So glad I...

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Pffft. I was Cat Woman making fantastic leaps and always landing on my feet. 

Archeologists never die, they just keep on digging. 🤭

You're supposed to land on your feet?!?! 

LOL this reminds me of a tweet I saw a few years ago where someone asked what our bodies would do today if we leaped off swings at max height like we did as kids. I don't even think I'd get enough momentum to get off the seat I'm so tired these days. 😄

[Silent Mistwalker]

36 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I grew up in a semirural area in a time when adults would call each other on the phone (yes, a land line, and it was a party line too), but we children were expected to keep our hands off it.  There was no such thing as a home computer yet. We didn't have a TV until I was about 11 either, but friends down the road did, so we could ride our bikes down there to watch Mickey Mouse Club. Otherwise, we were just running around outside like idiots most of the time. 

Mom had a big, loud bell that she could ring when she wanted us to come home, so the rule was that you either had to stay within hearing range of the CLANG! or you had to tell Mom whose house you were going to. Then every once in a while she'd pick up that phone and call around to see where we really went.  Most of the time that meant we stayed within a half mile or so of home. Usually. There were lot of kids in those days, so we tended to run in packs (girls, boys, dogs .. ) and play endless games of tag or hide and seek, or just goofy kid stuff. In winter, we still spent most of the fun time outside, making snow forts and sledding through the trees on a killer hill in the area. I remember reading loads and loads of books and watching dragonflies during the quiet times when there wasn't anyone else around to play with, but my strongest memories of childhood involved dirt, scraped knees, and tangled hair.  Things changed as I got to be ten or eleven years old, but those grade school years were pretty much unorganized kid time, somewhere in the great outdoors.

Add fireflies to that and you've pretty much got my childhood up until I was no longer of any value to the family.

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

You're supposed to land on your feet?!?! 

LOL this reminds me of a tweet I saw a few years ago where someone asked what our bodies would do today if we leaped off swings at max height like we did as kids. I don't even think I'd get enough momentum to get off the seat I'm so tired these days. 😄

Well, that was the general idea, but it was how you got there that counted.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Ayashe Ninetails]

52 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Well, that was the general idea, but it was how you got there that counted.

This forum needs an OMG reaction. 

I have never, ever, ever been able to do that! I'm waaaay too clumsy!

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This kind of thinking is so unfortunate. It's unfair, and it's also terribly misinformed.

To begin with, as others have noted, most Gen Xers spent much of their youth glued to TV sets. I know I did. According to a Nielson data report from 2015, the amount of TV that children watched actually dropped since the late 60s, from 54 to 32 hours a week.

The kids I know personally get out lots. I see them in my neighbourhood -- which is a downtown residential one -- at the parks, walking, running, and playing basketball or street hockey. And the provision of public parks and playgrounds in urban centres, at least in my experience, has improved vastly since when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s.

Kids are reading a lot. The number of young adult books published annually between 2002 and 2012 more than doubled, and the market for reading for kids and young adults has only expanded since then. New genres of literature, such as "New Adult Fiction," have been developed to grow with the millennials who started reading with Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. Web sites and platforms such as Goodreads and Young Adult Books are immensely popular and busy with young people talking about books, and I know of a number of popular book bloggers who cater to a younger audience. And then, of course, there are things like fanfiction sites and NaNoWriMo that are also available to aspiring writers.

Kids read, to some degree, differently today -- they do read novels and poetry (especially slam poetry), but of course they are also reading shorter form stuff on social media sites. They follow podcasts and bloggers on a variety of subjects, ranging from the admittedly trivial to the really informative. I'd wager, actually, that young people actually read more, by sheer volume, than at any time before. And if some of it is dross, a lot of it isn't. (And the vast majority of what older people consumed was dross too, after all. If you watched Dallas or The Flintstones, you're in no position to cast stones.)

Finally, kids inherited this information age environment . . . from us. They didn't invent the internet, and they didn't invent social media. We did -- and made damned sure that it was appealing enough to a younger audience that we could be sure of profiting from their attention. And it's not as though Gen Xers aren't consuming much of this same crap themselves.

It's a different world, in some ways, today -- but the kids are alright. They're more socially aware, and often more media-savvy and critical as consumers of information than my generation was. They're going to be just fine.

Mine are doing more than fine and healthy as it gets doing it our way.

 

 

[Coffee Pancake]

45 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This forum needs an OMG reaction. 

I have never, ever, ever been able to do that! I'm waaaay too clumsy!

Almost broke my damn neck doing that !

[Silent Mistwalker]

23 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This forum needs an OMG reaction. 

I have never, ever, ever been able to do that! I'm waaaay too clumsy!

My brother said I couldn't climb trees because I was a girl. He fell out of trees and broke his arm at least once. I never fell out of any of the ones I climbed. Slept in a few but never fell out.

Grace has nothing to do with it. Momentum does along with where you place your hands and when you "bend" the chain. Playgrounds usually have ringss. If you can learn to flip yourself without swinging on the low rings, knees tucked in, you can flip a swing.

And other fancy dancy stuffs. 

 

Whee! I'm so glad I never grew up!

[Rolig Loon]

I never learned to do a flip dismount from a swing, but I used to be able to do a mean back flip on the ground. I could still do it well into my 40s, too. The last time I did one, I was showing off for my daughter in the back yard and forgot to allow for slightly damp grass, which is a little slippery. I flipped OK, but my feet came out from under me on the landing and I ended up flat on my back, gasping for air. My daughter and the next-door neighbor made me promise not to do it again, and I haven't. It was one more painful step in growing up.

It occurs to me now that my daughter is now in her 40s and she never did learn a back flip. What a wasted childhood.

[junique Tigerfish]

Kids always make use of what is available to them for their enjoyment.They don't complicate things,they just have fun.Grew up in small town,spent a lot of time outdoors,had friends,played Barbies.I can remember picking up random things off the ground and making things with them.Using my imagination and things that were there in the 1970s.Loved school and reading.Pretty calm existence.

My children were 1980s.One loved music,art,Cindy Lauper,not really into TV or electronics.Next loved art,decorating,computer games,animals.Last loved sports,math,computer games,Nintendo.Pogs were big,Pokémon cards.

Our experiences growing up shape us for our futures,interests we may pursue.Peer pressure existed forever,when what your parents think doesn't matter,that imo is the toughest to overcome.Once you grow up you realize a lot of it didn't really matter,but it sure can feel like your whole young world is crashing.Now with the phones,some terrible things are happening.Not just torment at school but can continue thru texts.Parents really need to know what their young ones are doing online.

Fidget spinners and fidget everything now.I asked a young one,why does everyone like these.Told me it is to deal with stress.He was 8ish.That kind of stuff worries me.

I think moderation in everything.Imagination is a good thing.Enjoying and being happy and just being a kid.

[Silent Mistwalker]

58 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I never learned to do a flip dismount from a swing, but I used to be able to do a mean back flip on the ground. I could still do it well into my 40s, too. The last time I did one, I was showing off for my daughter in the back yard and forgot to allow for slightly damp grass, which is a little slippery. I flipped OK, but my feet came out from under me on the landing and I ended up flat on my back, gasping for air. My daughter and the next-door neighbor made me promise not to do it again, and I haven't. It was one more painful step in growing up.

It occurs to me now that my daughter is now in her 40s and she never did learn a back flip. What a wasted childhood.

You forgot to warm up a bit first didn't you. Owie.

[Love Zhaoying]

8 hours ago, Rat Luv said:

Why would anyone want to go in a stream?  It's full of shopping trolleys and dead dogs, and poo 🤢

But checking your DMs with your friends while waiting for a taxi to go to a nice restaurant without mud and dead dogs is cool 😎

Tadpoles!

[Rat Luv]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Tadpoles!

Actually, I like frogs 🐸 Have you ever raised a tadpole and watch it turn into a frog?

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

Actually, I like frogs 🐸 Have you ever raised a tadpole and watch it turn into a frog?

No. If I kept any, I am sure they died.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

7 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

My brother said I couldn't climb trees because I was a girl. He fell out of trees and broke his arm at least once. I never fell out of any of the ones I climbed. Slept in a few but never fell out.

Grace has nothing to do with it. Momentum does along with where you place your hands and when you "bend" the chain. Playgrounds usually have ringss. If you can learn to flip yourself without swinging on the low rings, knees tucked in, you can flip a swing.

And other fancy dancy stuffs. 

 

Whee! I'm so glad I never grew up!

Oh man, sleeping in trees brings back memories. I had a big chonky tree I used to climb that had a perfect little spot to park my butt and would stay up there all the time. It wasn't high up at all - just a few feet, but enough to make me think I was actually going somewhere, lol. Not far enough that a fall would hurt. And I would sit up there and nap and relax. Read a bit. So cozy.

Meanwhiiiile, flip a swing? I haven't even mastered high heels in the 27 years I've been trying to wear them. Flip a swing! You know how many times I've walked straight into my door frame, missing the wide open door? Flip a swing! 😂

[Lewis Luminos]

21 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

Actually, I like frogs 🐸 Have you ever raised a tadpole and watch it turn into a frog?

I used to do this almost every year. I'd go down to a local creek and bring back a bucket of frogspawn, and put it in the pond in our back garden. Sadly, the fish in the pond thought I was bringing them dinner, but there was usually one thatwould survive into frog-hood.

I grew up in rural England and I spent most of my spare time outside or on a farm, but I wasnt lucky enough to be able to raise my own daughter that way.  We live in a city which is far less safe than the English countryside. I got my daughter a phone when she was 11; literally as soon as she wanted to be going off with her friends without me. There's no way in hell I would have allowed her to do so without having a method of contacting me in an emergency. That phone was as much for my peace of mind as it was for her entertainment. It was before smartphones and social media existed though. All it could do was make calls and send texts.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

14 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I grew up in the 60s being promised flying cars. I want my darn flying cars!!!!

And my holodeck!

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Oh man, sleeping in trees brings back memories. I had a big chonky tree I used to climb that had a perfect little spot to park my butt and would stay up there all the time. It wasn't high up at all - just a few feet, but enough to make me think I was actually going somewhere, lol. Not far enough that a fall would hurt. And I would sit up there and nap and relax. Read a bit. So cozy.

Meanwhiiiile, flip a swing? I haven't even mastered high heels in the 27 years I've been trying to wear them. Flip a swing! You know how many times I've walked straight into my door frame, missing the wide open door? Flip a swing! 😂

Most women shouldn't wear heels since they've never done any ankle strengthening exercises like releves. Five minutes a day is all it takes.

 

 

You don't need to learn all 5 positions or to do the spring.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I used to do this almost every year. I'd go down to a local creek and bring back a bucket of frogspawn, and put it in the pond in our back garden. Sadly, the fish in the pond thought I was bringing them dinner, but there was usually one thatwould survive into frog-hood.

I grew up in rural England and I spent most of my spare time outside or on a farm, but I wasnt lucky enough to be able to raise my own daughter that way.  We live in a city which is far less safe than the English countryside. I got my daughter a phone when she was 11; literally as soon as she wanted to be going off with her friends without me. There's no way in hell I would have allowed her to do so without having a method of contacting me in an emergency. That phone was as much for my peace of mind as it was for her entertainment. It was before smartphones and social media existed though. All it could do was make calls and send texts.

 

You may want to look into this.. I know we will be giving this a look or something similar when our boys get into their teens.. If we get them any phone at all it will be more a phone than anything..

This is the first version where they are already with version 2 now.

 

This is with version 2

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Most women shouldn't wear heels since they've never done any ankle strengthening exercises like releves. Five minutes a day is all it takes.

 

 

You don't need to learn all 5 positions or to do the spring.

 

I took ballet classes as a kid. That's bringing back nightmares. 😂 I quit after my first summer on pointe.

I'll always be a combat boots/stompy boots kinda girl at heart, but I will toss on a pair of heels *on verrrry raaaaare occasion* if the situation calls for it (dressy flats are just not my jam at all). Once it ends in inevitable disaster, I'm back in my comfort zone.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I took ballet classes as a kid.

Me too. The worst part was all the girls teasing me. Not sure I ever forgave my mother for making me take dance.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

55 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Me too. The worst part was all the girls teasing me. Not sure I ever forgave my mother for making me take dance.

Awwww, that's not nice. We had the occasional boy in class, but not very often. I always admired that, actually! I love a guy who can dance no matter what style it is.

I think dance teaches you a LOT in general, especially when taken young. I just absolutely freaking hated how flexible ballet required you to be. I would've done a lot better in tap, which I really enjoyed in my intro combo class. Silly me chose the ballet route, though. Figured it'd help me be less of a klutz on my feet, lol. Nope not at all!

As an adult, I've always been into belly dance and yoga as a main source of gentle exercise, but I've been so so so slacking on that front over the last few years (and all exercise in general - I need to get back to it).

Edited May 16, 2022 by Ayashe Ninetails
I can spell!

[Luna Bliss]

14 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

No one ever became a better, smarter or more socially aware person by wasting their days sat in the mud

I think it's great how you used the internet to recover and enhance your life, and I understand and have empathy for your situation more than I care to say (sick parents), but hey don't knock the mud -- it's important stuff and spending time with it can do amazing things!!   

My anger at your perception sparked the beginning of a poem:

For The Love Of Dirt

"dirt" you say, lowly trail for our feet
nasty dust invading special spaces
how did you get such a reputation?

chemical soup of life itself
the essence of creation
your soft aromatic allure
slips through these fingers you made

[Luna Bliss]

11 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Mine are doing more than fine and healthy as it gets doing it our way.

One of the most horrific sights I ever saw was my grandson lying on a bed, not more than 18 months old, sucking on a bottle with one hand and a toddler Ipad in the other. He should have been in his parents lap, feeling their warmth and gazing into their eyes -- not gazing into a damn device. I only hope he got enough nurturing, the comfort and connection needed to build a solid, healthy self, and is not emotionally damaged.

However they were so careful not to allow any overwhelming content for him to watch, only the simple little stresses of cartoon characters without any violence as they went about their day, and I was grateful for that. But NOW...this uber- gaming father of his has him into Roblox (he's too young for it, even according to the TOS, and I'm not sure if his father even supervises him much), and on phone conversations with his mother I hear him running around in the background exclaiming "kill all the people!!".  Sigh

[Luna Bliss]

[Luna Bliss]

I always like to see SL mentioned, despite it often being far more negative than it needs to be, and I never saw the following example. From the link I posted earlier about addiction, this psychologist talks about SL and posts a picture (worth watching to see the funny pic), and describes a legal secretary in SL who embezzled $400,000 real dollars from her company in order to buy stuff in SL.
*She starts describing SL at about the 5 or 6 minute mark*