The Youth of Today?

**Tugmistress** · 03-Mar-10, 10:00

Re posted here by request

THE SPOILED UNDER-40 CROWD!!! If you are 40 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!! When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious shite about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a ing Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the bloody library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take, like, a week to get there!
Stamps were 5 pence!Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick the out of us! Nowhere was safe!There were no MP3' s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone. Cause - that's how we rolled, dig? We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mum, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... forever!And you could never win.
The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!
NO REMOTES!!!
There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-rugs!And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the cooker! Imagine that! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You little horrors wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970's or before!

Regards,The Over 40 Crowd

**topotheuk** · 03-Mar-10, 10:47

Now see this is when the .Org should have a function to "like" just like Facebook. I would have clicked "like" on this post. It is funny but sooooo true!!

**upolian** · 03-Mar-10, 11:00

i miss my atari and commodore 64 lol

**shazzap** · 03-Mar-10, 11:01

Ha ha how true.

**onecalledk** · 03-Mar-10, 12:01

your post is so true but unfortunately kids these days live in a different society altogether. I remember when I was little going out with my sister all day on our bikes, going across town (Inverness) and not telling anyone where we were and back for tea. That scenario wouldnt happen these days due to the society we live in. I lived in a street where we knew ALL the neighbours and were in and out of each others houses. That wouldnt happen today with people preferring to keep themselves to themselves. In cities its even worse. BUT the world is changing.

Global disasters, weird weather etc is forcing us to change. How many people during the last madness of the snow actually spoke to a neighbour or checked on someone they didnt know. Probably lots and lots as people are forced almost to pull together in a way they havent done up til now.

Our children now have MORE access to the world and information than ever before and its not always a good thing. We didnt live in fear of being abducted by someone horrible as we KNEW people in the neighbourhood, people would watch out for others. I am not a fan of technology in that it causes more problems than it solves. Its all too easy to sit behind a computer screen and cause chaos. I know some young people in their twenties who actually sit in the SAME room as each other and instant message each other !!!!! YOung people seem to have little social skills and that can be blamed on technology, we went down the pub as teenagers now they prefer to sit in their bedrooms chatting to each other over the web....

But then the generation that came before us probably thought we were spoiled compared to how they grew up!
K

**achingale** · 03-Mar-10, 12:21

Tugs, you have hit the nail on the head! It was so funny to read but also so very true! Maybe we should organise an Over 40 Club for Orgers who can winge about the youth of today

**John Little** · 03-Mar-10, 12:31

Aye - they don't know they're born...when I was a lad...

We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays without advertisements. It was all the wolf could do to keep us away from his door. A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches- two slices of bread with wide-open spaces between them. There were so many holes in my socks I could put them on seventeen different ways.

Chic Murray

**porshiepoo** · 03-Mar-10, 13:35

I'm not even 40 - yet, and even I have to agree. lol.
I used to have to walk over 3 miles to school, then back again - whatever the weather and through a park area known for perverts and which gave me the creeps!
Our TV was one of those huge bulky things with 4 channel buttons only ( I remember channel 4 coming out) and the remote control was us kids.
Once we were lucky enough to get a computer it was a Commodore 64 and to play just a simple game I first had to spend ages typing in the entire game commands.

I do have a lovely memory of Saucy Sponge and Custard for Sunday dinner though!

**Hoida** · 03-Mar-10, 13:58

So true,so very true,no takeaways you were never sure what you would get for your tea on a Thursday night! very often it would be tatties and turnip(out the garden) with a promise of something better on Friday when our dad got paid.

**wicker8** · 03-Mar-10, 14:03

hi you never spoke a truer word it also made me laugh

**Saveman** · 03-Mar-10, 15:20

Please edit the swearing as I would imagine the mods will slap on an infringement.

**cuddlepop** · 03-Mar-10, 16:09

Never a truer word spoken Tuggs.

**annthracks** · 03-Mar-10, 18:14

Hear bl00dy hear!!

**Kirdon** · 03-Mar-10, 19:30

True but the sun seemed to shine all through the summer holidays and there seemed always to be snow at Christmas for weeks.

**weeboyagee** · 03-Mar-10, 19:34

Haven't been posting on here in ages but laughed at this one when I read it! Only thing was - I had to THINK to remember - which proved I'm over 40! But I do all the things that the younger generation do - and I love it. What does that prove? I'm a big kid at heart really - and the over 40s when I was a kid must've felt the same when they were playing our atari's and space invaders!!!!

WBG

**annthracks** · 03-Mar-10, 19:35

Originally Posted by Kirdon

True but the sun seemed to shine all through the summer holidays and there seemed always to be snow at Christmas for weeks.

I remember roads being flooded from kerb to kerb, but the only really heavy snow I remember was '76 :-)

**Kirdon** · 03-Mar-10, 19:48

Originally Posted by annthracks

I remember roads being flooded from kerb to kerb, but the only really heavy snow I remember was '76 :-)

That was Dounreay that melted the snow up your end, doon in Week we hed snow for weeks.

**MR_A** · 03-Mar-10, 20:22

Funny as anything.

I may not be anywhere near 40 but I totally agree.

Mind you there is no way I'm going back to the Atari 2600 although Centipede WAS brilliant!!!