Are the kids today weenies?

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Saturday, June 20. 2015

Are the kids today weenies?

...are being turned into weenies: The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did As Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today

Who is to blame for this? Weenie Dads? Tort lawyers? Government? Mom-headed households? Truth is, when I was ten I would disappear all day on bikes with friends, exploring woods, swimming illegally in reservoirs, building forts (snowball fights in winter, rock and stick wars in summer), shooting BB guns, fishing, sailing a Sailfish, playing vacant-lot baseball, shooting hoops on the asphalt-covered schoolyard, enjoying occasional fistfights, stealing candy from the candy shop, smoking cigarettes stolen from parents, teasing girls (mainly the ones we liked). Home by dark of course. That was the rule.

Normal stuff. The wife says I turned out fine.

If your kid doesn't come home dirty and bruised, with a mouth full of lies and the occasional broken bone, it's a shame. But I guess the boys play video games all day now and rot their brains.

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 13:44 | Comments (18) | Trackback (1)

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Thoughts On A Sunday
It was a busy day at The Manse yesterday, pushing to get some of the never ending yard work done knowing Sunday was going to be rainy. Even BeezleBub had to put in extra time at work Saturday, trying...

Weblog: Weekend Pundit
Tracked: Jun 21, 20:57

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Mom used to pretty much throw us out of the house in the morning (when school was out anyway) and you needed an excuse (like blood still flowing) to get back in if it wasn't meal time. Check in and then stay where they could see you once the street lights came on. The only time moms got concerned was when it was quiet. They'd report to one another up and down the neighborhood: "Yeah, I can hear 'em, their down the RR tracks by the farm."

Created games constantly. Just about lived on our bicycles. Could turn most anything into a go-cart or a weapon in minutes.

#1 Knucklehead (Link) on 2015-06-20 13:59 (Reply)

Exactly! My friends and I practically lived in the "woods" during the warm season, especially during the summer or on weekends during the school year. As soon as the street lights came on, we had to come home. We did all kinds of crazy stuff! It was lots of fun!

I watched TV only during the winter (when it was too cold to play outside) and I didn't like it much. TV was a poor substitute for playing outside.

#1.1 Abelard Lindsey on 2015-06-20 22:02 (Reply)

Yeah, but a wife is supposed to say that -just as we say that whatever the clothing is, it makes her look thinner. :)

#2 ron snyder on 2015-06-20 15:43 (Reply)

bottle rocket wars, M-80s, BB guns vs. pigeons, doorbell ditch, lo-ball poker, bashing jack-o-lanterns, TPing houses.

Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, which was about kids, was terrible at showing what kids were actually like.

#3 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-06-20 15:53 (Reply)

Yeah! That's about right.

I remember we rolled some old abandoned tires off the "bluff" once (that was the cliff overlooking the wooded area we used to call the "woods") and nearly hit an oncoming car.

#3.1 Abelard Lindsey on 2015-06-20 22:05 (Reply)

Some years ago I was back looking at my old boyhood haunts. There was one community building that had about 15 steps that led down from an entrance to ground level. The ground was a slab of concrete.

We used to play "paratrooper" i.e., jumping off one after another from the sides of the top step.

Just looking up at those steps again as an adult I was speechless; how we survived that with no major injuries I'll never know.

#4 JJM on 2015-06-20 17:19 (Reply)

"If your kid doesn't come home dirty and bruised, with a mouth full of lies and the occasional broken bone, it's a shame."

My Mom still says: "I had to bathe 4 kids to find one of my own."

We had a ball didn't we?

#5 Tonypete on 2015-06-20 17:39 (Reply)

Survivor bias. Visit a head-injured rehab facility someday.

#6 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-06-20 18:33 (Reply)

I have. Lie in a hospital bed for three months with SEA soldiers coming back with every injury imaginable. Including head wounds AVI.

Live life in a bubble? Not good IMO. Gotta go with the percentages.

Don't brush your teeth daily -go visit a dentist office try to repair irreparable teeth.

#6.1 ron snyder on 2015-06-20 21:07 (Reply)

Fair enough, but I'm not saying bubble. I did dangerous things as a boy, and facing real danger and mastering your fear is a useful part of growing up. But stuff circulates on the internet all the time that suggests that ridiculous risk with catastrophic consequences for children is no different from the everyday risks of life. I drove drunk many weekend nights when I was 17, or was in there with a driver who was. Great laughs, lots of fun, childhood memories, same as all this other stuff. The percentages aren't so good, there.

I also think that the expectation of risk in war is different - or similarly, the risks we run in an emergency because we must.

#6.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-06-20 22:57 (Reply)

Maybe, But the Darwin effect has its purposes.

People have more of a chance getting seriously hurt, falling in a shower or bathtub or off a short ladder. Paint buckets are more fatal than lakes to small children and rehab hospitals are full of people who fell asleep at the wheel of an automobile. Kids doing kid stuff? Not so much.

Why miss all the fun and adventure because you're afraid? Or more truthfully, because your mommy is afraid for you?

#6.2 Earl T on 2015-06-21 10:48 (Reply)

Judge Jeanine Pirro vs. Ann Coulter Debate Is Hillary Clinton Is Stupid

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/06/judge-jeanine-pirro-vs-ann-coulter.html

#7 Steve on 2015-06-20 21:46 (Reply)

Yeah, a big part of growing up was learning how to fix your own messes, because otherwise your parents would find out.

But as a kid who worked for me in the early '90s observed, the Baby Boomers grew up to make everything they did illegal for their kids to do. And that's true, they did.

#8 JK Brown on 2015-06-21 00:09 (Reply)

Before I die I want just one more time to see a motley collection of young boys (and a girl or two) climbing through rancher's fence to wreak havoc out there among the hay fields, streams, woods, stacks of hay, etc. Throwing cow pies, climbing to high places, and falling or jumping off.

Barrister--would like to have your thoughts on this comparison: the whole world knows well the terrible damage done to the human being held in solitary confinement. Yet, we prefer that our children sit alone in isolated bedrooms. True, they do receive some stimulus from an mechanical interactive device, but how far apart are these two events in terms of the psychological impact on the individual. I cannot help but feel that children sitting alone in their rooms for hours after arriving home from school has at least some of the same effect as total solitary confinement.

#9 Apple Pie on 2015-06-21 01:09 (Reply)

The comic strip, 'For Better or for Worse' ended years ago but is being rerun. A strip republished the other day (likely from the early 80s) is relevant to this thread.

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/fb/2015/06/19/

#10 feeblemind on 2015-06-21 09:33 (Reply)

Did about every dumb and fun thing a kid could do through age 11 including a huge gash in my thigh from a newly sharpened pocket knife. It all ended at age 12 with summers filled with farm hand work. "You're a big kid, pick the goddamned thing up." (The "goddamned thing(s) were 100 pound bales.)

#11 Sven Svenson on 2015-06-21 09:50 (Reply)

Not just boys - when I was a kid I would spend all day every day outside in the summertime doing the above-described activities. Us neighborhood kids would run in a pack, occasionally breaking into smaller groups and then re-assembling for group games of sardine or kickball. We also used to all use a zip line that was in one family's backyard. The only thing that was off-limits was playing in the backyards of people who didn't have children - otherwise, pretty much everything else was fair game.

Nowadays, however, my 12-year-old stepdaughter prefers to lay on the sofa (or her bed) and surf the net and correspond on social media with people using her school-issued MacBook.

To be honest, she is a sweet kid deep down but her social skills could really use some help...I worry about the lack of empathy that I see sometimes.

#12 JM01 on 2015-06-21 11:05 (Reply)

5 Things We Should All Remember This Father's Day, a Cracked article.

#13 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-06-21 19:06 (Reply)

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Saturday, June 20. 2015

Are the kids today weenies?