childhood.
Full-on Feral*
LOLOLOL
Brilliant!!!
I forgot to take my house key with me and had to get the extra one from the neighbor more times than I can count.
My parents hid the extra key in the track of the garage door, so when they were gone and the car wasn't there we had to pile a bunch of random shit high enough to be able to climb up and reach it.
Neighbor looking out the window at you shaking their head - “those kids forgot their key again”. And you thought you were being stealth! 😂
😂
My parents didn't hide an extra key, so if I didn't have mine I had to wait outside until they came home. We had a pool, so if the weather was nice, I would swim until they got back.
Same. I remember going to the bathroom in the woods and sitting on the driveway doing my homework until they came home.
Jim - you didn't figure out how to break into your window...without breaking it?!...:)
I figured out to break into my house.
And cars…
we just "borrowed" them right? lol
we didn't lock our house as it was a safe neighborhood. my sister and i were often there alone. the instructions were to not let anyone in, especially government officials and jehovahs witnesses. we knew the emergency numbers for police and fire (pre- 911), and i still remember the phone number of the lady down the road who we were supposed to call if needed.
just to clarify- the government officials we were warned against were the local tax assessors. we had an ocean view from the second floor, though nobody would know that just by going to the house. my mother didn't want to risk getting a higher tax assessment. as children, we understood this.
We lived in an area where no one locked doors so that wasn't even necessary.
same here.
Mine made a leather string of sorts, put the key on that, and put around our necks. Never lost it.
I couldn’t cook a full meal by 7, but I could cook. Everything else on that is pretty spot-on, to include the evasion of kidnappers (for reals). Adults stuck together too. If you broke someone’s property, parents chatted about it and paid out for damages. No parent worth their salt ever tried to dodge that shit; and you got a smack too. Also left out was that we dealt with actual racism, like, straight out in the open racism. I was from a mixed family. My dad was very dark but Hispanic and mom is white as can be. And in the 70s, people looked sideways at interracial marriages. I never gave it much thought. Sometimes someone would drop the “N” bomb on me and I’d just laugh. I wasn’t even black. Racists are so stupid. But ya. Yelling the the “N” word at you in public wasn’t common but it happened. We were poor as fuck too. But my mother never went on welfare. She thought it was too corrupting; she didn’t want to pass that on to us. I started working summers in San Fran. My brother and I would get on a bus or train and go from Washington to San Fran, by ourselves when I was 14 (brother was 13). And bud trips that far was...an adventure. Played a lot of “army” and watched a lot of westerns. Carried BB guns around town. Those were days. You learned a lot about yourself and people, back then. I wouldn’t say society was designed to raise capable adults. It was just the way it was. But today it does seem as if society is designed to raise sheeple.
Love this as a rallying cry! I’m between generations (generation MY SO CALLED LIFE) but close enough. For anyone following astrology on this, we know this pluto-in-Leo generation won’t give up power till we wrench it from their cold dead hands. It’s why we have so many mummies still calling the shots, they can’t get off the stage!
I hate these posts about Gen X! I have to read every single comment, saying to myself; "yep", "check. check", "me too", "not me, but most of my friends", etc, etc... Don't you guys know that I have a ton of stuff I'm supposed to be doing right now??? Consider all of your comments "liked". ;-)
Yeah man, I got stuff to do! Lol. But it’s nice to know we’re not alone!
🙆♀️ Oh yes!! dittos. Still working 😅 (sort of)