By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… Last week, I turned 84. Yes, 84. Things sure have changed in these 84 years.
I grew up in a home where my father smoked and I was often exposed to second hand smoke.
As infants those of us in our eighties were put to sleep on our stomachs, with our bottles, blankets and stuffed animals in the crib. All are no-no’s today.
Our cribs were painted with lead-based paint. This may explain my lack of intellectual development.
We had no child proof locks on medicine bottles. But if we touched the bottle, our bottoms would experience a pain which would remind us not to ever touch a bottle like that again. Most things in those days were child proofed with a “butt-whacking”, something youngsters of today would never understand. What was once a quick lesson in behavior modification has become child abuse for the snowflake kids we are raising today.
I marvel watching parents explain the ‘unacceptableness’ of bad behavior to two- and three-year-olds. My parents usually explained those things with a: “Just do as you are told or you will receive a “butt-whacking.” That I understood.
When it comes to transportation, the world has changed. I watch young parents as they buckle their children into car seats large enough to be a throne for the King of England. They are covered with so many straps, they look like Hannibal Lecter.
I remember us seven kids along with mom and dad loading into a two door 1949 Chevy. All I could ever see through this mass of humanity were knee caps and armpits.
We didn’t need seatbelts. We were crammed together so tightly no one could move anyway.
The best place to sit was on the shelf between the back seat and the rear window.
If it were only you and dad in the car, you sat on the front bench seat next to him, not in a car seat facing backwards. Yes, kiddies, the front seat!
If you stopped short, dad’s arm shot out in front of you to keep you from bouncing your little noggin off the metal dashboard.
Sometimes dad missed. That may well explain some of the thought processes I possess; or the lack thereof.
Riding in the back of my dad’s pick-up wasn’t a crime; it was a fact of life. There was only room for three in the front and that was reserved for the adults. There were no crew cabs in those days. We not only rode in the truck bed, we sat on the edge.
We now have a State Legislator in California pushing to pass a law that will not allow a car to go more 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. He says it is for safety sake. What if you need more speed to avoid an accident?
Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
In our family, the seven children shared two bikes; first come first serve.
If your friend came by, you hopped on his handle bars and off you went. How many remember catching your heels in the spokes?
A helmet was unheard of. When kids today ride, they wear a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads. The left tackle for the Raiders wears less protection than a child riding a bike.
In California, a parent who allows their child to ride without a helmet, elbow pads, and knee protection can be charged under the same law as a sex offender. We played tackle football without the pads these kids today wear to simply ride a bike.
In the summers when we left home, the only adults we saw for the rest of the day were the ones who yelled “you kids get out of here and quit bothering us.”
Adult supervision was not only not there; it was not wanted. We played baseball, football, and basketball without an adult official. The biggest, oldest, and toughest kids decided who was out and who was safe. In the process, we learned about pecking orders as well as self-defense. We learned to live with pain and disappointment and how to overcome both without feeling sorry for ourselves.
We had green, black walnut fights in the woods behind our house.
We engaged in great dirt clod wars when new houses were built in the neighborhood. We bounced dirt clods, some with rocks in them, off each other’s heads.
We fell out of trees and crashed homemade go-carts. We could always figure out how to make go-carts go. We were not always as good at figuring out how to make them stop.
When we arrived home injured, we worked hard to not let our parents know because then we would have to explain what had happened.
When they found out, they did not sue anybody. But you would probably receive a “butt-whacking” to remind you not to do that again. Usually it reminded me to not let my parents know I was doing that again.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I saw the beginning of the end of this childhood freedom and development when I was thirteen. Little League came to Des Moines, Iowa.
It was the worst thing that ever happened to the development of young people. Suddenly every decision was made by an adult authority. Kids suddenly began to believe that you could not play a sport without a uniform or an adult around. The sandlot gave way to the manicured field.
Tackle football could not be played without hundreds of dollar’s worth of equipment. The pickup game became a thing of the past. It evolved to a point that every child, no matter his/her ability, must be allowed to play.
Nowadays no child is ever told, as my father told me when I complained my older brother wouldn’t let me play, “Get better and then you can play. Now get out of here and stop your crying.”
Uniformed and organized may be prettier, but it sure isn’t better.
Thought for the week….“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”
-George Burns
