I envy and pity them. I envy them because of all the advances in technology that they have grown up with. They have grown up with computerized toys, cel phones, iPods, iPads, and computers at home and school. And, I pity them for the same reasons.
I grew up without any electronic playmates so I had to go looking for live people to interact with in the real world. We had few playthings and had to make up games to go with what we had. We spent most of our free time outside without fear of being kidnapped or being assaulted. The whole town was our playground. Our rollerskates would carry us all over town because there were sidewalks all over town, some better than others. There were trees to climb, a playground at the school, relatives to visit and in the summer wild berries to pick along the roads outside of town. We could play softball on the roads without fear of being hit by cars. There was one man who drove so slow that we would chase his car to see how long we could keep up with it.
We had freedom. We did dumb things. We were physically active and weren't afraid of getting dirty. We went to the doctor to be vaccinated or when we broke a bone. It cost too much to go for every cold or tummy ache.
The kids today don't have the freedom we had. They have so many restrictions to protect them that they have lost the freedom to be kids-make dumb mistakes. They also have dangers surrounding them like abduction, promiscuity and illegal drugs and a cultural that extols them.
I wouldn't trade my childhood for that of my grandchildren. I am not a computer genius and they can whoop me at computer games but that is a small price to pay for the freedoms I have enjoyed.
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