How Did We Ever Live?

I didn't write this, but it was sent to me in an email.

I cannot deny that as a father today, I am thankful of some of the advances we have made to keep our children safe, but I do admit that at times I am sorry for the parts of childhood that my kids will miss. I just hope it is made up for somewhere else and in a better way.

To all the kids who were born in the 1920's,30's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, and ate tuna mixed with dolphin from a can.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. We would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one can of soft drink with four friends by passing it around. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter. We drank soda pop with sugar it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K..

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

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, or X-boxes. We had no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms; we had friends and we went outside and played with them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and lost teeth and there were no lawsuits. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and played in construction sites. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

From all of our troubles, this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.