Childhood: Past to present | INFJ Forum

Childhood: Past to present

Gaze

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So, what was your childhood like and how would you compare it to childhood experienced today? Are there things about the time in which you grew up that you miss and things that you don't miss? What are the pros and cons of the time in which you grew up compared to childhood as it is experienced today? Do you think children today have it easier or harder or both? How?
 
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When I was a young child, age 5-6, I used to run all over the place to a degree that seems outrageous to me now. I have retraced my steps via Google Maps, and I would regularly cover about 2 square miles. That may not sound like much, but it was in the city, and I was alone...except for those times I brought my baby sister along (!). She was under 1 year at the time. When I think about it now, I get freaked out.

I would go to this barber shop, and pop in and say hi, and they would say hi back, and then I would go to this bar because it had a jukebox that was always playing good songs. The men in there would tell me I couldn’t come in there, but I would beg to listen to a song or two, and they would relent and let me. I was ignorant to the idea of race at that point in the larger cultural context. All the men in the bar were black. (That’s how they self-referred.) And they would ask me what a white boy knew about music like that. And I would answer best I could, and they would laugh. Sometimes the bartender would make me a Shirley Temple. I loved that place, dark, smokey, and that jukebox. And the men were always so kind to me, and playful.

And I would go dumpster diving for stuff behind a recording studio, and get stuff to play with. I would also stop at the church and talk to (the pastor?) And there was a shop I would buy Lucky Stripe in.

Anyway, maybe kids have that kind of freedom now. Something tells me no. I was a vagabond. Once, I got stuck with my sister across a six-lane highway because of rush hour. I asked a stranger for a coin so I could call for help. (Called my mom). Heh, 5-year-old me with an infant in tow. It’s a wonder nothing ever happened.

---

I think there is better, if still inadequate, awareness and screening for the neurodevelopmental disorder that is ADHD. I wonder what could have been if I had been diagnosed as a child. Oh well.
It wasn’t even called ADHD when I was a child. The meds were the same though.

---

I think there is now greater awareness of child sexual, physical, and psychological abuse as well as child neglect, and there is a greater willingness to talk about those things. There are also resources now for children who have been traumatized. That all said, we still have so far to go in this regard. I think it is our #1 societal/social problem, and it is still largely cloaked in shame.


Cheers,
Ian
 
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So, what was your childhood like and how would you compare it to childhood experienced today? Are there things about the time in which you grew up that you miss and things that you don't miss? What are the pros and cons of the time in which you grew up compared to childhood as it is experienced today? Do you think children today have it easier or harder or both? How?


Children have it much harder than I did when I was a child.
My generation had a great deal of time for ourselves...to be alone with ourselves...and without any electronic distractions. Children these days are greatly indoctrinated with belief systems outside of themselves as provided by endless choices of media.

I had pets and animals and horses while growing up...and I greatly miss the Horses.


I grew up in a time where children could use their own creativity a lot more than children do these days living in a similar environment as mine was.

We didn't even have TV until I was 8...and there were only 3 channels...and it was only on for certain periods of the day. I was not inundated with social media and electronics to shape my mind. We played outside a lot. Learned about Nature. For example since I lived in the Flatlands I was fascinated by how Water moved on the Earth. When it would rain I'd build rivers and dams between the large puddles of water and watch how it flowed.
We built forts, clubhouses, ships to float on water, fishing poles, kites, swings, and all sorts of things I've forgotten because they failed or whatever. The point it we could experiment will all sorts of things.
Once I got my first horse at age 9 I was responsible for her care and training. I taught myself how to ride...fell off of her a gazillion times...and climbed right back up on her. I didn't ride with a helmet or knee pads or a safety harness at all. My parents assumed if I got hurt it taught me a lesson. ...and believe me I learned. I also learned that one may get hurt...feel the pain...get a bruise...and NOT need drugs of any kind to get through it. I mean the most we had when I was growing up was Aspirin. Period.

At age 10 my Dad took me to the Library in the big city and I checked out books on how to train horses to jump. I constructed jumps, modified the horse tack, and trained her how to jump so as not to hurt the horse. I was in heaven! I also worked my ass off too... in a good way...because by age 11 I had 5 horses and when my cousins came we held Circus events where we'd ride standing up on the ponies. Hahahahaha... we all fell off a lot.

We lived in a heavily wooded area and had to pick up fallen limbs and sticks and stuff every year. So we learned how to build fires...how to burn wood efficiently..and how to melt marshmallows and hot dogs. I am very skilled at stacking wood and burning trash. Hahahahaha.... That doesn't go well on a resume' though...does it. :tongue:

We rode bikes down the road. Killed poisonous snakes. Almost got our fingers bit off by Snapping Turtles. I've sat in a bed of fire ants and didn't know it till it I was halfway covered in them. We had an above ground back yard pool and learned how to hold my breath for over a minute under water. I loved sitting on the pool floor surrounded by water....

We played outside at night with hundreds of fireflies dancing all around. We sang songs to the record player and danced till our elders laughed themselves silly. We watched our parents play card games and talk long in to the night. My cousins and I wrote letters to each other (they lived many hours away from me) when we were young and I learned to look forward to the mail.

I could go on and on about my childhood.

In my opinion we learned critical reasoning skills by our actions of trial and error. We built things. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. But we learned by what we actually did...not out of a book or because someone said so.

Children these days spend a great deal of their time sitting still and learning by wrote memorization. I mean they start school by age 3. We didn't start school till age 6. There is a whole lot of brain development that takes place between the ages of 3 and 6.... critical years of indoctrination by the public education system designed to mold people into robots and "good" citizens.
Any chance I got to talk with a Mom about her young child I urged them to postpone school. It's often difficult though as the US wants every person in this country over 18 to work...and not stay home and take care of a child.
 
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As a kid I often played outside in our street and whenever I played inside, I often used my imagination to keep myself entertained or watched Disney movies. Computers were already on the market and my sister had one in her room, but I only remember playing Minesweeper just once or twice because I didn't understand the game. I'm actually glad computers didn't play a big part in people's lives back then. I often played with barbies or stuffed animals.. or played in my imaginary world (the floor is lava, the bed is a time machine, etc). When I see kids nowadays without their phones (or their parents' phones.. my 5 y-o niece is already addicted to smartphones), tablet or computer they are so unbelievably bored. They are already so focused on those little screens that it's actually sad.

Most cartoons and kid's tv shows were also better and not as cringe-worthy as what Disney Channel puts out nowadays.

What I don't miss? Honestly nothing. I'm one of the people who's in the last generation to have experienced their childhood without technology; by the time I was 12 these things including the internet started getting more popular and I wasn't really a small child anymore. I actually wish I was born a decade or two earlier so I would've gone through puberty without technology as well. It wasted a lot of my time and imagination during that time.

Schools have also gotten more difficult from what I've heard. When I was a kid I never felt any pressure and was still allowed to be a kid and play. Nowadays young children already have tests and what have you. It's ridiculous! Just because the schools want to test their intelligence? I feel they're just putting labels on such young children. They're already being judged by their performances and behavior. In that way kids have it a lot harder nowadays.
 
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I was born in 91. Probably one of the last generations not ot be consumed by technology.
Internet capable phone's were just coming out when I was 15 or 16, and were rather crude in comparison to today's.
A lot of other kids were myspacing or MSNing, but I've only been using the internet 'a lot' since I was 20.

I spent a lot of time reading, learning, drawing, playing in the dirt... Playing football, and other usual things.

By 15 & 16 I was out getting drunk and smoking weed... and I've been doing that ever since.

These days... Kids are so on the ball with technology.. and so sexualised.

I fear for the future.
 
I was born in 91. Probably one of the last generations not ot be consumed by technology.
Internet capable phone's were just coming out when I was 15 or 16, and were rather crude in comparison to today's.
A lot of other kids were myspacing or MSNing, but I've only been using the internet 'a lot' since I was 20.

I spent a lot of time reading, learning, drawing, playing in the dirt... Playing football, and other usual things.

By 15 & 16 I was out getting drunk and smoking weed... and I've been doing that ever since.

These days... Kids are so on the ball with technology.. and so sexualised.

I fear for the future.

I also fear for the future. The cultural trance and technology have created a world of zombies. Run!
 
I was born in 1975. I feel really old now. Teens today seem very odd to me. I didn't even know what the Internet was until college in 1993. Modern life is rubbish. I shall return. I need to pee.
 
I'm going to echo a lot of posters here and say that the biggest difference that I see between my childhood and the childhood experiences of the kids today is that I played outside a lot more. I socialized more. Technology was around but it was on a small scale and it wasn't so all consuming.

One of my fondest memories was sneaking onto the golf course that our neighborhood backed onto. The club sprayed the absolute crap out of the grass--pesticides and chemicals--and all the kids on our street had terrible allergies. We couldn't go outside in the summer without a kleenex box and we traded antihistamines like they were street drugs. But puffy eyes and stuffy noses be damned. There was this one spot on the course that was a small forest island and smack dab in the middle of it, there was a pond where we'd go to catch toads. Actually, it was more of a swamp with fallen trees and insects and empty pop cans, but it was like the neighborhood mecca. I remember we got chased out of there by club employees once and that was the only time. Frankly, as an adult looking back on this, I'm surprised they didn't do more to keep us out. We were loud ass kids and we probably disturbed all the golfers... which, if you play golf, you know that screaming kids on a course isn't a desirable thing when you're paying club fees and wanting to hear the grass grow. And yet, we were pretty much left to our own devices.

We'd get back home all dirty and covered in grass and pesticides and whatever the hell was in that pond, and also toad goo (which it turned out was something that would make some of the kids break out in hives), and none of our parents were overly concerned. Calamine lotion it up. Maybe an oatmeal bath. And jeez, nobody was raising the alarm that a bunch of kids aged 5-9 were wandering around the neighborhood alone as long as we checked in every couple of hours.

I don't see ANY of that flying with the kids (or adults!) today. I'm sure someone is reading this post right now and mentally reciting a dozen health code violations and thinking, shit, that's bad parenting. Hell, I remember bringing peanut butter sandwiches to school and kinder surprise and not having to buzz in whenever I went in and out of the building. Schools these days are like prisons.

There's definitely a lot more paranoia. More control. And I think kids are chafing under it. I don't blame them. I may understand the principle behind gluten-free-grain-fed-free-range-preservative-free-no-artificial-colors-and-flavor snacks and their place in schools but on the other hand... holy fuck. Settle down, society. Kids aren't all that fragile as most people in this day and age seem to think.
 
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So, what was your childhood like and how would you compare it to childhood experienced today? Are there things about the time in which you grew up that you miss and things that you don't miss? What are the pros and cons of the time in which you grew up compared to childhood as it is experienced today? Do you think children today have it easier or harder or both? How?

my childhood was crazy. i grew up with a VERY extroverted family. i was the odd child and nobody among my siblings understood as to why i prefer books than to go out and play. My parents often sign me up to sing every time there is an event for their work or just in family gatherings. I didn't really have much choice back then. Comparing the childhood today, i think back then was better, parents engage more to their children, more attentive i think than today, i always see kids under 5 just holding a gadget,. no more family talks but instead all nose is stuck on their smartphones or tablets.
i miss the times when i just enjoy little things and no one bothers. i don't miss the things my family insists that i do. thinking about it makes me cringe still lol.
personally, i still prefer the way things were back then than now. today most children are neglected due to the fact that they could just give them the gadget and the child will be happy. although gathering of information today is easier, i still think being emotionally involved with kids growing up are important in the long run, the way how you treat others, how you understand everyone and respect each individual will be remembered than how successful you are, how rich you are or how smart you are. but that's just me.

children today can have everything they want without having to work much hard on it. everything is within reach.
 
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I was born in 89. I spent a LOT of time playing outside, in the woods, near the creek, playing with bugs, frogs, tadpoles, snakes, etc. so I have a deep affinity and respect for nature and other forms of life. I truly never liked people that much and would very instinctively avoid them at all costs. I had a hard time in school and had serious, serious problems with authority.... (what's changed). I did have many, many dream worlds. I had friends too but I also spent a lot of time alone because, well, introvert. I also began drawing / writing / creating and playing music as a toddler.

My childhood was awesome. I have deep, fond memories of it. I have a large extended family so I spent a lot of time with my cousins at family functions until we moved when I was a little older.

One major thing in hindsight, I would act out violently if things didn't go my way when something or someone threatened my "areas", forts, or other idealistic creations, not necessarily physical - because my fantasy worlds and reality were at one point one in the same. I was a little kid and didn't understand real world consequences. I would get extremely upset.

As a young artist, I would often destroy my drawings and writings because they weren't good enough. Luckily I saved a lot of them.

Another thing - I began hating religion (parents used to take us to church) at around 6, when I started questioning why we were there worshiping an invisible god. I was very critical of the people, all rising, all doing the same thing. I used to think they were all dumb as shit.

When I was 10, I went to a christian camp, which didn't allow us kids any freedom - it was all routine daily functions meant to "serve the lord" I guess. No fun, no freedom, and I wanted to have fun. I began to hate them, vehemently. I hated the people in charge, and I rallied everyone in my cabin (probably a good 30 kids) to chant "we're not coming back!". This lasted for a while. I don't remember how they stopped it but I think eventually someone had to stop me.

^For these reasons, I have very deep, very serious issues with Christianity, and I don't want to talk about it.

But yeah, issues with authority, artist from a very young age, dream worlds, yada yada yah.
 
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Both of my parents emigrated to the US from elsewhere in the world. Dad joined the military almost instantly. A whopping 30 years later, my mother came to the US because of corrupt politics in her home county. Yup, 30 year age difference between my folks. The youngest of four, we grew up poor. My well educated mother worked as a hotel maid largely due to the politics of the time and a certain amount of racism against Spanish speakers. This was the bad part of Los Angeles, by the way. Yet, my early childhood was... happy. I was too young to be aware of things like financial and social status. In the pre-Internet days, I spent a good amount of time outside, exploring my world. I wasn't a sociable child, I was quite shy and preferred solo adventures. When at home, sharing a bedroom with 3 other sibs, I mostly kept to myself and devoured every book I could get my hands on. The public library was my haven. My adolescence is a whole other issue, lol.

I believe that it really depends on family circumstances how a child will grow up, regardless of when. Though we now live in a technological age, I see the poorer families living without a smart phone or computer. But this is where the schools come in. Kids are assigned ipads to do their homework on, they have computer labs, and these kids are still being taught this technology even if they can't access it at home. I think this is great. Our technology is moving forward at such a fast pace, now more than ever before. These skills they're learning will be necessary for everyday life, let alone the skills they must aquire for their future careers.
This technology boom also keeps our younger generations indoors a whole lot more. But perhaps advances in the things we all enjoy, such as gaming, ie Pokemon Go, will allow them to venture out into their outdoor world's once again. We aren't chained to wires any longer. Kids now have the freedoms of portable technology. It's amazing to see.
As far as school curriculum goes, I think it was much harder back in my day. California has a "no child left behind" law now that actually prohibits holding kids back a grade. I despise it. They just shove them through the education system regardless if they have even a small understanding of the material or not. This puts a ton of pressure on the parents to fill in the gaps on their own. Something which I'm more than willing to do with my nephew, but how many families here can? Also, even their school days are shorter, much shorter. They've gotten rid of, imo, crucial studies like art and music, things which they won't be exposed to till high school. It's disgusting. Perhaps, in a way, the families that do take part in their child's education with help to nurture them all the more, but this no child left behind law is leaving many, many children unprepared for further education. Unless, of course, you can actually afford a private school here. Then you'd probably get a full scholarship to Stanford. /CA education rant over :p
I apologize for the rant. The educational system here is something I'm passionate about to change. Anyhow, my point is that it's all circumstantial and a very individual experience.
 
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My childhood experience was pretty unique compared to my peers. I was one of the first kids to ever have full access to a home computer. Most of my classmates had never really touched a computer until computer lab time at school, but I found the time pretty dull because I had much more interesting stuff on my computer at home. I knew how to navigate everything and often helped students during this "learning time." I had used an apple II basically since I could sit up straight, but you know that doesn't really "count" as a PC (shots fired). Don't get me wrong I had a ton of fun on it, but when it comes down to it, it was mostly just another stepping stone to what we think of as computing today. For me, it was the Dell 386/486 that really brought computing home. And then ultimately Pentium.

I went outside about as much as kids go outside today, which was some but not a ton. Not much has changed for me honestly. I was the odd one as a kid, now the world has caught up and I'm just another boring fish in the sea.

 
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I was one of the first kids to ever have full access to a home computer.

I can say the same. It was an Apple ][ with 16K of RAM. It was 1977 and I was 8 years old.

I read the Red Book in bed at night and in a few months had taught myself Integer BASIC.

Then in 1979 came an Apple ][+ with 48K of RAM, an Integer BASIC card (Applesoft BASIC in ROM), and a Disk ][...a floppy disk drive.

I could do hi-res graphics for the first time, and as I learned more I eventually figured out how to program in assembly language.

Then came Akalabeth and in 1980, Ultima from California Pacific Computer. Those changed everything! :p

In 1981 came a 300-baud Hayes Smartmodem (paid for with lawn-cutting money) and online BBSes and forums. :)

It is weird to think, but next year I will have been an Apple computer owner and user for 40 years.


Cheers,
Ian
 
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