1920 - 1983 Babies

[BringTheNoise]

Not sure if this should go here or in Inboxer Rebellion. Just got emailed to me by my Mum. Thought she knew better than that

To Those of You Born 1920 - 1983
At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don't read anything else, please read what he said.


TO ALL 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 after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and w hen we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

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

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

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 ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
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 very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
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!
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 learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run thr ough the house with scissors, doesn't it ?
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us...go ahead and delete this.
For the rest of us...pass this on.

NB: In the original email, the text was about 30 pt and in various sickening colours.

[Avril]

How did people born in 1983 survive the 1970's, exactly?

[Natalie]

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

Yep, obesity was first described in medical literature in 1984. Little known fact. That one president that everyone remembers for being fat actually just wore layer upon layer of clothing.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

BF was born in 1981 and had a Nintendo growing up, as well as cable and a VCR (later DVD player). I was born in 84 so apparently my childhood experiences don't count, but they included both videogames and a VCR.

ETA: I suppose what they really mean is "all the middle class suburban kids" who lived through decade x. I know plenty of people who drink tap water (myself included) and don't have cable, etc.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Avril

How did people born in 1983 survive the 1970's, exactly?

Time travel I guess.

[TripleAAA]

Originally Posted by Avril

How did people born in 1983 survive the 1970's, exactly?

Cause we werent born yet! Automatic immunity!

[snapdragonfly]

Yeah, well. The reason that we regulate such things as lead paint and car safety features and car seats and flame retardant sleepwear is because, in fact, KIDS DID DIE from this sort of thing.

Sounds like the writer of this piece ate some of those lead paint chips and has brain damage to me.

Morons.

And sharing soda bottles in the 50's in fact could kill you. Ever hear of polio? My parents, who where kids in pre polio vaccine days, had schoolmates, every summer, who would get polio. Some didn't die, of course, they only ended up crippled or on iron lungs, but I imagine these plucky kids just were happy anyway like everyone was in the good old days before we got so corrupted with all these horrible INVENTIONS. Yes, in fact, if they survived they were actually lucky. People who grew up in the century before that were REALLY lucky if they survived. Didn't almost a fourth of children or something close to that, die before reaching adulthood back in the Good Ol Days?

[Richard W]

What did happen in 1984 that they made it the cutoff?

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Richard W

What did happen in 1984 that they made it the cutoff?

I'm going to blame George Orwell.

[BringTheNoise]

Now, I've posted it, time to start picking it apart!

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

Woohoo! Infant mortality! Yeah!

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Whoever wrote this does seem to enjoy putting kids into mortal danger.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

The NES was launched in the Western World in 1985, which would put it well into the childhood of someone born in the mid-70s, never mind 1983. The PS1 was released in 1994, meaning someone born in '83 would be 10 or 11 when it was released. CDs have been around since 1982. I could go on, but I think you get my point - a lot of these things could well have been part of the childhood of someone described by this nonsense.

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

Yeah. Big risks taken in the last 50 years. Not like those old sissies with their World War I. What kind of risk was that, eh? Eh? And inventions, too! Who needs cars, or penicillin, or a wheel or fire? Pah!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

DAMN THEM WITH THEIR REGULATIONS AND INCREASED LIFE SPANS! DAAAAAAMN THEM! (And of course no one born from 1920 to 1983 ever became a lawyer or politician). That's why the average age for an MP is 15.

[Mateus]

My mother contracted polio from her cousin; one survived and had kids, one died. A friend of my mother was launched from the back of a pickup truck when it went in a ditch; he died. A school friend of mine was hit by a car whilst riding his bike; he died of head trauma (obviously it's impossible to know whether he would have survived if'n he'd been wearing a helmet).

And I was born in 1978.

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

Originally Posted by Mateus

My mother contracted polio from her cousin; one survived and had kids, one died. A friend of my mother was launched from the back of a pickup truck when it went in a ditch; he died. A school friend of mine was hit by a car whilst riding his bike; he died of head trauma (obviously it's impossible to know whether he would have survived if'n he'd been wearing a helmet).

And I was born in 1978.

But you see? That's the real point of the email. The strong survive. By removing the lead paint, mandating polio vaccines, etc., we've allowed the weak to survive, therefore making the gene pool shallower. We're going to hell in a handbasket because we're not allowing the wolves to pick off the weak calves on the side of the heard.

[A Cat Named Easter]

See, what ya'll are missing is the first line of this garbage:

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE

This is addressed to those who made it out alive. All those others can suck it.

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 very many eyes.

I wonder how many counts as enough to be concerned about?

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by BringTheNoise

And inventions, too! Who needs cars, or penicillin, or a wheel or fire? Pah!

Good point:

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.

Quite a lot of those solved problems, innovations and new ideas are exactly the things the piece is complaining about. How great could the previous conditions really have been if they led to people coming up with all that rubbish, eh? If this Golden Age was as great as claimed, surely no progress or change at all would have occured during that time? Or they'd have come up with ideas to make things even more dangerous!

[Cervus]

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

I didn't, because my mom didn't smoke or drink when she was pregnant with me.

However, I was born in 1981, but I guess I lost my WayBack Machine coming back to the future.

[Artemis]

I was born in 84 and I ate bacon and white bread and real cupcakes. Galore!

[Fantine]

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

I was born in 1976. I ate all of those things periodically as a kid, and was always outside playing, and was still overweight.

Maybe I don't really exist....

[Noctilca]

There were no video games

There were arcades in the 70s (including big games like Space Invaders and Pac Man), not to mention the Atari 2600 home system (which came out in '77). I was born in '81, and I've been around video games my whole life, starting with Atari.

[MariaVerde]

I was born in 1969. I wore a seat belt, rode in a car seat (until about age 4), and NEVER would have been allowed to ride in the back of a pick-up (a friend's dad got one and the two of us asked if we could ride in the back - 4 adults raced to see how quickly they could quash that idea).

SIDS rates plummeted once parents started putting babies to sleep on their backs.

Reye's Syndrome was rare, but had a very high fatality rate (one of my classmates transferred to my school in 6th grade because her best friend had died of Reye's Syndrome the winter before and her parents thought it would be better for her to be in a new school), and could be easily avoided by replacing aspirin with acetaminophin in children.

We had a video game in 1977 (a Fairchild System F - my dad's birthday present) and I got an Atari for my 13th birthday.

Sure, kids didn't automatically make the Little League team - half the population didn't even get a chance to try out, because you know girls don't like sports.

Children (and adults) suffered serious head trauma before bike helmets became standard (I was in college at the time and started wearing one).

My mother drank very lightly (because she's never been much of a drinker) and never smoked - she believes now that one reason for her asthma is because both her parents were chain smokers, and that her mother's smoking is why she was a 4-pound, not-quite-7-month miracle baby (those kids didn't often survive in 1944).

I still drink from the tap. I'd be a bit more suspicious if I had well water rather than municipal water (my dad's uncle was a water quality specialist). I've used a filter pitcher in the past, because I lived in places (Princeton and Richmond) where I didn't like the taste of the water and because I like having very cold water. I use bottled water at the gym and sometimes drink it when I'm out because I don't like soda (carbonation) or pre-mixed iced tea and the like (cloyingly sweet, with an artificial aftertaste).

mrc

[RivkahChaya]

I think that's been posted before, but it's still worth complaining about.

They made carseats in the 1950s. I have seen an actual advertisement for one that hooked over the bench front seat. You couldn't strap it down, because seatbelts were a luxury item at the time. In the ad, the seat was in a convertible. Eek! Don't stop suddenly.

I had a carseat as a toddler, during the Summer of Love, although its stated purposes were to allow me to see out the window, so I wouldn't get bored, and to let my mother have her hands free (yes, "mother," not "parents").

My mother quit smoking several years before I was born. I was born in 1967, and the pesky Surgeon General's report about how smoking can kill you came out well before that, which is when lots of people quit.

And most of the people in my family have never eaten bacon. I've had it, but just a couple of times. I was hardly raised on it. It's that kosher thing.

I guess the writer of the glurge missed that whole hippie and health food thing in the sixties and seventies, because lots of people were vegetarians then. No bacon or butter.

And everyone born since WWII has had the benefit of antibiotics. Oh, and the smallpox vaccine. I think they had that at Valley Forge.

Someone didn't pay much attention in history class.

[vanilla]

I think the most interesting point of this list is that all those kids born between 1920-1983 who survived all the listed items are the same ones that are now raising kids who don't get to do all these "dangerous, government regulated" things. They are the ones deciding what is best for their children and according to this, their own childhood ain't it! That says more to me about how people are becoming more aware of dangers to their children and what they can do to prevent sickness/injuries/death rather than just following a "I survived, they can too!" attitude. Personally, I think I would rather live in Caution World than Why Change It If No One I Personally Know Has Died From It Yet World.