I remember what life was like without the internet, without smartphones, without the constant notifications… ah, how simple things were. How great it would be to bring it back! We could give our children a better, screen-free life!
You know, because our youth was so amazing.
I see this all the time while I’m scrolling through videos and posts in those moments when I’m not sure what else to do with myself. This idea that if only we could go back to a time when kids were pushed out of the house and left to run around on their own, coming back after the sun comes down.
There seems to be this collective regret that our kids don’t get to have the same experience we had.
Sure, there’s something to be said about the cultural connection that comes from everyone having to watch the same three TV channels to catch that one good show that has prime time airing. Going to the movie theater to watch movies because, there’s no way you could wait for it to come out on tape in eight months or a year.
And, yeah, it’s pretty fun to meet up with your friends and bike over to the next town to do something stupid and maybe poke a dead body with a stick. Whatever you were feeling that day.
Like you, I remember a lot of great times. Stupid things that I never should have done. Concerts that I went to and can no longer tell you who played or even when it was but, hey, I know I was there. Concerts that I do remember who played but have no evidence that I was there aside from just some fuzzy memory.
It was fantastic because we forget most of the dumb stuff over time.
You know, all those little fights with your friends. Or being left out when all of your friends got together and forgot about you. Getting in trouble because you got home past curfew. Getting lost in the woods and having no way to call for help. Getting lost driving through a city and needing to find an open gas station in the middle of the night to get directions.
Do you remember getting grounded?
Getting grounded was the worst. Whatever limited contact you had with the world was removed, because it was that easy to remove it, and now you were left with nothing. No TV, no phone calls, no going places… just sit in your room and think about what you did.
You’d probably sit there and wish for a paddling just because at least it was over with quick even if it did physically hurt more.
Do you remember being told things like, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Having your mouth washed out with soap for saying things you shouldn’t?
Have you ever had anyone in your peer group tell stories about how they had to pick out the belt or the switch that was going to be used for their punishments?
I don’t want that way of thinking to make a comeback. Not for my kids. Not for any of the kids today. I really don’t know how so many people could grow up with that experience and then pine for the days when children ran free. These are the same people that would call child protective services if I let my kids roam as free as Ramona Quimby.
When my oldest was little, let’s say 3 or 4, we were passing time in a big box store. He’d run off and then I’d have to find him. I was approached by a worker at the store with a warning that my child was going to get abducted if I continued to allow that to happen. Obviously, it was bad parenting to allow my kid to try and find some enjoyment in this boring task and that employee felt I needed to know what could happen if I didn’t change my ways.
I’ve lost count of the number of times my youngest has gotten lost in a store. The last time, we got separated in a department store and while I was casually walking about trying to find her, the page came over the store speaker system. Please report to customer service, your lost daughter is waiting for you.
It’s no fun wandering around thinking about worst case scenarios, but you know, she was fine. In fact, she did the exact right thing – stayed in the store, found an employee, calmly explained she was looking for her parents, and she got the problem solved. For some people, the outcome doesn’t matter. I should never have gotten separated from her to begin with.
Anyway, I don’t want to bring back the old times because it glosses over the reality.
As children, we didn’t go outside and do all those things because our parents thought it was best for us – we did it because they were ignoring us. We did it because we were bored out of our minds. We did it because there was nothing better to do. Go back in time, give me Netflix as a child, and I guarantee you that I would not be outside nor do I believe my parents would have forced me to be outside. Because having Netflix would have made their lives easier too.
What we need is a happy middle ground: a collective understanding that parents have their own lives that need attention along with children that understand what it is to be bored. Our kids don’t need to roam free from sunrise to sunset free of all technology and they also don’t need to be smothered with parental attention all day either.
You know, I guess I am feeling nostalgic.
I, too, want to be in a different time. I want my children to be able to make mistakes and learn from them while they still have a safety net. While they are still at home with me and know that I will be there to help them, however I can. Above all, I want them to have the right to privacy. The ability to make those mistakes and then allow for them to be forgotten so they can learn from it, grow from it, but not spend the rest of their lives regretting it.
So… maybe instead of supporting all those age verification laws and banning social media for youth and whatever else you were thinking, let’s do something different. Let’s give everyone the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten. Our kids need a safe place to make mistakes where it won’t be remembered forever.
– JL
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