The behavior of kids today is very strange to me. I also was a kid once, despite what one might think at my age. I almost appear to be a being from another age. But memory doesn’t fail me. Remembering my childhood, I think I would have gone nuts if I were a child in today’s environment. See what you can envision from my childhood.
First, what did I do when school was over at 3PM, that is, after milk and cookies? As a seven year old, I got a microscope as a gift from my uncle. What fun that was. Then when I got a bit older, I had a chemistry set and could spend hours making thing happen. I had an Erector set and could build things. I made model planes that flew with propellers driven by twisted rubber bands.
Those were the self-propelled indoor activities. With friends in bad weather there was Monopoly, Parcheesi, Card games and the radio – yes – the radio. Superman, Jack Armstrong, Terry and the Pirates, Tom Mix, Captain Mignight with his code badge to decipher the messages that were left to us in code.
Outdoors, we played with each other. We had yo-yos, skates, pink balls and broomsticks to play stickball or punchball. That’s how we learned how baseball was played. We played games like hide and seek and ringelivio. Marbles and Potzi on the sidewalk. Skelley with bottle covers. We rode bicycles from one place to another. Some of us built scooters out of peach baskets and roller skates for wheels. When we got older, we went to the park, played softball or basketball. Winters brought sledding on “Dead man’s hill” and ice skating.
But the most significant thing: we were not watched, bothered or interrupted by parents. As long as we were home before dark or for dinner, everything was normal. It was a different world then. Parents were not afraid to leave us alone as long as we did our homework and our report cards were ok or even if not ok in some cases.
The cell phone and internet has changed all that. Kids communicate by phone. Parents are enmeshed in the activities of their children, to the detriment of both. I remember as an 11 year old, going from Brooklyn to Manhattan myself to speech therapy. After which, I would occasioually go to the Gilbert Hall of Science to look at the latest scientific toys and be late getting home on the subway. Yes, I rode the subway myself. Parents panic today if they can’t monitor their kids every move. Although, I can’t blame them because, our world is very different and more dangerous to kids than when I was a kid, or even when my kids were kids.