As I sit here listening to my two kids playing in the background, I am taken back to when I was a kid. Born in 1975, I was the epitome of the 80s kid. I played a lot, slept a little, and got up every day to do it all over again.
By biggest problem in life growing up was, "When am I going to be able to go to my friend's house next?" Nowadays kids have a lot more things to worry about. I feel that is society's fault. Oh, I am the last one who thinks we need to lay blame anywhere but ourselves. We have created this problem. I have a saying on my desk at work that says, "I just love the way American parents obey their children." It's true!! Well, it's not true that I love it....the underlying statement that every kid needs to be able to express themselves not matter what the cost is true.
When I was a kid if we turned in a paper and didn't do well, it was spelled out to us in the form of either a huge frowning face, an F, a Try Again, a WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? written at the top next to our name. Okay, well maybe the teacher didn't write WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?, but it sure seemed like it sometimes!! Sure, it sucked. And it was in RED. Not blue, not purple, but red. That's because we all knew that red somehow meant bad. It was am underlying rule in the kid community that if you had a red on top of your paper, it wasn't a good thing!! Now I read that people don't want teachers to use red anymore because it will hurt the kids feelings. BOOHOO! Excuse me while I play the smallest violin in the world. Yeah, it hurts the kids feelings (at least it did mine!). That's the point. Should you feel good that you turned in a paper that wasn't up to par? I don't think so. Here's an idea: why don't you study and write the paper correctly, and then you won't get your feelings hurt when you get a big red whatever on the top. No, kids nowadays are too busy playing Playstation games and computer games to be bothered with school work.
GAMES
That brings me to my next thing. Playstation 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 (okay I am exaggerating on the numbers, but you know that will only be a matter of time!), Game Cube, computer games. Yeah - when I was a kid we had the Atari. Not just the regular Atari - it was the 2600. You were way cool if you had the 2600. We were so excited if our parents got us a game. And it wasn't just any day we'd get a game. We got a game maybe on a birthday or as a Christmas present. We didn't have a game card to save the games to. No! We had to keep playing and if our parents told us that game time was over, we would just have to start all over the next time around. Try to give kids an Atari joystick now! One little orange button and one stick to move your hopelessly lame graphic-devoid guy around the screen. Nowdays they have a controller that has 50 buttons that do all sorts of things! They even have ones that vibrate. If our Atari joystick vibrated that meant you better put it down before you get electrocuted because clearly something is wrong!!!! I felt a little depressed the other day when I saw Atari on Antiques Roadshow. If only I had saved mine!!
MUSIC
I love this email I got a while back that talked about recording songs. Nowadays if a kid wants a song, just go download it onto your Ipod and voila - 300 songs on one little tiny device. Oh no, not us. We had a portable tape player. What's a tape, you ask? My kids wanted to know that. They saw a record and thought it was a huge CD. Yeah. My first full record was Bruce Springsteen. My first 45 was Tears for Fears. And I played that over and over and over again. And it's true what the email stated: if you wanted something taped, you had to sit in front of the radio with your hand on the red record button and the play button and wait. Just wait. All day if you REALLY liked the song. Then it always seemed like the beginning and the ending of the song was always talked over by the DJ.Then you better hope that your tape player doesn't eat the tape. You'll know when that happens. You hear a high pitched Chipmunk sound and then it stops. You shutter to open the tape player because you know you're going to have a mountain of tape all over the place. Then you have to go get another blank tape and you've lost all your songs!! I remember when Tower Records first had some sort of machine in their store that you could pick a playlist and make a tape of all your favorite songs. Wow, I thought. That is sooo cool! Too bad I couldn't afford it at the time! But you better know the songs and the artists to be able to do that. Nowadays you can google any song title and find out right away. Back then you'd have to wait for it to play on the radio and then hurry and call the radio station while it was on to ask what it is because you KNOW they announce every song except for the one you've been waiting for.
CELL PHONES
Why are these a necessity for kids nowadays? I remember when having a beeper meant you were a drug dealer! Now my daughter tells me she HAS to have her cell phone. Please. We had one phone at home. And it had a CORD attached to it. Yes. No cordless. If I wanted to talk on the phone I had to go stand in the pantry to talk. And I did plenty of times! We had no caller id so if the someone tried calling they just got a busy signal. I got in trouble a few times for that one.
CLOTHES
Ah, yes, the clothes. I had the whole thing going on - legwarmers, short Dove shorts, and as time went by, I eventually got MC Hammer pants - Worley Wraps. Remember those? I am ashamed to say I had several pairs and thought I was cool. I would crimp my hair, make it as big as I could, spray up my bangs with Aquanet, and then put on my MC Hammer pants. That's right. I was cool as a cucumber. Does anyone remember the jelly shoes? You'd put them on and at the end of the day you'd take them off and have the outline of the shoe still on your foot. I also had the jelly bracelets - the more the better! Some girls had them go all the way up to their elbow. I could have only been that lucky!!
Well, i could go on and on, but I won't. I will be back tomorrow for more!!
