Are kids spoiled nowdays?

There is a commercial on the radio about the "Exogen thermometer" It scans the forehead and takes a kids temperature, it goes like this.

"Timmy, I need to take your temperature."

"Oh mom, I don't like that scanner in my ear.

"No Timmy, this one just scans your forehead."

They should have been around when I was a kid, it would have been...

"Oh mom, I don't like that thermometer shoved up my ass."

Kids don't realize how good they have it today.

Or, "It's time for a heaping tablespoon of cod liver oil."

"Hold still while I dig that splinter out with my pocketknife."

"It's time for your vaccination, let me poke you with this needle 3,426 times in your shoulder, it will leave a scar."

"Bend over and grab your ankles while I hit your ass with all of my strength with a sawed flat baseball bat with holes drilled in it for skipping class. The holes make the flesh of your ass poke through the paddle and leave really cool bruises."

If we did this, we would be arrested.

"You have to do your chores before you get an allowance." (What? I have to work for money?)

We actually got slapped across the face for talking back and couldn't lawyer up to sue our parents.

Were we brought up in the same family? Did you get hauled to the doctor each time you sniffled? I remember getting a polio shot at the township hall, and I remember as a teenager going for a shot when the poison ivy got so bad I could feel it inside my mouth. We just never went to the doctor. Turpentine, lard, honey, lemon juice, heating pad, hot water bottle, castor oil, and Epsom salts. Funny, I knew about aspirin but thought it was for just headaches but we never had headaches. So when I had menstrual cramps so bad when I started work and a lady asked me if I was sick because I kept going in the lady's room and she asked me what I was taking for it, I had no idea I could "take something for it". She told me about Midol and I ran over to the drugstore about crying and asked to buy some. That's when I became a druggee. I think I've had the most physical problems in the last 4 months than my whole life put together.

Ain't it the truth, Bullfrog. I wonder what this generation will be telling THEIR kids about their childhood hardships.

When momma made them ride the bus instead of driving them or letting them take the car. When they had to eat cereal at home instead of eating at school. When they had to wait until their next birthday for the parents to replace the IPOD that they just broke. WHAT WALK TO THE BUS STOP??? Go outside and play?? WHY, we can use the new WII in the living room. When the punishment was to watch the TV without the WII or video games.

Just some thoughts.

The neighborhood we live in wasn't made into a platt for quite a while after we moved here. When they started building around us, the kids would take the lumber scraps off the burning piles, (yes they burned their leftovers then) and make "forts". There were 9 boys all within about 3 years of age and all either right next door or across the street from each other. It's a wonder they lived through this experience. Across the street the builder had begun to develop it and had put in curbs, street lights, and scraped the top soil into a humongous pile and then must have run out of money because it just sat there for 2-3 years. The kids turned the top soil pile into an excellent BMX bike track.

Then they were putting maybe phone wire or electrical wire through here and had left one of those huge wooden spools unprotected. Next thing I knew it was in our back yard. They took out a couple slats of the central spindle and would climb inside it where there were three metal rods. They sat on one, blocked their feet on another and hung onto the third. They'd put it at the top of the hill and climb in and someone else would give it a push and it would roll wildly down our hill into the gully. Fortunately, the gully was dry, and there were no trees or rocks to hit. Sometimes someone got out and about upchucked but they still thought it was loads of fun. Those were the days before Cedar Point.

Then back to the snitching of the scrap lumber and the forts. Sometimes they'd steal boards from each other and pull things off the other guy's forts. Then one night, some of the boys were sleeping in our popup camper that was parked outside the chain link fence by the pool. I went out through the back, inside the fence and when I opened the gate they realized it was me and yelled for me not to come any farther. Turns out they had taken some of their "spoils of war" inside the camper and then ran string between the fence and the camper on both sides and strung bells on the string so the other boys couldn't sneak up on them.

LOL Another time, they nailed boards on one of our trees like a ladder and then tied a heavy rope way high. Somebody had come up with --------What do you call 'em, those wheel like things that will roll down a rope, with a person hanging from them??? Yeah, we had one that ran between the top of that tree and was tied to the pipes that held the clothes line. Don't ask me how they kept from smashing into the pipes. I never watched them, just prayed nobody got hurt. And they never did.

Oh and then there was the pool. Kelly was 5, Ken was 10 and Kevin was 15 and I worked full time so in the summer they stayed alone a lot. So now I learn about the stupid stuff they did in the pool when I had told them they couldn't swim without us here!!!!!

One day when Kevin was about 16, I was complimenting him about his friends and how I never worried about him when he was with Bobby and Brian. He hesitated and cleared his throat and said, "UM, Mom, know what Bobby and me did yesterday?" I took a deep breath and said, "Nope." He asked me if I knew about the railroad bridge that crossed the river on 48th Street. "Sure," I said. The tracks are on a downhill slant for a good 5 miles at that point with the bridge being on the lowest before it begins the uphill run into Grand Rapids. So when the train is approaching there, they are at full throttle to take advantage of gravity and get a good run on the uphill side. This bridge is real long at that point because the river widens out there and gets swampy and shallow on one side. In the middle of the bridge is a kind of tiny deck looking thing that sticks out at the side of the track and there is a ladder leading down from it to the water. From what I understand, it's incase somebody gets caught out there on the tracks and a train comes along. He goes on to say that he and Bobby were diving off that bridge. I was driving at the moment so had to stay focused but I could have strangled him.

Just a few years ago, two kids were on that bridge when a train came and the one kid jumped into the water and the other tried to outrun the train and of course didn't make it.

How many of you remember having to kneel in the corner with your nose stuck in the corner? Feeling very lucky that she didn't put rice on the floor for you to kneel on???

Yes, we would get arrested if we did anything now that happened to us. I can remember getting a robotic godzilla when I was young...and taking it apart to see how it worked....and why mom came home from work, getting my ass tore up when she saw what I had done.

It would be cruel and unusual punishment now to these kids if they were told to go outside and play and that she didn't want to see us until lunch or supper. We would get arrested for neglect....but we didn't have to worry about getting picked up by a stranger back then.

Remember going to the movie show....and leaving early if it was boring...and walking home??? There isn't any way that a kid would do that these days. Walk???? Hell, most of them can barely jog much less run these days.

A world without video games....wii...computers...ipods....cellphones. The kids that are in this world these days don't know how to use their imagination. They look at you crazy if you try to tell them of playing space cadet....or playing doctor (which would get you counseling these days for being emotionally ill...or perverted). Riding your bike around the neighborhoods...sometimes miles from home....and mom never worried about where you were..and you didn't have to worry about the cops coming looking for you. Making homemade bows and arrows...to play cowboys and indians. Geez....we shot them at each other and never put an eye out...never even got any serious wound from them...and if we did get cut....we went and mom doctored us up. No lectures....no punishment....just a "be more careful next time".

Times sure have changed.