Thoughts on tablets, tv, etc for children...

At 33, I thank God I grew up when phones were attached to the wall, TVs had news and sports and we played in the woods from sunup to sundown.

I miss those days. Maybe I’ll move my family to some upstate county that is a couple decades behind the times. :)

Just being nostalgic...
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
My youngest was shocked when we were studying modern history and found out that back in the old days, TVs didn’t have remotes.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
My youngest was shocked when we were studying modern history and found out that back in the old days, TVs didn’t have remotes.


LOL! This past Sunday our church did "Earth Day" and the minister, during the children's moment, was talking about littering. She was telling a story about her getting upset with a friend who was going to throw a pop can out of her car and made a remark about "What can you do with your empty cans and cups?" Of course, the kids said, "Put it in the cup holder." Their faces, when she explained that her 1980-something Bonneville didn't have cup holders - were priceless. They couldn't comprehend a vehicle NOT having cup holders.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
Yes!
I told my daughter about those, too.
It was so fun looking up things like that from the 70s and 80s.
We consider that to be modern times, yet daughter looked at that stuff like it was ancient history.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
Just looking up the evolution of TVs with my daughter was fun.

Remember when they were in huge cabinets?

Or the gargantuan ones right before flat screens?
 

Triedntrue

Well-Known Member
When I am frustrated with you know who I will say to my husband time for a remote cabin in the woods. No phone, no radio, no computer and a tv only if it is not traceable like a smart tv. I would at least like to have one to escape to once in a while. Beside a lake would be nice. Of course location not disclosed to kids.
 

Triedntrue

Well-Known Member
My older generation didn't have that "green thing"
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By Dennis Byrne, June 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
This is circulating on the Internet. Pretty much expresses my sentiments about the young folks who scold us old folks about not being environmentally conscious enough ("having that green thing"). I don't know who wrote it or I would have credited it. If you do know who wrote it, please let me know at [email protected] so I can give him or her proper credit.

Being Green
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future
generations."She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in our day.Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.
So they really were recycled.But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person...

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off...especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced know it all who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
The thing is not all young people are clueless and we were young once and had to learn. We babyboomers had our drugs, free sex without protection, bad students (me for one) and plenty to learn. And a few of us were known to think we knew more than our grandparents who thought we were a doomed generation.

Every older generation bashes the younger one yet we survive. I like most younger people.

Looking back I can't see how we were better. All generations have new advances that the older generation isn't used to and judges as inferior. And all young people need time to mature. I personally love when anything is made easier and faster.
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
I remember it all.

Even if I had the power to change the era I grew up in, I wouldn't change a thing. Love, love, love the era I grew up in!

  • Wall telephones
  • Cigarettes (when nearly everyone smoked)
  • Clotheslines
  • Freedom to run and play everywhere as kids
  • Good old-fashioned home-time, where families still gathered at mealtime, unlike today.
  • Good old-fashioned punishment/discipline. Sure none of us liked getting a spanking, but in many regards, I think a good old-fashioned proper spanking directed the younger generation better, than many of the namby-pamby ways of today.
  • Cloth diapers. Boy, do I remember! I was changing them in the 60's!
  • Play toys that lasted! Good old-fashioned metal toys! And few needed batteries.
  • The best darned pedal cars ever! Working lights, horns, realistic sounding engines... we rode in style!
  • Tupperware Parties! Who else remembers those? I remember, because while my mom was out for the evening at someone else's house mingling and having fun with other women sharing the same interests (homemaking), I was at home babysitting!
  • Vacuum cleaner salesman! LOL! How they used to drop-by the house, dump a pile of dust and things on moms clean carpets, then suck it up again to show how much suction their vacuums had!
  • When everyone knew everyone. Boy, has that ever changed, huh?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
It wasn't home like that for everyone, old hand. Our area was too big to know everyone, even at school. 900 kids in one class in high school. I didn't know half of them. I was warned not to go far from home and did not get to wander around. I have no loving memory of wall phones until we at least got call waiting, if you remember that. We actually had two phone lines with separate numbers but my sister and I were always on the phones and so nobody could ever get through lol. My Dad would try to get through and even though he had two separate lines for the house they would both be busy lol.

Not everyone ate meals together. We never did. I was glad. I didnt like mymfsmily and didnt want to eat with them. My mom was a horrible lazy cook. We ate when we wanted, where we wanted, sometimes in front of TV at different times.

No spankings. Not everyone in the U.S. got spanked. Most of my friends didn't. It was an upper class area. Parents were "enlightened" and not old school for the most part. My mom was awful to me, but she didn't hit me. Teachers didn't hit us. Parents would have gone ballistic if a teacher had spanked a child.

I remember Tupperware parties later on, probably more in your time, but I wasn't one to go. I did attend a few that my bestie begged me to attend. I do remember door to door salesman and actually tried to do such a job with some vacuum company, but was too embarrassed to go door to door lol. I couldn't do it.

I don't know where you lived. I lived in an upper middle class to wealthy suburb right near Chicago and it was nothing like your memories. In fact many families had maids. WE even had one who came, I think, one day a week. Her name was Myrtle, one of the first black people I ever knew! My neighborhood was headed by doctors, lawyers and CEOs and stay at home mother's who sometimes had nannies. Why, if they stayed home, I don't know. Sometimes the parents would travel though and leave the kids with nannies. Women wore mink stoles (I love animals...would never....). Cars were the elite ones, except for us, of course. Now we weren't poor. My dad was a Pharmacist. But we were definitely not rich. Not like most we lived near.

If your home life sucked, your childhood did too. I find no comfort in the older days. I like it better now. I am loved now, hated then. That made everything associated with those days part of the horror show.

Also, regarding that kids have it bad now, all of my kids have good jobs and all except Sonic own a house. It is a lot of competition, but this generation can and does succeed. I think the good old days is different for all depending on the year of your childhood, the place where you lived it, the size and culture of the town/city, the family you were raised in and many other factors that contribute to all of us having different experiences. The culture of my town was heavily influenced by Jewish values, extremely high academic achievement, liberal politics and for me a lazy, abusive mother who was unfortunately my biggest influence. I got bullied at school and called poor. I got beaten up. Nobody stepped up. Bullying was allowed. I hated school before high school and couldn't wait to leave it.

Young people are more accepting of differences now. I don't think I would have had as hard a time today. I was a different type of kid.

Old Hand, I am in a small City now with a more country culture and it is far more like your memories of old than my earlier days were. I think there is something warm and fuzzy in a smaller, smaller place where you DO know so many people! I don't care when you live there...it is always a comfort to me at least to be like a big family in a small place. A big city is very different. To me it is very cold. The suburb I grew up in was very monetarily snobby. I couldn't wait to leave it. I have never been materialistic. Not even as a kid in a materialistic suburb.

You do bring up such interesting issues to discuss, OH. I hope I am not offending you. I don't mean to. I just feel icky when I think about the good old days. They weren't good for me. I am happy NOW. I am so glad you had such good times before and bet you still have plenty of fun! You seem like a gal who can have a good time!! I admire that! I admire YOU!. Have a wonderful night :)
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
It wasn't home like that for everyone, old hand. Our area was too big to know everyone, even at school. 900 kids in one class in high school. I didn't know half of them. I was warned not to go far from home and did not get to wander around. I have no love of cloth diapers or wall phones u til we at least got call waiting, if you remember that. We actually had two phone lines with separate numbers but my sister and I were always on the phone and so nobody could ever get through lol.

Not everyone ate meals together. We never did. I was glad. My mom was a horrible lazy cook. We ate when we wanted, where we wanted, sometimes in front of TV.

No spankings. Not everyone in the U.S. got spanked. Most of my friends didn't. It was an upper class area. Parents were "enlightened" and not old school for the most part. My mom was awful to me, but she didn't hit me. Teachers didn't.

I remember Tupperware parties later on, probably more in your time, but I wasn't one to go. I remember door to door salesman and actually tried a job with some vacuum place but was too embarrassed to go door to door lol.

I don't know ow where you lived. I lived in an upper class to wealthy suburb right near Chicago and it was nothing like your memories. In fact many families had maids. We even had one who came I think one day a week. Her na.e was Myrtle, one of the first black people I ever knew! My neighborhood was headed by doctor's, lawyers and CEOs and stay at home mother's who sometimes had nannies. Why, if they stayed home, I don't know.

If your home life sucked, your childhood did too. I find no comfort in the older days. I like it better now.

Also all of my kids have jobs and all except Sonic own a house. It is a lot of cometition, but this generation can and does succeed. I think the good old days is different for all depending on the year of your childhood, the place you lived, the size and culture of the town/city, the family you were raised in and many other factors that contribute to all of us having different experiences. The culture of my town was skewed by Judaism, extremely high academic achievement, liberal politics and a lazy, abusive mother who was unfortunately my biggest influence. I got bullied at school and called poor. I got beaten up.

Young people are more accepting of differences now. I don't think I would have had as hard a time today.

Old Hand, I am in a small City now with a more country culture and it is far more like your memories of old than my earlier days were. I think there is something warm and fuzzy in a smaller, smaller place where you DO know so many people! I don't care when you live there...it is always a comfort to me at least to be like a big family in a small place. A big city is very different.

You do bring up such interesting issues to discuss. I hope I am not offending you. I don't mean to. I just feel icky when I think about the good old days. They weren't good for me. I am happy NOW. I am so glad you had such good times before and bet you still have plenty of fun! You seem like a gal who can have a good time!! I admire that!
Awww... you never have to worry about offending me, SOT. We aren't all alike, that's a fact, and if we were, this world would be an awfully boring place.

When I was growing up (my single digits), we still had a party-line! ROFLOL! Who all remembers those? Then it went to a private-line in our house, but we had a party-line for years.

In our neighbourhood come 4:40 - 5 o-clock, us kids would disperse back to our own homes for supper. I swear suppertime was the only time the neighbourhood went quiet. Everyone (as in all of my friends) sat down at the table as one with their families over supper.

P.S. Do want to make it clear that I also have no love for cloth diapers, but being able to diaper my kids the old-fashioned way was important to me, so good old-fashioned cloth didies it was in our house. Got that from changing baby siblings cloth diapers. :)
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Oh, you sounded like you lived in a lovely place for kids! Perfect and friendly and fun!

Our neighborhood was pretty quiet. Not like yours at all that I remember. Some of our neighbors were crabby too! Our next door neighbors were so crabby that my brother was scared of them and hid in the house when they came out...lol. Man, they weren't even nice to their own kids.
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Oh, you sounded like you lived in a lovely place for kids! Perfect and friendly and fun!

Our neighborhood was pretty quiet. Not like yours at all that I remember. Some of our neighbors were crabby too! Our next door neighbors were so crabby that my brother was scared of them and hid in the house when they came out...lol. Man, they weren't even nice to their own kids.
We really were so very lucky. Everyone's yard was our yard, so hide & seek, cowboys & Indians, and anything else we took part in playing was open to partaking in no matter who's yard it was, even people that didn't have kids. Can you imagine the fuss people would make over such today?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Old Hand, it sounds immensely fun. And frankly I think people would have made a fuss in my old neighborhood back then. But I would have loved it. I had a wild imagination and loved acting out make believe.

My next door neighbors from the day would have passed out....nobody played in their yard! And we had to ask first before joining other kids in anyone's back yard. It was a boring place.

You were very blessed.
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Old Hand, it sounds immensely fun. And frankly I think people would have made a fuss in my old neighborhood back then. But I would have loved it. I had a wild imagination and loved acting out make believe.

My next door neighbors from the day would have passed out....nobody played in their yard! And we had to ask first before joining other kids in anyone's back yard. It was a boring place.

You were very blessed.
I agree wholeheartedly. :)

I think it's the kind of freedom that all young and growing children deserve to enjoy and experience.
 

Crayola13

Well-Known Member
My son and I think TV and the XBox are delpressde. I definitely think people can learn things by watching TV, and hand and eye coordinate are greatly improved with cimpucom games. It just seems if my son sounds more than thirty minutes in that stuff, he has a meltdown. He prefers to swim, hang with friends, and volunteer at the animal shelter. He is stronger and tougher than me. Sometimes I have to go outside and have a break when we volunteer at the animal shelter. He likes to be busy--nonstop, as ooml as has someone to turn to when it gets to be too much. Volunteering at the animal shelter is heartbreaking at times, even through he loves it. We adopted two little black kittens last year, but we agreed in advance, that is it. I also had him volunteering at the battered women's shelter. I explained to him that it would be good for him to see how some women have to live. My son is naturally curious, and has started expressing interest in becoming an investigative journalist or reporter on various social issues such as these. It seems like when he has a project to focus on, he is hapoh because it gets his creative juices flowing. We've taught him empathy and compassion from preschool age, and I can see that when he talks to these women at the shelter, he is so mature, kind, and concious of their feelings, trying to phrase questions in such a careful way so not to embarrass them or talk down to them. I wouldn't have been able to do that at his age. He helps them make their beds and tries to connect them with services they need, ehiwh they usually turn away. He plays ball with their kids. It's not that my son is cimplcompl mature. Remember a few months ago when he was doing jumping stunts in the stairs? His shoes weren't conplcomplon, so he fell out if one of his shoes and went to the ER with a broken ankle. But, I'll tell you, he is much more mature than I was at that age. I would have been screaming my head off and lashing out at everybody, demanding they wait on me hand and foot. He handled the fracture so well like it never happened. I don't have that high of a pain tolerance. The point ImI trying to make is that occupying the mind will help a lot of problems. The problems won't vanish, but a person has to have something fun to focus in.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I find these conversations fascinating.

I'm a person who always has wondered about other people; what it's like in their houses, what they do all day, what they feel, what they think...I've always wished I could crawl inside other people's heads and see thru their eyes for a few days.

I think the good old days is different for all depending on the year of your childhood, the place where you lived it, the size and culture of the town/city, the family you were raised in and many other factors that contribute to all of us having different experiences.

I think that's exactly correct. It's pretty clear that my life growing up was more like OH's than SWOT's. Not just because we're the same age and clearly we didn't live in the same neighborhoods - I was a farm kid. But, the warmth and love and safe feelings she talks about - those are my feelings when I think back on my childhood.

Every child should have those feelings. I'm sorry you didn't SWOT - but you know what? You made sure your kids do! That makes you an excellent person in my book!

I think there is something warm and fuzzy in a smaller, smaller place where you DO know so many people! I don't care when you live there...

I think that's probably true too. I grew up 5 miles from the closest town and IT only had 300 people. I was 8 miles from the next closest and it had 3,500 or so. Now I live in the capitol - but it has only got 43,000 - so by most standards, still small town.

Old Hand - What size town did YOU grow up in?

We're worse about knowing our neighbors than we should be. Part is that Jabber and I are kind of homebodies. Most of the families around us have kids now and are younger than we are. They socialize more with each other. In fact, the one neighbor we do socialize with - they have a big firepit and every little bit invite a bunch of folks over and we eat and drink and their kids run and play. Those neighbors know the whole block!

When I was growing up (my single digits), we still had a party-line! ROFLOL! Who all remembers those?

Yes, we had one too! I still remember our ring was two longs. LOL! We had to learn party line etiquette. If you pick up and someone's talking, you hang up quietly. If it's an emergency - like call the fire department emergency - then it was acceptable to interrupt and tell the people talking what was happening so they'd hang up and you could make the call.

Everyone's yard was our yard, so hide & seek, cowboys & Indians, and anything else we took part in playing was open to partaking in no matter who's yard it was, even people that didn't have kids.

See, that's my neighborhood now. Sadly, it wasn't when my son was young. It could have been...but there weren't really any other kids his age! Now there have been a lot of young families move in and those girls (mostly) run all over! In fact, we have a little girls who have made our large honeysuckle tree into their "house" because it had branches that overhang and it forks near the ground so they can climb easily. It's pretty funny to look out and see all these kids in what's basically a large shrub. LOL!

I think there's hope for these kids yet. :)
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
Oh, yeah, I remember party lines!

And you only had to call the last four digits of the phone number.

My older relatives lived in the same house that they were in when phone lines went in. They have the exact same phone numbers, minus th last digit (or the last two digits).
Example:
555-1111
555-1112
555-1113

I remember once we were all visiting my grandmother (when I was an adult) and my called a relative. She accidentally called the wrong one, as she knows their phone numbers by heart.

My sister and I laughed till we cried when where her say, “Oh, sorrry, Uncle Joe. I meant to call Aunt Mimi”. I mean, how often can someone call a wrong number and get another relative?
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Miss KT had a TV in her room, hooked up to a VCR, so I didn't have to watch Disney movies ad nauseum. She got a phone in 7th grade, broke/lost/trashed a few of them, but I'd told her I would replace ONE. She had to figure out how to replace the others.
 

Triedntrue

Well-Known Member
I loved visiting my grandparents on the farm. Grandmother insisted i know how to milk a cow by hand. We were the first one of my cousins to move to the city i have thought about moving back some day but probably won't hubby is a city boy at heart. I don't even remember if they had a tv probably no reception if they did.
 
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