To the spoiled, under thirty crowd...

[mrhtbd]

Now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a dang Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

1. When I was a kid, we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dang library and look it up ourselves... In the card catalog!! (Do you even know what a card catalog is? Didn't think so!)

2. There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter... With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dang record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

4. We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

5. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

6. We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics were horrible! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

7. When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

9. And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire . Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do..... Hang up and talk to them later.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled!!
You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

 

[Scotsmark]

Amen brother!

I'm not quite 36, so I've got a long way to go to catch up but I know what you're saying!

 

[Trapology]

all of those were stupid
you cant fault people for evolution

and they would have lasted perfectly fine back then, because they wouldnt know any better

 

[Mick-G]

Wtf??? Your a kid and your acting like you had it rough, lol Try growing up with parents that were in the great depression. I had to f-in work for everything i got when i was growing up. Even b4 i could work legally. I was cutting 7 acres of lawn a wk and snow, moving bricks back and forth. give me an f-in break! We didnt even have color tv. how bout that?

 

[Trapology]

Wtf??? Your a kid and your acting like you had it rough, lol Try growing up with parents that were in the great depression. I had to f-in work for everything i got when i was growing up. Even b4 i could work legally. I was cutting 7 acres of lawn a wk and snow, moving bricks back and forth. give me an f-in break! We didnt even have color tv. how bout that?

exactly...every generation has it easier then the past generation its just evolution

 

[Bob Duff]

exactly...every generation has it easier then the past generation its just evolution

go nigbo go

 

[HugeDawg]

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dang record store and shoplift it yourself!

LOL

 

[black7]

i used to steal tapes from Wal-Mart... all thier shit was edited but it worked... i know i stole Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam and Metallica shit from them many times...

parents would ask where they came from and i said i saved my lunch money... but looking at my husky ass... i didnt miss not lunch... blee dat....

 

[Thate]

I used to go out and play all day long far from home on the weekends, but I don't let the kids leave my sight.

 

[Kujhac]

I had it made compared to my parents. Both were there for the great depression.

My maternal grandfather was a lazy drunk. All he knew how to do apparently was father babies. Eleven kids. All the brothers worked at a dairy for a man down the road. They each made 50 cents a week. Of course, back then they could fill up big round table with meal, flour, etc., for 50 cents. They had bed bugs and my mother said she wore her "coat" even in the heat because she had "scabies". The dairy farmer would drive by and throw change on the ground every day that they waited for the bus so that they would have something to eat at school probably for a nickel or dime. The maternal grandmother worked at a cleaners as a seamstress for many years but never complained. One son of hers drank "coal oil" by mistake and died. One daughter daughter died early due to what they now think was leukemia.

My paternal grandfather was apparently psychotic. He would get mad and chase his wife with an axe determined to kill her. My father was 13 and his sister relayed to us that he stood up to the psycho telling him he would have to kill him first before he could kill his mama. They had a cotton farm and had to pick a certain amount of cotton at a very young age before they could get even a drink of water. The psycho eventually was run off after shooting himself in the abdomen with a shotgun. His wife, my grandmother came to Texas from Kentucky in a covered wagon and taught herself how to read and write. She lived by the bible and expected proper behavior from all her children in spite of the psycho husband she had. She had five sons serve during WW II simultaneously.

My father went to Texas A&M and graduated in three years. The expectations from my paternal and maternal grandmothers have carried down from my parents to me and on to my children.

Of course I was way more lenient on my own kids as were my parents were to me in comparison to the way they grew up. We all want our descendants to have the best and have it easier than we did. However, simple rules like decency and ownership of responsibility are sorely lacking in the U.S. today.

If you have kids, you can't absolutely dictate their lives. You can only set expectations and lead by example. In their youth, kids should be involved in extracurricular activities that promote teamwork, work ethic and responsibility and perhaps spirituality. If you're not in a school or community extra-curricular, then get some kind of part time job.

Even though when I was growing up, we didn't have party lines but I remember them. Forget the busy signals out in the country, you had to wait until some neighbor got off the "party" line to make a call. Cokes were a nickel.

You skinny dipped in the local pond, you went into the woods and killed snakes and birds before you were eight years old. Your parents had you "turn" the antenna for them to get one of three channels on the old black and white TV.

Being raised in a conservative, strict or whatever you want to call it household was the norm. There were no gay rights, political correctness, bowing down to non-WASP groups or racial groveling. You pulled your own weight or perished. My parents did that and I'm proud of that fact. Even to this day, my mother lets me and my sister know what she thinks as to how one should behave and be responsible.

While the muslims are slowly taking over Western Europe and ultimately they hope, the U.S., or you will be exterminated, we must take a stand in the U.S. and close the borders, be isolationist or experience the ultimate decimation of the values and lifestyle of the origins of this great nation.

 

[Kujhac]

I used to go out and play all day long far from home on the weekends, but I don't let the kids leave my sight.

Ditto.

It's sad it's come to this Thate.

We used to get locked out of the house and not allowed back in until dinner time. There were no worries. If you messed up in school or in the neighborhood, you got a spanking and a tongue lashing and then you'd get one at home when the parents found out about it.

 

[IRON37]

its not my fault my parents were crazy hippies

 

[Mick-G]

I do agree kids nowdays have it made. Hell, my neighbors kids (boy and girl) didnt have to buy their first cars and had 3 cars for they turned 21. Kids never cut their parents grass, never even washed their cars. Id see their father washing them. I feel sorry for their spouses if they ever get married, but of course they'll prob married ppl that didnt do any physical labor either. Most around my block dont have any respect for older ppl either. Im not just talking ppl my age, but ppl in their 30's as well.