questions about kids today

[Throwback]

I was thinking today as I drove through my old neighborhood. When I was little those streets were packed with kids. But I didn't see a single soul out today. And as I drove past, some old memories popped in my head and it got me thinking of a few questions.


Do kids still put baseball cards in the spokes of their bikes?

Do they still get big groups together to have a neighborhood game of Hide and go seek or soccer baseball?

Do people even still play Soccer baseball? What about equipment tag or red rover?

I haven't seen a lemonade stand in years, do kids still do that?

And not once since I got my own place has a kid came to my door asking to mow the lawn OR shovel my driveway. Do kids still do that?

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

I'm guessing most stay inside today. Too many parents afraid to let them out, plus the draw of video games and the Internet*

*Which is crap, because when I was a kid, we played video games until our thumbs went numb, then went outside.

[biafra]

Mine don't do any of it.

They play outside but not too far away.

Frankly I don't trust my neighborhood enough.

[Deleted]

We need to ask Bill Cosby that question.

[Wolfpack Bitch]

Too many sickos in the world. Megan's Law has helped locate some of them, but there are still too many that are willing to simply steal a child. The roads are unsafe as well. Used to be that you could go ride your bike wherever, but more car traffic, faster speeds and people on cell phones have made that much more dangerous.

Yes, the internet, TV and video games have also done their part to keep kids inside.

I miss the old neighborhoods where you could find a large group of kids out playing, climbing trees, riding bikes, lemonade stands etc. Times were simpler back then

[Wolfpack Bitch]

yeah I guess that's probably right, but without 24/7 news broadcasts it was more "ignorance is bliss" kinda attitude. I also think there were more kids around back then as well, people seem to be cutting down, not able to afford all those mouths to feed. It's easier to send a group of 4 kids outside to play than it is sending 1 out.

Back then, neighbors talked and mothers stayed home. Windows were open because not everyone had central air and kids stayed close enough to hear a parent calling them from the front door, not a cell phone.

[Throwback]

Nov 22, 2009 21:41:59 GMT -5 Wolfpack Bitch said:

kids stayed close enough to hear a parent calling them from the front door, not a cell phone.

I can remember answering for other kids. LOL The parent would yell out a name and no matter who it was you'd yell back "WHAT?" and you'd always get an answer "Time to come home!" That was the easiest way to get people in trouble back then. LOL

I lived in a different neigborhood than the one I went to school in. So I had my school friends and I had my home friends and only at my birthday parties would the kids ever meet each other.

[SHAKEMASTER TV9 is Don Knotts]

Facebook updating is what's fun now for them.

[Milkman Norm]

As someone who doesn't have kids I'll stick with the it's as safe now as it ever has been line. Until I have kids.

[Alucard]

Do kids still put baseball cards in the spokes of their bikes?

Do they still get big groups together to have a neighborhood game of Hide and go seek or soccer baseball?

Do people even still play Soccer baseball? What about equipment tag or red rover?

I haven't seen a lemonade stand in years, do kids still do that?

1. Maybe, lots of people, young and old, still enjoy riding bikes and the modification of them. It's a rather sprawling hobby.

2. Yeah, I see lots of kids within the neighborhoods around here playing together. Soccer, throwing a football, playing "guns", etc. I'm a delivery driver, so avoiding them is part of my job. A lot of kids skateboard, too.

3. Yeah. Wherever there are parks and stuff, there's usually people playing in them.

4. Yep, saw one recently in my neighborhood. Some tween-teenish girls were running it.

[ozequal]

anyone who thinks Megan's law has any discernible positive effects for child safety is sorely mistaken

[Wolfpack Bitch]

Nov 22, 2009 22:35:55 GMT -5 ozequal said:

anyone who thinks Megan's law has any discernible positive effects for child safety is sorely mistaken

You don't think it's a good idea to know how many predators live in your area ?

[Drillbit Taylor]

Nov 22, 2009 20:46:09 GMT -5 Throwback said:

Do people even still play Soccer baseball?

Kickball?

[Milkman Norm]

Nov 22, 2009 23:14:09 GMT -5 devondragon said:

Nov 22, 2009 22:38:32 GMT -5 Wolfpack Bitch said:

You don't think it's a good idea to know how many predators live in your area ?

Well, considering most offender lists lump the college kid who streaked after a party and the guy who forcibly raped a child into the same group, I think those laws need an overhaul

Some sites list the acutally crimes that were charged, so that helps you tell the difference

[H-Fist]

Nov 22, 2009 20:46:09 GMT -5 Throwback said:

Do kids still put baseball cards in the spokes of their bikes?

When I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, baseball cards were still affordable. I could get a pack for 50-75 cents. But then it really became a collector/money thing. The packs became $3-5, sometimes more, and I didn't want to spend my whole allowance on one pack. That increase (plus the strike and the growth in popularity of the NFL, NBA and soccer) drove away a generation of kids from baseball cards. So the people who buy cards today do it for the possible money involved, not the cards.

Also remember that the major attraction of baseball cards was they were the only way for most kids ever to see most of the players in the league. No interleague play meant you only got 11-13 teams coming to town each year and there was less player movement. Not everybody had access to out-of-town games via cable, and plenty caught out-of-town games via radio. So you needed cards to see faces and to see stats; the Sunday paper updated each week, but it only gave last names of active players. Then came the internet and the ubiquity of cable. Boom. No one needs the service baseball cards provide anymore. They are only an investment, which means they can't be put in spokes.

Do they still get big groups together to have a neighborhood game of Hide and go seek or soccer baseball? Do people even still play Soccer baseball? What about equipment tag or red rover?

Kids will get together and play outside depending on the area. My neighborhood is really safe and there are a bunch of kids who know each other. Soccer is the major game now because it requires nothing but a ball to play. I see kids at the neighborhood school playing every day. The goal is just a pair of backpacks thrown down a few yards apart. Kickball, touch football, and other games get played, but not as much because you need more kids to play them. In Chicago, the changing ethnic make-ups of neighborhoods has created this weird isolation where the Latino kids don't play in the main soccer leagues around here (AYSO) and language barriers between adults keep all of the immigrant kids of non-English speaking parents from integrating fully: their parents can't check up on them since no one else's folks understand...Farsi or Arabic or Urdu or Spanish or Korean or...

And a lot of those old games are strictly for gym class now. Schools are so overcrowded there's no room to store 4-square/kickballs and such. And the districts make the home friend/school friend thing tough because kids live too far from school to walk and take the bus.

I haven't seen a lemonade stand in years, do kids still do that?

Some do, but people don't walk anymore. There used to be plenty of foot traffic on my street - a side street - when I was a kid that my sister and I could make 10 bucks each at 25 cents a glass in an afternoon. But now? Cars, cars, cars. And kids are in camp all week and want to relax inside in the AC on weekends, or go do something with family, rather than stick around.

And not once since I got my own place has a kid came to my door asking to mow the lawn OR shovel my driveway. Do kids still do that?

Lawns: I mowed lawns starting at 12. One summer, my lawn business made me $50 a week (a double lot for $20, a corner lot with 2 street-sides for $15, and a single for $10; plus my parents gave me $5 and that was one of my chores). The summer before my freshman year of high school, I saved every penny. I had enough money to go to Best Buy at the end of September and pay cash for a 300 MHz PC (not too awful in the fall of 98), a 15" monitor, and a printer.

But nowadays my dad can pay a professional landscaping company $15 a week to do the lawn (plus edging), bag up the waste, trim the bushes, rake and bag leaves in the fall... Kids (especially boys) today would have to do a lot of work for very little money to make it worth someone's while not to go with the pros.

Shoveling is different. I see plenty of kids who want to shovel, but parents are waiting until they are older to let them go around the neighborhood. Simply put, people have "friends" on their computers; they don't know their neighbors.

But there are also plenty of adults like me with college degrees who haven't found work over the past year who will be taking the shovel jobs away from kids. We are big, strong, industrious, and "overqualified" for grocery stores and fast food places. Kids don't hold a candle to us.

...


So, overall, kids aren't growing up the way kids did even ten years ago. Depending on the individual and the location, technological changes affected lifestyle a great deal. I mean heck, I babysat for a pair of boys (about 7 and 4 years old, I think) and made $5/hour. Just 10 years ago. The amount that kids demand now (especially what I hear from friends and relatives who live in suburbs) is ridiculous, but they get away with it because, apparently, a 16-year-old girl with unlimited text messaging is really going to be interested in engaging the children.

There are also a lot of landscaping companies that are owned and operated by the guys who 10 years ago were the fresh-across-the-border Mexican guys with no skills or education. They busted ass, learned English and some basic business math, and started companies with the minimal overhead of a pickup, a trailer, a couple mowers, a blower, and an edger. Good on them.

...

As far as safety for kids: Traffic is definitely more dangerous. Idiots driving while texting or talking with a hand to their ears makes the roads so damn dangerous. Also dangerous are the myriad people who drive without licenses because they either are here illegally or don't know English and couldn't pass the test, or simply came from countries where the loudest horn and most obscene gestures granted right of way. So nobody wants their kids crossing the street.

There are, by sheer numbers, more pervs out there. The population has shot up, so most likely the absolute number of creeps has grown with it. But also the net has made it possible for those guys (and gals) to communicate and form a pseudo-community online. With access to any form of communication comes the ability for the person to justify their feelings and, thus, the actions they undertake. Somehow an organization with an acronym should work in here, followed by Jon Stewart saying, "or 'NAMBLA.'"

There is a park across the alley from my folks' house. 26 acres. 2 baseball and 4 softball diamonds that stand empty outside of one high school's home games, a 2-diamond baseball summer league of some kind (look to be 14-15 year olds), and a couple nights with a few 16" softball games (Chicago's own game...we play with big balls and no gloves; but the guys are getting older and there is much less new blood coming into it; a lot of those leagues were company leagues with shops that haven't added new blood because those skilled labor jobs aren't growing anymore...end tangent here).

The world is changing; and in terms of being outside and playing and interacting, this is not for the better.

[Throwback]

I used to put playing cards in my spokes. Sure they broke easier but they were cheaper, thicker so you could get a louder sound plus you got 56 of them in a pack

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

Nov 22, 2009 20:46:09 GMT -5 Throwback said:

I was thinking today as I drove through my old neighborhood. When I was little those streets were packed with kids. But I didn't see a single soul out today. And as I drove past, some old memories popped in my head and it got me thinking of a few questions.

I live in a small town, so I'll give my perspective

[quote[
Do kids still put baseball cards in the spokes of their bikes?[/quote]

Honestly, I haven't really noticed. I'd imagine it's not as common now as you can buy all sorts of stuff to do the same job for pretty cheap. Plus, with the price of sports cards now, you wanna protect those things

Do they still get big groups together to have a neighborhood game of Hide and go seek or soccer baseball?

Do people even still play Soccer baseball? What about equipment tag or red rover?

I don't really notice it much and I live about 20 feet from an elementary school, and 2 blocks from a big park. I rarely see large groups of kids playing, usually 3-4 max.

I haven't seen a lemonade stand in years, do kids still do that?

I've seen a couple in the past few years, usually in conjunction with the parents having a yard sale. I always overpay for lemonade at a stand, I know how frustrating it can be waiting all day for a handful of sales

And not once since I got my own place has a kid came to my door asking to mow the lawn OR shovel my driveway. Do kids still do that?

I see the odd ad for this, but it's rare. I never see kids go door to door offering like we used to

[Dave at the Movies]

I think anyone born in the 70s-80s and some in the early 90s can really see a big difference between kids today and when we were kids.

I use to live in a smaller town in Kansas and played outside all the time. When I moved to Missouri closer to Kansas City(lived in Independence which is a suburb of Kansas City) when I was 9 I noticed a a difference but that was only because it was closer to a bigger city and a bit more dangerous.

After my family moved we lived behind a school that has a huge field. I moved in 1997 and had lived there till 6 months ago when I moved out. After 11 years living there I noticed a big difference between how many kids would play there compared to the late 90s and even earlier this decade. In the late 90s and about 1997-2003 I would see kids playing in the field all the time. In the last five years I have hardly seen any.

I think out of everything like most others have said in the thread the internet and the fact that they make sex offenders register(which is also apart of the internet I guess) are the big reasons for why kids don't play outside as much. There has been a huge difference between this decade and the 90s. It was about 2003-2004 when the internet was getting huge for kids because of Myspace and I think that is where it started.

[Deleted]

Did kids ever really have lemonade stands? I'm not asking sarcastically, I'd be quite genuinely surprised if that was ever a real thing. I always thought that was an old-fashioned television cliche, but then again I've always lived in a rural area.

I also have never seen the baseball cards-in-the-spokes trick done, though I am aware of it. When I was little, most kids had those beads on their spokes that would slide up and down to make noise.

Is "soccer baseball" like kickball? As far as I know, kickball is still big, but like I said, there is nowhere near me that kids can get together to play outside of school.

I was born in 1984, by the way.

[ozequal]

Nov 22, 2009 22:38:32 GMT -5 Wolfpack Bitch said:

Nov 22, 2009 22:35:55 GMT -5 ozequal said:

anyone who thinks Megan's law has any discernible positive effects for child safety is sorely mistaken

You don't think it's a good idea to know how many predators live in your area ?

If it were to have any positive effect for child safety, then yeah sure. It doesn't though...what it does do is increase vigilante attacks and have no discernible effects on the amount of children who are molested each year, no effect on whether or not a released offender re-offends and happens to cost quite a lot of money.

Expecting Megan's Law to be a deterrent shows a lack of understanding about the reasons why and more importantly HOW paedophiles do what they do. If you are a 35 woman with a child, the chances of her being molested by You/Her Father/Her Grandfather/Your Boyfriend etc are FAR higher than her being picked up off the street by some random paedo.