Kids have it so easy these days

[MackemX]

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning . uphill BOTH ways ..
yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that...I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no e-mail! We had to actually write somebody a letter... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! ! ;We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! ..
Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that Stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 and less in the 70's!

[drjtech]

And we didn't have cell phones. We always had to carry a spare dime and hope we could find a pay phone.

-drj

[MackemX]

And we didn't have cell phones. We always had to carry a spare dime and hope we could find a pay phone.

-drj

same with us in the UK, we always had to use a 2p coin. If not then it was a reverse charge call home to say you would be late coming home

[Grimey]

boo hoo, get over it.

I was born in '86, so i probably fall into the category you're bitching about :P , cause I grew up with the cartoon network and microwaves and the internet and mp3's, and yeah, it was easy, but whatever, i'm not in jail or on welfare(yet) or a drug addict, so i figure I turned out alright.

30 years from now people will be talking about how tough they had it as kids, and it'll just keep going on forever.

just be glad you weren't born in the middle ages, or as a caveman or something, now those would be tough times!

[MackemX]

boo hoo, get over it.

I was born in '86, so i probably fall into the category you're bitching about :P , cause I grew up with the cartoon network and microwaves and the internet and mp3's, and yeah, it was easy, but whatever, i'm not in jail or on welfare(yet) or a drug addict, so i figure I turned out alright.

30 years from now people will be talking about how tough they had it as kids, and it'll just keep going on forever.

just be glad you weren't born in the middle ages, or as a caveman or something, now those would be tough times!

, I remember when I was your age (I didn't know you were so young )

your right as that's how it goes, people will say things about the younger generation but I'd say there is a big gap between the generation now and the 80's generation. I can't visualise it being the same gap for you in 20 years time as you've got some cool stuff to begin with already 8). There isn't that big a difference between caveman kids and 80's kids as we still hung about street corners freezing or nuts off

p.s. that was a quoted post by the way that I thought was amusing, I didn't write it

[Cole]

I am not so sure; I think to be young now can be scary as there are so many things where society has gone awry. Some things were better when I was a kid (in the 70s)...

...the likelyhood of stumbling over a drug addict's discarded syringes in a playground was pretty non-existent...

...no-one mugged you for your mobile or your trainers...

...you didn't get bashed up at school for not having the right £3,000,000 trainers on...

...the school bully didn't regularly pull a knife/machette/Uzi on you...

...there were enough teachers to go round and they weren't in constant fear of being sued and/or violence from pupils or thier parents...

...you didn't have to book an appointment for a GP three weeks in advance, just arrive and wait your turn...

...having unprotected sex didn't put your life at risk...

...a stay in hospital didn't make you worse than what you went in for...

...people still talked to their neighbours...

...(and one for the girls) at thirteen/fourteen you may have still played with dolls of babies, not look after your real one...

I suppose that there is a balance to be struck in the enjoyment of new technology and nostalgia for when times seemed to be better.

[MackemX]

...having unprotected sex didn't put your life at risk...

you got that right as it certainly didn't feel risky back then 8)

[Cole]

...having unprotected sex didn't put your life at risk...

you got that right as it certainly didn't feel risky back then 8)

Well, apart from the potential beating from her father...

...which reminds me of another one: back then you were more likely to have your Father living with you!

[AlecWest]

"Easy" is a relative term. I'm 55 and grew up in a day when every sexual disease known to modern medicine had a cure. Now, a person's next unprotected sex act could be a death sentence from AIDS. And, when I was growing up, all wars were fought by people who wore uniforms. You could tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys in most cases. Nowadays, our enemies don't represent countries - they represent factions - and for some, the only uniform is a piece of cloth covering their face. Some enemies wear no uniform at all and you don't even know they're an enemy until they pull the pin or flip the switch on some self-destructive explosive device (or shove a box-cutter in your face).

One other thing - just a personal opinion. When I was growing up, people were by and large tolerant of other people legally speaking. But nowadays, lawsuits can fall on you at the drop of a hat ... some for frivolous reasons ... and in some cases, the plaintiff wins such a lawsuit.

I'm a firm believer that "problems" are never really solved from one generation to the next. They're merely "traded in" for other problems that may or may not be easier to deal with. Example? Before the advent of passive auto alarm systems, most auto thefts were done in a manner that did not endanger the owner's life. But the advent of passive auto alarms, meant to make auto thefts harder, ushered in a new problem that had never before (if ever) been much of a concern - carjacking.