What has happened to chidhood?. Was it always a myth?

Question

Victorian times youmgsters were sent down mines, up chimneys.

Today I read of 5 year olds self harming, 9 year olds acting as drug dealers and 12 year olds needing nicotine patches.

At 12 I was still a child,my school friends were children. Apart from a few boys having a surreptitious puff at the odd cigarette I don't remember even knowing about self harming and drug dealing.

Answer 1

When I was young I was playing in the straw in the barn loft, flying cheap paper kites I bought with my weekly allowance, trying to catch the little piglets (boy can they run), feeding rabbits and horses and cows and mucking out stalls. When I wasn't running around outside or doing chores I had my nose in a book, and my parents' library was vast and interesting. My big event of the summer was going to the county fair, where I would be allowed to ride the ferris wheel and eat ice cream with honey drizzled over the top. The misdeeds of my classmates were mostly limited to sassing the teacher, not getting their homework done, carving a naughty word into the desk with their pens, or punching a fellow student in the arm a little too hard. I was picked on in school, but it never even crossed my mind to harm anyone because of it. My revenge fantasies consisted of growing up to become rich and famous and snubbing the bullies who would suddenly want to be my friends.

Those folks who insist that life hasn't changed and that "it was always this way" are in denial. Things HAVE changed, radically, and you can't always protect your children from it although you want to shield them from everything and give them the childhood you had...it's the quality of innocence and simple pleasure that's gone from everything, what can you do??

Answer 2

these are the advantages of advancement and technology, affluence and wealth achieved with little effort.

Answer 3

When you put it that way...I guess it is a myth. My kids grew up watching me telling my ex-husbands friends to get out of my house because drugs are not allowed there ever...and then they got to watch  him beat the c**p out of for embarrassing him. Then there was the big divorce and custody battle followed by the lovely 2000 mile greyhound bus ride to escape his stalking us.We showed up on a friends doorstep with only what we could carry...things are so much better now but nothing can make up for what they had stolen from them.

Answer 4

" thats progress for you lol x*x"

Answer 5

Kids want to grow up too fast these days, but it's funny because they actually have a longer childhood (until 18) than the past kids who were respectable.

Answer 6

Society has turned children into mini versions of themselves.  Children have been systematically exposed to situations that they normally would not have been exposed to until adulthood.  We can blame ourselves for their lost childhood.

Answer 7

its mad.  

Answer 8

I know people grow up too quickly nowadays - maybe it was because there wasn't so much games consoles and tv back then so kids used to play outside more and do fun things - today everyone is scared of peodo's so don't let their kids out of the house.  I reckon there was always s*x offenders out there but it's just more publicised nowadays.  There are too many emo's nowadays who pretend to be depressed to fit in with their emo friends

Answer 9

yes its a sad commentary on the human condition,it was talked about in the movie- what the bleep do we know.

it said we can see in the children today we are living in the wrong paradygm....

Answer 10

I don't know where you were raised, but I was raised on a farm.  As children, we got up in the morning at 5am to start chores.  The older children milked the cows, slopped the hogs, threw hay out for the cows and horses while the younger children fed the chickens and gathered the eggs.  Of course, that was after all beds were made and rooms were cleaned.  Baths and breakfast came next, then we were off to school.  After school, we were off to the fields to prepare them for planting in the Spring.  After planting, working the fields, and harvesting we strang tobacco and hung it in barns for curing, picked corn and shucked it, peeled tomatos, peaches, apples, gather grapes, snapped beans, shelled peas, dug up potatos (white and sweet) and then my mom canned all we had prepared.  The tobacco went to the auction block to be sold.  We didn't have time, nor the energy, to think about trouble.  An 'idle mind is the devils work shop.'  It was true then and it is still true today.

I was what was known as a tough mom.  I taught my children right from wrong and I made it very plan to them that if they ever did anything that they knew was wrong, I would not spend a penny for an attorney or bail.  One of my children put me to the test.  I thought I would die because I just knew my child was going to jail for a long time.  I prayed and cried, but I kept my word.  God showed mercy and grace.  My child recieved probation and took full advantage of it by never getting in trouble again.  Tough love?!!!!!!!  Oh! Yes!  As parents, we are admonished to "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." That child graduated from college and is now a Minister of the Gospel.  The oldest and second oldest graduated from college, as well.  One works for the state and the other is a Police Office.  The youngest is in the third year of college.  I whipped their behinds when nothing else worked because I believe the Bible when it reads, "Beat them, they shall not die."  I don't believe in abuse, but I do believe in punishment.  I was the best, earthly, friend my children had, but I was not their 'buddy or girlfriend".

Society is not responsible for raising our children.  Training begins at home and parents teach more by example than by word of mouth.  I use to ask my mother why, when she would tell me to do something.  Her answer would be, "Because I said so."  I thought she was being smart.  She, actually, was, but not like I thought.  When I asked why, my reason was because I was going to decide whether her request made sense.  I had no right to judge what my mother said.  I wasn't as wise as my mother and I was the child.  The Bible reads, "Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.  Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.  And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."  Ephesians 6:1-4  As long as my parents were not telling me to do something that was not wrong, then I was to obey without question.  Now, as I look back, I understand why I was not to question.  When I obeyed my parents, I was learning to obey God and earthly authorities.  We have come to a time where man has become so worldly wise that the Bible is not necessary for those wise men.  Hence, we have a society without morality.



In the modern times we live in, it has become "interventions or consequences."  But when the children become adults and are sent to prison, it is called punishment.  The courts slap them on the hand until they are 16, lock you up if you spank or whip them and someone reports you, but after 16, they get a bullet or jail time.  Growing up, when parents say no to children, they fail out in the floor, kicking, screaming, slapping their mothers and calling them "B--tch's" while the mothers give in and the child gets what he wants.  I have seen this for 30 years of my life and it continues to get worse.  I am 59.  So, now we have a generation of disrespectful, unthankful, hardheaded, willful, spoiled children who will soon become disrespectful, unthankful, hardheaded, willful, spoiled adults.  This is not all children, but it is, definitely, the MAJORITY!!!

I was and am the mother of 4 children who love me so much that it is amazing to me.  There is no doubt in my mind that I am blessed of God among mothers because it was by His power and their submission to that power that they succeeded.  I was only the vessel throught which He worked.

My daddy was 79 when he died and he would say, "There are no bad children, just bad parents!!"  Unfortunately, if there are bad parents, the children, most often, turn out the same.

Answer 11

I know ditsy, I'm with you.

When I was little I was climbing trees, riding my bike, looking for newts, feeding the cows and horses, playing with puppies and kittens, raiding the larder for midnight feasts etc etc.  I most certainly wasn't thinking of s*x or knives or hurting people or myself.  It's crazy, I don't know what's going on.  I think kids must just have too much access to adult material - tv, internet, magazines etc.  Kids need to learn to be kids again.  It's so sad.  I worry about my little nephew.  Although my sister does her best to shield him from the horrible things - he doesn't watch telly, he doesn't have a computer in his room etc - he still comes home from nursery and pretends to shoot people and calls people stupid etc.  How can she stop this apart from just keeping him at home and never letting him see anyone?