Reflections on the puddle of life

Occasionally my husband and I get to reminiscing about the good old days, about childhood and the things we experienced which our children will not, like the pop van, and the rag and bone man, the milkman who delivered to your doorstep. Now, there is a generation (almost) between my husband and I and some of the things he remembers I don't (like the coal van!) but in general there are commonalities in our childhoods which our children definitely don't share. Sometimes we wonder what it is that our children will remember which their children don't. Something I guess we'll never know.

One day my husband this posted on the kitchen wall. It's been there ever since as a reminder to us of how much things have changed. I thought I'd share it. It has a particular message to me, perhaps not the one you'd expect. I'd be interested to know what this means to you.

Growing up

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and flourescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags and riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find we forgot the brakes.

After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back home before it got dark.

No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Playstations or X-boxes, no video games at all.

No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVD's, no internet chatrooms.

We had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no law suits.

We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us. We walked to friends homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just around the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7, and wore our coats only by the hood.

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

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.