Anorak:
The way things are going, every kid is going to go to school wearing bubble wrap and a helmet. Back in the 1970s (and earlier), parents didn’t stress about our health and safety as much as they do today. It’s not that they cared less – they just didn’t worry compulsively about it.
Parents of 2014 need to be reminded of how less restricted, less supervised, less obsessively safety-conscious things were… and it was just fine.
Tthese stories are always kind of amusing to those of us old enough to remember these dangers. And to be clear, a lot of the things this article is nostalgic about were actually bad for us.
The world these days certainly does seem like someone cleaned up all the sharp edges. I have mixed feelings about that.
Agreed. Some of those cleaned up edges are good – seat belts, sunscreen – some are a sad indictment of our times (“Go play,” were their only words, and you were left to your own devices for hours upon hours.” Not many parents would do that with children nowadays) but some seem silly.
Of course, there’s self-selection involved when we say things like “I never wore a helmet when cycling when I was a kid and I’m still around.” If you’d had a serious accident, you wouldn’t be around to say that.
I was always doing dumb stuff on my bike but remember my two most serious tumbles off my bike while helmet-less. One involved a quarter mile steep hill around the corner from our house, that we freewheeled down with the goal to reach the bottom without braking. I ploughed into another cyclist coming from a side street. Another was a tussle with a car that resulted in more damage to the car than to me or my bike (I needed a new front wheel). Both times I picked myself up and walked away with no more than scrapes and bruises, but it could have been much worse, and for many kids in similar situations, it was.
I remember when my toys were made of painted sheet metal.
With sharp edges that rusted after a few months.
And you went to get them in a blizzard, uphill both ways, if you knew what was good for you.
A lot of this also was brought by the litigious nature of American society. Your kid gets hurt, you seek two things, doctor and lawyer, and not necessarily in that order.
1) They are parasitic Baby Boomers.
At least some brain injury specialists say bike helmets are a placebo and cause more harm than good.
http://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/
We ate worms and dirt – Our immune systems are bullet-proof.
When we would drive the three blocks home from 7-11 we’d occasionally talk my mother into putting the tailgate of the station wagon down and we’d sit on it with our legs dangling off the back of the car. This was in the early 70s. I guess today she’d be in jail and I’d be in child protective services.