How DID We Survive?
Reading blog posts this morning, I came across one by Jackie Connelly-Fornuff about skateboard parks, and it got me to thinking about all the things that existed in my childhood that no one ever gave a thought to doing differently.
I know my Mom wasn't the only one who smoked and enjoyed cocktails throughout her pregnancies. And all through our childhoods, my sisters and I were inhaling that secondhand smoke, as Mom never did quit.
We went on family vacations, spending hours in the car on highways and other roads - without seatbelts, and certainly without child seats. I well remember that my younger sister Kate loved standing between my Mom and Dad in the front seat. Maybe everyone drove a little slower in those days?
I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and Saturdays, after chores, my sisters and I all went our separate ways - playing with friends down the street, skating on the sidewalks with skates that frequently came loose, which meant taking the occasional header into the concrete. Lots of scraped knees, banged heads, and so on, but rarely anything particularly serious.
No helmets for bike riding, monkey bars in outside parks with nothing to pad the concrete below, a street filled with truck and car traffic. Yet we met our friends, played our games, enjoyed the freedom of being outside in all kinds of weather, all without any protective gear beyond clothing appropriate for the temperature.
How DID we survive? What do you remember from your childhood that is so very different these days? I'd love to hear about your childhood memories.
Photo Credit: adapted from Roller Skates at 6
How DID We Survive?
Comments(37)