I received an email this morning with a link to an article about raising kids today and how different it is from when we were growing up. And it got me to thinking about all the things my brother and I did growing up that we don’t see kids doing anymore. Here are the things I remember:
- Riding my bike everywhere. Favorite memory: riding to Hy-Vee on Sunday morning to pick up syrup for waffles. I get halfway home and the syrup hits the spokes of my bike and explodes!
- General statement: “Can I go outside to play?” Meaning, we just went outside and played with whoever was around. We didn’t have a specific destination, we just wanted to play. We played everywhere in the neighborhood. The only rule, we had to be in yelling distance. Favorite memory: mom, “Jayne, Nick…DINNER!”
- Drinking out of the hose
- Playing in the creek behind our house
- Riding in the back of Dad’s truck
- Riding a bike/scooter/skateboard/big wheel with no helmet
- There was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc places in sports…I don’t think it scarred me for life. I had a few blue ribbons in Hershey track along with a number of other colors and I hung those on my bulletin board just as proudly as the blue ones.
- Home alone after school by 5th grade
- Etc…
Are these things you let your kids do today? Are kids missing something in their childhood that we had because of this? It’s just interesting to think about.
