What do you remember from your childhood that children today would find incomprehensible?
We all heard grandparents tell about how they “walked to school five miles, barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways”. But all kidding aside, many of the things that I did as a child are probably unknown to my grandchildren.
The most dramatic changes in Canadian culture have been in communications. When I was a child, we had a rotary phone hung on the kitchen wall. There was no such thing as a private conversation on the telephone. I was glad when we no longer “dialed” the phone, but instead pushed numbered buttons to place a telephone callToday, Most children today have a mobile phone, often because their parents want to keep track of time. When it was decided that children should not be using their phone in the classroom, some parents fought it because they wanted to be able to talk to their child at at any time.
Today, students use ballpoint pens and fine-tip markers, writing tools that were not yet invented when I was young. When I was in Grade 6, I felt very grown-up when we graduated from pencils to fountain pens. There was an indentation in the school desk to hold a bottle of ink. The pen was filled from the ink well, with a pumping mechanism. Learning to use an inky pen was a challenge because it easily created blots and smudges on the paper. My mother was upset when I got ink stains on my white shirt; I’m not sure if I told her it was because the boys had an ink fight while the teacher was in the hallway.
We had no mechanical or digital calculators in the classroom. Today’s students often use their phone as a calculator.
Some of the toys we played with would no longer be considered safe. For example, I had a tiny stove and oven that could be plugged into the wall. It created enough heat to boil potatoes! Fortunately, I never burnt myself severely on it.
Back then, every kid had a jackknife to whittle a point on a willow branch for roasting wieners over a smoky fire. A gang of us would set off on our bicycles and usually ended up down by the river where we “smoked” the hollow stems of wild carrot. I don’t remember anybody starting themselves on fire. Most children today have never seen a wooden match and don’t know how to use it.
Growing up in a small town, I had great freedom to roam the neighbourhood with my friends. We played outdoor games well into the evening and only went home when it was too dark to play “hide and seek”. Today’s children have fewer playmates living in their neighbourhood and more perceived dangers, so most parents don’t allow children to roam around unsupervised.
My bicycle did not have a chain guard, so the leg of my pants often got caught up in the chain, bringing the bike to an embarrassing halt. The solution was to constrain the pant leg at the ankle with an old rubber sealer ring. The bicycles were rudimentary, which allowed us to do most repairs ourselves. If the chain came off, we figured out how to put it back on. If the tire went flat, we learned how to patch it. Today’s bicycles are so sophisticated that a child cannot fix it easily.
I’m not arguing against the safeguards that have been added to many items to prevent children from injuring themselves. I am an advocate of wearing a helmet, mouthguard, and strategic padding, for example. The injuries my generation sustained have helped to create an awareness of the need for the safeguard that help to prevent injuries for my grandchildren.
Many people my age are nostalgic about the innocence of their childhood. Today, children are bombarded with the same kind of stressors that cause their grandparents to turn off the TV news and stop reading the newspaper. One of the biggest differences in childhood today is that we are now aware of all of the troubles, in all the world, all the time. And still, children laugh and play and learn and grow. Some things just don’t change.
