On Protecting Kids
- Thread starter JakeStratham
- Start date
It makes me sad to think that I may have been part of the last generation of kids that really did stuff like this until we got into high school, more or less.
As much as I hate the fucking suburbs I would love to raise kids in a neighborhood like the one I was fortunate enough to grow up in. Lots of young families (so lots of friends!) and a big patch of woods not even a 1/6th of a mile from our front door made for endless good times at that age.
Shit man, I'm pretty sure my friends and I all had genuinely more fun fishing and building forts and playing paintball then we've had since we discovered drugs, booze and partying.
Simpler times.
Yup, all this and more. Made "bombs", more like incendiary devices filled with petrol or whatever flammable shit we could find in the garage. Even took one to school once and asked the principal if I could light it off as some sort of show and tell experiment. He called the fire dept for advice and declined but if I had done that today they would have probably evacuated the school, tasered me, and expelled my ass.
I lit a discarded car fuel tank on fire once when I was about 5. Straight up lied to the RCMP officer that came to my house.
We stole a pile of black powder from a friend's dad who did his own reloads. Tried to make a bomb from that, but it didn't work so we just burned the lot of it. We'd collect up discarded fireworks after Halloween, gut them and do the same.
My dad had an old 22 bolt action in the closet. Got some ammo that was lying around in another kid's garage, dismantled the gun so we could stick the barrel and stock down the legs of our pants and walk through the neighborhood with it, and took the gun to the woods by the Coquitlam river.
There was a house and condo building boom in my area of Coquitlam growing up in BC, and we would roam the construction sites, climbing throughout the unfinished buildings like some huge jungle gym.
Stole elastic from our mother's sewing kits and made slingshot guns out of anything we could find. We made "crossbows" from 2 x 2s nailed into a T shape, office elastics made into a rope strung between the two ends of the T, firing 2 inch construction staples at each other. We'd make throwing stars from nails duct taped together. All kinds of shit. Looking back it was all rather quite creative. I could make a gun out of Lego and rubber bands that could break glass, or put yer fuckin' eye out.
Just about died river rafting (toobin') on the Nooksack river in Washington state when we all got sucked into a log jam. Not quite sure how we got out of that one, but we did.
Thing was, when I was like 5-7 years old I had shit tons more freedom than I did from 8 onwards. Reason being was a fellow named Clifford Robert Olson who, if you don't know, was a serial killer in the Vancouver area who had a knack for abducting and murdering kids in the early 80s. He scared the shit out of a lot of parents and things changed after that.
As kids my brother and I were riding our bikes and my brother fell off and got temporary amnesia (or something to that effect. He had no idea who I was, my dad was, where he was or anything else) for a couple of hours. True story.
Lol, we used to make moltov cocktails too. We had a rival group of kids (we called them the huffy gang, they all had huffy bikes) we got a in fist fight with them once cause they tried to steal one of my friends bikes. We moltoved their tree house. Never forget how awesome that was.
There was a 5-6 foot damn in the river near the bridge we would always hang out at. When the river flooded we would jump off the fridge and hold our breath and go down it under water. You would shoot up like 20-30 feet down the river from it because it has SUPER fast current. Best redneck roller coaster ever.
I can't count the number of times I have fallen through ice on a frozen lake, lol.
The good ol days when people weren't such losers. No wonder everyone is going crazy.
This, and I think a lot of it has to do with the media. Every time something happens that is bad, you are getting bombarded with it from every angle. The fear..oh the fear.
I had to wear a helmet until I was 12 or 13 if I wanted to ride my bike.
My dad's logic: "I bought that bike and if you want to use it, you're going to wear this helmet"
I also skateboarded until I was about 13-14 and I wore a helmet by choice. Its just a fact of skateboarding, you're going to fall. Why wouldn't I wear a helmet? Because it doesn't "look cool"? Fuck that.
As far as kneepads, wristpads, and whatever else they have - I didn't wear any of that shit because I'm not going to wind up a vegetable if I scrape my knee or elbow. It just hurts like a bitch. Kids that are decked out in full pads, I agree, are being coddled in most cases. Sometimes they can be necessary depending on the activity/sport, though.
Assuming I have a child later on in life, a helmet will be worn until they're about 13 when riding their bike. If my kid decides to try skateboarding or something similar.. "You want me to drive you to the skate park? Sure thing, as long as you're wearing your helmet." But hopefully he's smart enough to just wear a helmet on his own the majority of the time, like I was.
My dad's logic: "I bought that bike and if you want to use it, you're going to wear this helmet"
I also skateboarded until I was about 13-14 and I wore a helmet by choice. Its just a fact of skateboarding, you're going to fall. Why wouldn't I wear a helmet? Because it doesn't "look cool"? Fuck that.
As far as kneepads, wristpads, and whatever else they have - I didn't wear any of that shit because I'm not going to wind up a vegetable if I scrape my knee or elbow. It just hurts like a bitch. Kids that are decked out in full pads, I agree, are being coddled in most cases. Sometimes they can be necessary depending on the activity/sport, though.
Assuming I have a child later on in life, a helmet will be worn until they're about 13 when riding their bike. If my kid decides to try skateboarding or something similar.. "You want me to drive you to the skate park? Sure thing, as long as you're wearing your helmet." But hopefully he's smart enough to just wear a helmet on his own the majority of the time, like I was.
Hell ya! BB Gun fights with metal trash can lids as shields were one of our daily activities. We used to also have bottle rocket fights too! :2gunsfiring_v1:
I remember one time my brother shot a fat kid in the ass crack with a bottle rocket and it got stuck in his crack and blew up. LMAO
Damn, I can still feel the sting from my dads belt from that night. In the seventies men wore belts that were like 2 inches tall... Covered half my ass with one smack! Those mofos hurt!
Poor little fat bastard wasn't allowed to play with us any more!
Damn, want to come over and play? Bringing back memories here. lol.
That is funny as hell. Roman candle wars, with the candles that have reports were the best. 100 shotters, practicly burn all their clothes off lol.
Seriously, this thread has been a walk down memory lane.
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By the way, for those of you who didn't get a chance to read the article, here's a passage from the end...
A lot of the above traits that today's kids (allegedly) lack are those that distinguish entrepreneurs.
That's unfortunate.
WTF?
"Modern society is evil" waaaaah, waaaaaaaaaah!
Do you know your neighbours?
No?
Why the fuck not?
Go out and meet them... it is not that hard.
We spent yesterday having a BBQ with our neighbours...
Our kids plays with the girls from next door, we chat with everyone regularly..
Yes, it may seem easier to turn invisible nowadays IF YOU WANT TO... but guess what?
You don't have to.
Society you live in doesn't suit you? Change it...
Well, that is said too simple.. thing is, the part of society that affects you most, your neighbors, your day to day routine, .. you can actually change that.
If you wanna meet people .. go out and meet people... what a concept!
::emp::
WTF?
"Modern society is evil" waaaaah, waaaaaaaaaah!
Do you know your neighbours?
No?
Why the fuck not?
Go out and meet them... it is not that hard.
We spent yesterday having a BBQ with our neighbours...
Our kids plays with the girls from next door, we chat with everyone regularly..
Yes, it may seem easier to turn invisible nowadays IF YOU WANT TO... but guess what?
You don't have to.
Society you live in doesn't suit you? Change it...
Well, that is said too simple.. thing is, the part of society that affects you most, your neighbors, your day to day routine, .. you can actually change that.
If you wanna meet people .. go out and meet people... what a concept!
::emp::
The flip side is they might not want to meet you if you do want to meet people yourself.
And if the desire to meet your neighbors/peers is mutual, chances are they're still overly conditioned by the education system and mass media. You can chat with them, but good luck getting any substantial meeting of the minds.
i have three boys. I try to protect them from the oldest one...lol
Honestly they are so wild, getting better as we started getting much more strict.
They fight non stop and love to run. So im always worried about cars. I was hit by a car when i was a kid. I was hyper my boys are hyper.
Anyway, i try to protect them as much as possible, but yeah, you need to let them get some dirt and grime in their fingernails.
Honestly they are so wild, getting better as we started getting much more strict.
They fight non stop and love to run. So im always worried about cars. I was hit by a car when i was a kid. I was hyper my boys are hyper.
Anyway, i try to protect them as much as possible, but yeah, you need to let them get some dirt and grime in their fingernails.
Yes.
I did. I moved to SE Asia, and this is another one of the many reasons I prefer it here. You don't get a choice but to know all your neighbors at least on a basic level, because that's just how things work here. It's great for someone like me who works from home.
Besides, I wasn't talking about my personal circumstances anyway. I've watched my nephews, niece, cousins, and so on grow up. Like it or not, they've grown up in a completely different world than most of us on here seem to have, and not for the better. Not sure why you're jumping down my throat for it, as it's hardly my fault. If you believe kids these days get the same amount of social interaction, and life experience, risks, etc... that most of us seemed to of had, then German society must be completely different compared to North America.
Same here with the helmets. My son did crash on his bike doing stunts and the end of the handle bar hit him square on the nose, breaking it. He made so many trips to the ER they had a room with his name on it. He had pocket knives, made spud cannons, burned stuff with magnifying glasses, etc.
We used to do such crazy shit. If we were growing up today a lot of of us would have been taken away by DCFS.
A lot of those same parents that make their kids wear helmets also hit their kids which of course damages their brains.
