America today vs. 1950 — what we are missing

[mystery-ak]

America today vs. 1950 — what we are missing
October 11, 2022 | Ed Brodow

We assume that — with computers, cell phones, and social media — our kids enjoy advantages that previous generations lacked. Sadly, American kids growing up today are missing developmental opportunities that used to be taken for granted. Quality of life as experienced by Americans in 2022 has deteriorated. It is a sad commentary on the state of our civilization.

According to npr.org, children today spend an average of merely 30 minutes per week engaged in free play outdoors. Their parents won’t let them out alone. “Unstructured time outdoors is becoming a thing of the past. There was a time — and it wasn’t that long ago — when kids would leave home on a summer morning and roam free,” reports npr.org. “I knew kids who were pushed out the door at eight in the morning,” writes Bill Bryson of his childhood in the 1950s, “and not allowed back until five unless they were on fire or actively bleeding. That’s what kids did. They went out. Parents let them, and everybody did it.”

“Earlier this year,” reports the conversation.com, “an American mother was arrested for allowing her nine year old daughter to play unsupervised in a park while she finished her shift at work.” When I was nine years old, I rode the Pennsylvania Railroad by myself to visit relatives in another state. Growing up in Brooklyn during the 1950s, we lived on the streets from the age of five. America had a lot of the same problems we experience today—the difference is that the intensity was much lower. Although my neighborhood was considered one of the most dangerous in New York City, we were neither murdered nor abducted. Each day was an adventure.

Before we hit puberty, my best friend and I often walked unaccompanied to the amusement parks in Coney Island, a 20-mile round trip, where we rode the roller coaster, the mechanical steeplechase, and the bumper cars. On the way home, we would stop at Nathan’s for one of their famous hot dogs. We would think nothing of riding the subway to Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan or to the Bronx Zoo. We sailed the ferries from Brooklyn to Staten Island and lower Manhattan. Our parents did not know where we were until bed time.

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https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/10/11/america-today-vs-1950-what-we-are-missing-1295222/

[Fishrrman]

If it wasn't for the advances in medicine made since that time, I'd say, "Take me back to 1954... and leave me there..."

[Wingnut]

Made In The USA.  Manufacturing jobs that built the middle class.

[roamer_1]

In a word: God.

[Bigun]

I seem to recall people trying their best to warn us that our government was being overrun with Communist infiltrators in the 1950s and they have been proven right!

[Bigun]

https://twitter.com/ChuckCallesto/status/1580313973596909568

[EdinVA]

Respect

[rustynail]

White people.

[DCPatriot]

White people.

 

[GtHawk]

In a word: God.

God,  love of country/patriotism, actual education in schools, respect, courtesy/civility, law and order, the ability to buy guns via catalog/mail order and have them delivered to your home....

[Elderberry]

After school, we'd drop off our books and outside we'd go and play until dinner. We'd race home, wolf down our food, and back outside we'd go until dark. Our street was one block away from the bayou, so that's where we'd go a lot. If I needed to come home for some reason, my dad would drive around and honk "Dah Di Dit". That was my signal to come home.

Before I had to go to kindergarten, I'd go outside before dawn. I'd see the world come alive. I'd see the paper boy and milk and egg man come by. Then I'd go home in time for breakfast.

[corbe]

[roamer_1]

God,  love of country/patriotism, actual education in schools, respect, courtesy/civility, law and order, the ability to buy guns via catalog/mail order and have them delivered to your home....

It's all the same.

Our father's God to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing...

Liberty has responsibilities.
Freedom has consequences.

[roamer_1]

After school, we'd drop off our books and outside we'd go and play until dinner. We'd race home, wolf down our food, and back outside we'd go until dark. Our street was one block away from the bayou, so that's where we'd go a lot. If I needed to come home for some reason, my dad would drive around and honk "Dah Di Dit". That was my signal to come home.

Before I had to go to kindergarten, I'd go outside before dawn. I'd see the world come alive. I'd see the paper boy and milk and egg man come by. Then I'd go home in time for breakfast.

I stayed outside too... to the very last second. But if we weren't crossing the threshold when the yard light came on out by the barn, there would be hell to pay... Not like the hell we'd catch if we were past where we could hear the old man's whistle though - Lord help us all if he had to come looking. 

[goatprairie]

I remember in Summer all the neighborhood kids (a ton of them) would be out until dark. There were a number of games we played like hide and seek or red rover. Nobody thought it was weird that little kids as young as three were out running around with some of the older kids. I remember being four years old trailing after my brother trick or treating half a mile or more from our home without parental guidance. Our parents never went with us trick or treating.
One thing many parents did in those days when they wanted kids to come home for dinner or whatever was to stick their heads out the door and shout for their kid(s) to come home.
I distinctly remember one family from the South whose father was an officer stationed at a nearby army base was their mother to call the first and middle names of their two boys home.
I can't remember being bored that much. There was just too many things to do outdoors with the other kids.
I feel sorry for kids today whose idea of a great time is to fiddle with their damn iphone or play with some other computer game.
I would have loved to have a pinball machine in the basement, but that wasn't going to happen.
I think we kids had a lot more fun in those days without all the gadgets kids have today. You never heard of school shootings or drugged out kids doing other horrible crimes.
There were kidnappings now and then. The most famous area kidnapping (that made national news but was never solved) occurred just a short distance from my home when I was three years old.
But other than the rare crime, things were pretty good. Didn't have a lot (shared a bed with my older brother), but we had a lot of fun.

[mountaineer]

We lived in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. My mother rang a bell when it was time to come in for dinner. My friend Beth's mother would just holler, "Beth! Beth Ann!" We both knew better than to ignore those summonses.

[Smokin Joe]

In a word: God.

Yep. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

Mothers are MIA. 

[deb]

Mothers are MIA.

Absolutely! The nuclear family is a thing of the past, apparently.

[Bigun]

Mothers are MIA.

  And that is no accident! The left has been working toward that for a very long time.

[aligncare]

And that is no accident! The left has been working toward that for a very long time.

They want a society of drones—certainly not of individual souls possessed of free will and guided by a remarkable historical document, the constitution of the United States.

And about those memories painted from that wonderful period…yes, to all of it. All the unsupervised, spontaneous, imaginative PLAY all summer long! And whatever mischief we got into was a vital part of our learning and growing. It was called living once; a father supporting a wife and kids on one salary. Now I suppose it’s deemed toxic or racist or hateful somehow.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Bullet Bras are missing ...



Nostrodamus could not have made a better prediction ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Tczjccka0&t=47s

[mountaineer]

Bullet Bras are missing ...

Those things are really strange. 

[Polly Ticks]

Old fashioned family values.

[cato potatoe]

testosterone