Times are a changing

At age 27 I feel im now qualified for those "when I was a boy" stories your dad told you when you was a kid. You know the ones "I had to chop 10 tonne of wood with a blunt tomahawk", "we would get a smack for talking at the table" and my personal favourite "I had to walk 10km to school in plastic sandals in the snow"

The best parts about these stories is the way the amounts get worse everytime, it started out as 1 km to school the first time I heard it. By the time dads 75 and im hearing this story again im sure its going to be " I bushwalked through dense forest for 45 km in bare feet to get to school"

I started thinking, My boy is getting close to 5, pretty soon he is going to appreciate a good yarn of some amazing feat I have performed. And then it dawned on me, I dont have any. I got dropped to school and picked up everyday, if I didnt I got bus money, if I chose to walk so I could spend the bus money does that count? No its not quite the same.

We have always had electric heating, I have had to cut a total of 30 pieces of wood in my life. Each time ive moved to a house with a wood heater ive replaced it with a heat pump before the next winter. And everybody knows I never shut up, dinnertime being no exception.

Our parents tell stories about going into the bush and building cubby houses, leaving at dawn and arriving home at dusk, I too have memories of venturing bush but for me it was a nearby creek running behind the local primary school that had blackberries and a few big gum trees. The bush areas my parents hold memories about playing in are now gone, replaced by sub divisions as far as the eye can see.

Aa a kid our parents didnt have TV so there is no comparison there but I think about my childhood and TV barely existed. In the morning we would maybe sneak in a cartoon or two whilst eating breakfast on the floor in front of the electric heater, and then it was off to school, there was no coming home from school and watching tv, it was home and onto the bikes, play cricket or kick the footy. I guess I was lucky having a brother so I had somebody to do these things with, there were also plenty of kids within a close proximity of my house always keen to do something.
After 5 when we got called in for tea we would have a bath (during daylight savings we would bath later) and sit down to watch Inspector Gadget, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Belle and Sebastian, Roger Ramjet, Mighty Mouse, Voltron, Dr Who or my dads favourite you cant do that on television which eventually got banned after they named an episode "The Muppets Get Stuffed".
Walking out of the corner store two nights ago a kid ran into me he was about 7, I put my hand out to steady him and said "sorry matey" he told me to "get fucked", Gee thanks for protecting me dad.

Kids of Today have far too much incentive to sit inside, my 4 year old is addicted to "the kids shows" he means Nickelodeon Junior on Austar, he would watch it all day if you let him, if hes not watching that hes pestering me to put on a dvd.
Luckily we have him hooked on some of the old classics like Voltron and some really really old Warner Bros cartoons I picked up for $2 at chickenfeed. He will sit and giggle at them for hours.
Other kids are playing games like Grand Theft Auto on there $500 dollar xbox's (something feels really good about bashing a granny with a baseball bat) and watching M rated movies that my dad would have had a fit about us watching 20 years ago. The best it got for us was Summer Games on the Atari 1600 and the Never Ending Story was the calibre of movie we were taking in.

Far too much we read about Kids on the rails, Or kids drugged out of there minds. 14 and 15 year olds trying to get into pubs (I once snuck into a pub at 17, and even then I stayed 15 minutes for fear of being caught.....dont tell dad!) and even convicted of rape or murder.

I never wanted to do anything wrong as a kid because I didnt want to hurt my parents,I knew that they were proud of my brother and I and we didnt want to let them down. Im not saying we were angels, we got our fair share of slappings, But weve never stolen anything in our lives, never been in trouble with the law, never taken drugs, and dont plan on changing that now. (Is alcohol a drug?)
Most of the trouble we got into was for fighting each other, isnt that what brothers do?
We were raised with good honest values and learnt to respect others and the world around us.

We need to limit the rubbish kids see and hear, teach them whats wrong and right from an early age.
Get your kids outside, help them beat the technology addiction, take them bush, when they winge they want to go home, get in the car and drive to a park.
Take them to sports matches, show an interest in what they like, teach them about respect and discipline.
Make sure they know your proud of them, you will be surprised how upset they will be when they do something wrong and realise your not proud for that split moment.

Most importantly make sure they know they are loved and cherished.



The only counselling naughty kids need comes in the form of a smacked bottom