To Those Born 1930 - 1979

I've seen this several times, and it always makes me laugh - so I will share it with you! My goodness - all this and we DID survive!!


We are the kids who survived the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs 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, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking when we got older.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, 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. If we were lucky enough to have a soft drink we shared it with four friends, all drinking from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, 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 and then we'd ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot about the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, in fact - no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no IMing, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms....... We just had our friends and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, occasionally broke bones and no one sued anyone else. Our friends signed our white plaster casts and we were the hero!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We built treehouses and forts with hammers and nails and scrap lumber, not with kits from the mega home center.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays; made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out our eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just called out and walked in! We talked face to face - not on a computer.

If we did something bad at a friend's house, their mom would scold us, and our parents didn't sue them.

We got spanked when we deserved it and had our mouths washed out with soap when we said bad words and no one thought of turning their parents in for abuse.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our teachers were not our babysitters and we were expected to behave. If we got into trouble at school, we were in for more trouble at home.


These generations have 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 are not perfect - but we learned how to deal with most things!

If you were born in these years . . . I salute you! If you were born later - it's ok to let your kids experience freedom, failure, success and responsibility - learning these things first hand is a good thing!