Monday, June 18, 2012

Summer Reflections

A lament on today's childhood in Chicago Parent.

Click HERE for story.


6 comments:

  1. Oh I really enjoyed that article. It brought back such vivid memories of my childhood.

    Was it a perfect time? No but it was a much simpler way of life. It's kind of sad that our kids will never enjoy the simplicity of life as we knew it. *sigh*

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  2. Truly did enjoy reading your thoughts, it is so different isn't it how we grew up and how our kids grew up (and my kids are older than yours, out of the house so I got at least 10-15 years on you in age). I do remember doing things growing up that I would not let my kids do as far as going by themselves to this or that. It was a different time, a safer time. We didn't have a phone for bit when I was growing up; in looking back, I wonder how my mom managed not worried about us when we were gone, worrying if we'd get into some type of trouble and need to call; I'd be frantic if I couldn't call son on his cell phone to check in on him when he was younger. Now imagine when your children are parents......what will the world be like then?

    betty

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  3. Isn't nostalgia great? It helps us gloss over so many of the ugly details. I'm so impressed by the creative animal traps your family was obviously adept at creating. I thoroughly enjoyed the article and also highly recommend reading Free Range Kids the book and blog (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/) for a perspective changer. :-)

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  4. God the things we experienced as kids. Building model cars, no organized sport leagues, we had pick-up games in a factory field somewhere and if you sucked at the particular sport, you were the last one picked and you got over it. I usually sucked BTW.

    We also, get this,built tree houses in these huge trees. The ladder was one nail holding a small 2x4 into the trunk. We built these things hundreds of feet up without any engineering degree or fear of it collasping. If it creeked or moved, we used our survival techniques and got the hell down. We would cool off in a sprinkler or 3ft. pool and eat fruit from the farm truck that would come by every day with fresh produce and fruit. And the smell of the bread man's truck,mmmmmm. Oh and kids had fights but no one got killed,maimed or arrested.

    We also had the Sears catalog, but that's another subject perhaps, lol.
    MBF

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  5. Marianne,
    You forgot to mention "Go play in the middle of the street."
    SF

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  6. Lily - I know. I wonder how never having any real kid freedom will work out for them?

    That corgi - Bubble wrap. Everyone will be wearing bubble wrap.

    Mama - Thanks for the book recommendation - I'll check it out!

    MBF - The Sears catalog? I'm sensing a future blog topic??

    SF - Famous last words....

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