This is so freaky. Somebody had the audacity to write about our childhood.
How true and so well articulated.
To the wonderful kids who survived the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s.
First, we survived being born to mothers, some whose husbands smoked and
/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table, and didn’t get
tested for diabetes.
They were mothers who did not check their blood
pressure every few minutes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were covered with
bright coloured lead-based paints.
We were put in prams and sent out with ayahs to meet other children with
ayahs, whilst our parents were busy.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and
when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took
hitchhiking or going out on our own.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags. We sat
on each other’s laps for God’s sake.
Riding in the back of a station wagon on a warm day was always a special
treat.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE
actually died from this.
We would share a dosa; dip a chapatti into someone else’s plate of curry
without batting an eyelid.
We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt
that set our teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with sugar and water
in it.
We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate
everything that was bad for us from mumfalees to bhel puri to bhajias and
samosas, but we weren’t overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the holidays,
we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom all day as long as
we were back when the streetlights came on, or when our parents told us to do
so.
No one was able to reach us all day by mobile phone or
phone. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps
with old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, playing
traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can and rounders, ride
old cycles and then ride 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 swam with an inflated tube which we got from somebody who was replacing
their car tyres.
We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used iodine on
it which made us jump.
We did not wash our hands ten times a day. And we were OK.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all,
no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no
mobile phones, no personal computers, no I-Pods, no internet or internet
chat rooms, no TV, full stop.
We did not have parents who said things like “what would you like for breakfast, lunch or dinner”. We ate what was put in front of us and best of
all, there was never any leftovers. We polished the lot.
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty,
and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth and
there were no compensation claims from these accidents.
We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above.
And we never washed the fruit.
We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did not
know what conditioners meant.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.
We rode cycles everywhere and someone sat on the carrier or across the bar
to school or the pictures, not cinema, or you walked to a friend’s house
and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to
them!
Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to.
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!
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO
DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Those were the days my friend!!
Anyone relate to any of this?