ANSWERS: 30
  • We didn't have air conditioning in the car OR the house!
  • LOL... That I walked a mile (each way) to school in the snow. AND, I can show them the route. We didn't have busses back then (1960s). We DID have sidewalks, friends in the neighborhood to walk with at times, rode bikes when we could, etc. (And ever try to ride a bike UP two or three steep hills? Seriously!) LOL OUR first bikes didn't have ANY gears on them. We had three channels, all snowy, and you literally had to hold your mouth right to make the rabbit-ear antenna stay where you put them. We had METAL roller skate wheels that you tightened with a clamp onto you OLD good shoes. (We learned how to SKID around corners with them!) Speaking of which, we had CANVAS GYM shoes, that we could ONLY wear at school for gym. We could wear them at home after school was out for the summer. We had classes at school, LITERALLY divided into Geography, History, Reading ("See Spot run", "See Dick", "See Jane", "See Spot", etc.), Math, English (Spelling and Grammar), AND, if we didn't pass a class, we were HELD BACK for another year. We didn't have ANY video games, CDs, only AM radio stations in cars, cassettes were still a dream, 45RPM and 33RPM VINYL records (I still have a bunch, so they believe me, there); we actually PLAYED OUTSIDE with friends and the neighborhood was our playground (not safe anymore - so THAT may be a GOOD thing); we WALKED almost anywhere we wanted to go (again, the neighborhood or beyond, and THAT ONLY with permission from Mom or Dad); Mom yelled for us when it was supper-time, and there were actually times we didn't WANT to go home to eat, (and if we didn't, we didn't eat!); we ATE everything on our plate, BEFORE we were allowed to watch ANY TV, and THAT was only for a couple of hours before bed at 8:00 or 9:00 (light or not); WE were MADE to go to church... Oh, I could probably go on and on and ... ;-)
  • The truth pretty much eclipses any stories I could tell.
  • When I was a kid, I didn'T havea compute! (Well, duh, 'cause it was some time ago >.>)
  • I will tell them, when I was a kid we didn't have cell phones, we had pagers, and you were considered lucky to even have one of those!
  • I don't plan on telling them that.
  • when i was your age i had to listen to your grandpa say this exact story *inhales*......
  • When I was a kid we had to show respect to people and to property. We weren't allowed to talk back or use foul language. We had to get a job if we wanted spending money, and did not get paid to do chores around the house. My parents always knew where I was and who I was with, and especially when I would be home. If we broke the rules, we were actually spanked. I could go on with more, but I think you get the idea.
  • My dad grew up in a family of 13. He said that during the depression, they were so poor they would eat "Potatoes and Point". Butter was so expensive, they would put the one patty of butter on a plate in the middle of the table and everyone would hold their potatoe and point it at the butter. - Now that's hard times...
  • Good Question! Times are probably going to be harder for my kids now than it was for me. When I was 16 gas prices had only been 84 cents a gallon. I think what I may say when my daughter is born is "back when I was young things were so tough that your grandfather could pull a flexible long and thin branch off of a tree and whip me and your uncle on the legs and butt and not have to worry about going to jail for child abuse" Or I could say that times were so tough that daddy didn't even get a brand new car on his 16th birthday. In fact daddy had to get a job and actually by his own car" That sounds so ridiculous but kids these days have it all handed to them so they may think its crazy.
  • I don't tell them about hard times...things were simpler, but we never suffered. Mum and dad always put food on the table, clothing on our backs and managed some great holidays...even though dad's wages were not great and sometimes he was unemployed. My kids know what "hard" is, having visited orphanages with me in Bali when we travelled there several times. I still help the kids there...my children have grown up knowing with their own eyes that that there are people worse off than they are.
  • My mum had a really poor childhood. On one christmas, she could not believe that she actually got a present other than a piece of fruit. Her dad had made her a small doll house. On boxing day, they had no money, as usual, and no coal left for the fire.... so the doll house was smashed up and burnt. When they say young people don't know, they mean it.
  • I tell my youngins that in my day we had to pay 40 bucks for two anime episodes and no english dub included, when today all they have to dish out is 19 dollars for 5 episodes.
  • I'd tell my children that when I was a kid not EVERYone got a trophy just for participation. Not everyone that "tried out" for a sport got to play and not everyone made it off the bench. I'd teach them that we actually had to deal with DISAPPOINTMENT! And that was FAIR! Imagine that!
  • We went to a friends house to watch color TV. No remote controls, microwaves, ipods, texting or cell phones. We didn't even have answering machines. If we wanted to learn something we either asked someone we actually knew or went to the library (which was a big building were the kept a lot of those book-thingys). However we did have an environmentally friendy outdoor solar clothes dryer which was pretty cool. Lived in Louisiana but still walked to school in the snow-and it was uphill in both directions!
  • I know I'd tell my kids that "When I was a kid we had a game where a Walmart looking head ate dots, and ghosts tried to chace it..." They'd look at me like I was insane.
  • When I was younger, we'd have to kepunch a stack of computer cards, then bring them to the computer department and wait patiently until some serious looking computer nerd brought out your cards and printed output, if your program worked properly (which wasn't always the case)
  • How ’bout this: when I was a young, married adult—a mere 10 years ago—gas was 69.9¢/gallon!
  • I've already started telling her how I worked at a bakery when I was 15 washing dishes. The water was required to be over 100 degrees. Between that and using steel wool, I wore off my fingerprints. Plus I've started telling her how I was working full time when I was 17 years old and paying my father room and board.
  • Walked uphill to school, both ways-In the snow-and I lived in Louisiana. We were so poor we only had one "o"-as in po'. Got to stop, making myself cry.
  • I walked to school barefoot, uphill, both ways, LOL.
  • I've told my daughter the usual stories (e.g. no cell phones, no dvd's, no video games). But the story she has the most trouble comprehending is how we had our car stolen, so if we wanted to go anywhere we walked or rode the city bus - all 7 of us. We all walked to the grocery store on Daddy's payday and each of us had to carry something home. We did this for about a year until we could afford a down payment for another car.
  • Everytime my kids ask for new batteries in a toy... When I was a kid, we didn't have all of these fancy electronic toys that you kids play with today. We used to have to pretend that they moved and we had to make the noises ourselves! lol Seriously! Just about everything the kids want these days takes batteries or needs to be plugged in. I remember when we had to use our imaginations when we played as kids.
  • It wasnt so much about hard times though there were some. What they are amazed at was the price of a candy bar or how cheap it was to see a movie. I could see three movies at the Alcazar theatre in Los Angeles for .79 cents. It was a bargain then but today it would be unheard of. Large snicker bars were 5 cents. three loaves of bread for 1.00 and gas was .39 cents a gallon.
  • My dad must have told me his story of how he would skidoo 11km to get to shcool, every time we had a beer together. lol I plan to tell my children about the hard life that I've had back in the day of 2008... lol
  • Moms were at home when I was a kid, so we didn't get away with much. The other moms in the neighborhood were ALL allowed to correct us, bandage us or hug us as necessary. We had no electronic games, so we were forced to play outside until we were called to supper. We had to fill a sink with hot water and suds to wash the dishes every night. We had to stand up and cross the room to change the TV channel, and had just 4 choices: ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. And, horror of horrors, we had just the 1 TV so we all had to watch what the adults chose. When JFK was assassinated, all the neighbors came to watch all of the news and the funeral at our house because we had the only color TV on the block. People smoked in their homes, cars, offices, hospital rooms, grocery stores and schoolyards, blissfully unaware of the consequences.
  • I tell mine when I was a kid I didn't have a TV in my room, or a cell phone of my own (or one at ALL), or my own computer. That girl is spoiled rotten!!! But I love giving her those things. I want her to have the things that I didn't have, but I want her to appreciate them!
  • I lived in a poor family though we did not know it...Once a month mom would get a bag of M&Ms and the 5 of us kids would sit on the living room floor and share it....no fighting at all....we had one pair of nice shoes and one pair of tennies...we would walk to school regardless of the weather and it was a good mile...we had great imaginations and made our own barbie houses/cars and we were never board or heavy...we were happy with life
  • I prefer not to remember or pass on those stories! It would only bring them down.
  • what! they give condoms in school now?! i use to have to walk five miles for a condom. in the snow. uphill..... with a boner lol

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