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How Easy Did You Have It As a Kid?

Posted by jmjinks • 6/23/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: funny, humor, humour, kids, satire, spoof

I never worked 18 hour days helping build the railroad when I was ten years old.

I never walked fifty miles to go see a movie that only cost me a nickel.

And my parents never went to a baitshop instead of a pharmacy when I was sick.

I might not have lived the hard life my grandparents did, but my childhood was much tougher than what kids go through now.

extremelyfunny.info/kids-have-it-so-easy-nowadays/

User Comments

6/23/09

Anok

I think each generation of children faces different problems - so even though many kid's lives seem "easier" than our own, or the generation before us, I don't believe that they are. i think that childhood is just as challenging today as it has been in history, but in different ways.

It's much too easy to look at kids and think "Well when I was a kid we didn't have XYZ" and much harder to look at kids and say "Well when I was a kid I never had to deal with XYZ".

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1. 6/23/09
  
  HeadStones
  
  so true
2. 6/23/09
  
  SweetViolet
  
  What are they dealing with today that they didn't have to deal with 20, 30 or ever 40 years ago?
  
  My grandchildren are 19 and 21...their parents (my kids) dealt with drugs, gangs in the school, teen pregnancies, runaways...it wasn't a picnic.
  
  My generation had its own set of perils, including gangs, teen pregnancies, substance abuse, overt racism and sexism, divorced parents, the draft, and we grew up under the shadow of McCarthyism and The Bomb. Many of the things that are issues today were around back then but swept under the rug, making them even more difficult for the kids to deal with...things like child and spousal abuse, for example.
  
  We had to deal with weapons, drugs, alcohol in school (and I went to one of the better suburban schools), we had "rumbles" after school where kids got badly hurt. My senior year was marked by the death of one of my classmates and the assassination of the President.
  
  So, I have to wonder what it is that kids deal with today that is worse than what we dealt with in previous generations.
3. 6/23/09
  
  Anok
  
  Schools with "zero tolerance" polcieis that put their health at risk. Schools that allot a ton of pressure on kids, yet provide very little in terms of eductaions. The pressure of knowing taht they will now need, not a HS diploma, not a college dimploma, but a masters or higher to get a decent paying job after school. Knowing that they will be in debt for the rest of their lives due to the educational requirements.
  
  Extreme violence in schools, to the point where metal detectors and pat downs are required before entering class. Strip searches of teen and pre-teen students. Bomb threats in school, bomb threats made online about schools or other kid-accosiated places. Bombs actually going off in schools, mass murders in schools.
  
  Psycho - stage moms who pressure their children so hard that the kids misbehave, and wind up on a cocktail of medications to keep them in control. Non stage mom kids being legally doped up as well, and at the drop of a hat.
  
  Teenagers being sentenced as adults for committing adult crimes.
  
  Children being preyed upon by molesters, not just in neighborhoods anymore, but online with high tech abilities to track down and kidnap the kids. The high tech ability for teens to harass other kids with words, threats, and even getting their hands on explicit photos and passing them around digitally so that the entire world (not just your teacher) can see - until the kids commit suicide.
  
  Violence caused by children is on the rise, violence in and after schools caused by children in primary schools is on the rise.
  
  Gangs are more prevalant than ever, and no longer keep to their own neighborhoods, and have become 100 times more violent than they were in the 70's - getting better weapons, harder, better drugs, and no longer caring if they kill children in their homes on the street.
  
  Over scheduled, under educated, easier access to drugs than ever before, more prevalance towards violence, pregnancies, and STD's.
  
  you name it - these kids are facing a world where they will not o better than their parents. They will be in debt up to their eyeballs, if they can graduate, and if their schoolmates don't crack under the pressure and walk in with a semi-auto rifle and a couple of pipe bombs and wipe everyone out.
  
  Sorry Charlie, but the drug and gang problems are 100 times worse now than they were when you were a kid, and they are recruiting harder, and younger than ever before. Kids a syoung as 8 years old are now ACTIVE members in gangs. We have primary school kids and middle school up through highschool kids here who regularly "carry" to the local playground where you take your babies to run and play on the slides.
  
  Kids no longer have "rumbles"after school. They have driveby's. The drugs are harder, stronger, and cheaper. The economy is crap, and crime rates are rising while employment opportunities are declining. These kids are expected to accomplish everything we have, and then some - but aren't being given the tools - to the time - to do it.
  
  And those are just some of the problems they face today.
  
  Older kids (18-25 crowd) are going into the military and off to a war - some generations have had to deal with that, others haven't. This one does.
  
  They are facing foreclosures, loss o f jobs, high costs of living, and generally speaking, work their asses off and have nothing to show for it.
  
  Do I need to go on? My 19 year old brother has to move back in with out mother because he can't make it - not even in a single apartment with a 60 hour a week job. Kids are moving back in with mom and dad at older and older ages (and higher rates) because there is nothing for them out there.
4. 6/23/09
  
  Anok
  
  I forgot to add:
  
  Hormones and chemicals being added to their food causing health problems and things such as early onset of puberty. Childhood obesity. A freakish rise in serious food allergies ranging from shellfish to peanuts to glucose, which severely limits their diets and thus, their health.
  
  The rise of possible pandemics such as swine flu, avian flu, west nile virus and lyme disease just from going outside, or eating regular foods.
  
  Need I go on? How about all of the recalls for poisoned foods and toys? How about the ever stricter regulations that they will have to contend with when they are adults? Terrorism on a global scale - they're dealing wit a lot.
  
  Oh, yeah, not to mention higher drop out rates, higher illiteracy rates, and the fact that higher percentages of kids in school either die or drop off the face of the planet to the point where the news regularly covers the newest vigil being held at thus and such school.
6/23/09

calais50

My life has been easy and pretty ideal. I have always been waiting for some terrible event to happen to make up for it all. Morbid thinking, huh?

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1. 6/23/09
  
  Stillthinking
  
  You're lucky. I'm wondering when I get some luck thrown my way.
  
  I had an extremely difficult childhood (poverty, neglect, abuse, eating disorders, depression) and every time I think I am getting my sh*t together as an adult, something comes along and knocks me back down.
  
  I was good at my job. I was really good at my job. I was finally financially independent and feeling positive about my life, then this f-in recession hit and half my firm got laid off. I tried to stay positive and proactive during my unemployment and then my cat gets cancer.
  
  So, be thankful for what you have. Most of us don't have it so easy.
6/23/09

lotusb

Elie Wiesel once said something that has always stood out in my mind...(I paraphrase) he said that each person's tradgedy is seperate. It's in relation to their lives and their ideas. The worst day of my life could be a picnic for someone else and vice versa. I know my childhood was not ideal, but that it contained some blessings as well. No one's tredgedy is more than another's. It's that it feels the same, that is the whole point of it.

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1. 6/23/09
  
  radioflyer1980
  
  Well said. I went through a lot when I was young, but - in general - I look back at my childhood fondly. I know a lot of people who had it worse.
6/23/09

nothingprofound

Very easy. Never wanted much. Never had to do much. Always a lot of freedom. Happiness. Treated very kindly by my parents. Spoiled rotten. Still am. Only now I spoil myself rotten.

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6/23/09

timethief

My childhood was extremely tough. Enough said.

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6/23/09

irtiza104

My childhood was "something special". i'm not going to talk about it though. but i know that my/our childhood could have been much worse. read this post and make the comparison yourself: lifeasiknowit22.blogspot.com/2009/06/little-comparison-part-2.html

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7/12/09

thought

i agree with anok. every childhood had its own set of problems and pleasures.

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