An interesting view on the Nanny state from the USA:
"Raise your hand if you survived a childhood in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that included one or more of the following, frowned-upon activities (raise both hands if you bear a scar proving your daredevil participation in these dare-devilish events):The full article can be read here.
Come on, be honest. Tell us what crazy stuff you did as a child."
- Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids
- Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble
- Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria
- Riding your bike without a helmet
- Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets
- Drinking water from the hose in the yard
- Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* “wild swimming“)
- Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)
- Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)
- Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL
- Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)
- Camping
- Throwing rocks at snakes in the river
- Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians
- Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns
- Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns
- Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school
- Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there actually a freakin’ CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)
- Working for your pocket money well before your teen years
- Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting
- Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode
- Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower
- Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper
- Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover (The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)
- Walking to school alone
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Well: I grew up in Britain in the 1960s and 70s, but I did the British equivalent of all those things (had to ride in the open boot of Dad's Rover 80 as pickup trucks didn't exist). I had a marvellous childhood (I still have my .177 airgun hidden away in my attic - great for shooting at Baked Bean tins). I have never had an urge to go and shoot people who look different to me.
ReplyDeleteLuckily my two boys (who got dragged around the world by my wife and myself) did all of these things; mainly because I always thought they were vital components of childhood.
Any grandchildren I have, unless my children are intelligent enough to move to "sensible" places such as Botswana, will be over-nannied milksops who I probably won't want anything to do with.
Richmond Mathewson.
Oh dear.....Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I too did most of those things so frowned upon today by Nanny.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder I grew up to be happy, sensible, streetwise, risk aware and have lashings and lashings of commonsense. I am glad Nanny was not around to stop me from doing all the aforementioned back then. Had she been, I would have grown up less confident, less able to assess a given situation and, in my opinion, a far weaker character.
My own grandchildren, aged between Eight and Nineteen, are far less confident and happy than I was at their age. They may be very savvy about technology but, none of them have climbed a tree nor swam in a lake or pond......It makes me sad to think they've missed out on "the good stuff" which I enjoyed as a youngster.
The majority of their "friends"(sic) they've never met because they are "friends" on Facebook but, they are all so naive to believe that all of the "celebs" (what a horrible word) are their "bestist buddies" and "talk to them" sadly, they cannot see that most of the contact is to do with merchandising and promoting their brand.
I joke with my grandchildren about the evolution of their species, because they don't appear to be the same species as me, that they will grow very elongated thumbs and index fingers so they can use their i-pads and phones easier.
I would not swop my childhood for theirs for all the tea in China!