THE SPOILED UNDER-40 CROWD!!!

 

 

 

 

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....

Uphill... Barefoot....

BOTH ways

ETC, ETC, ETC

 

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap 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

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 to put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 5 pence!

 

Child Welfare Services didn't care if our parents bashed us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our arses! Nowhere was safe!

 

There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the bloody 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, !

 

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 arse 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 sods !

 

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

 

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

 

Regards,

The Over 40 Crowd.

 

Alan................

love it mate

Those were the days:yes:I loved my time growing up in the 60s 70s woudnt change a thing:thumbup:

calm down old man, u'll be giving urself a hart attack if ur not carefull, lol

I'm 47 and that was like reading my own thoughts !!!!

 

In a similar vein I despair at the quality of today's music - well most of it at least ! I listen to what my kids are listening to and it's either rubbish or just reworkings (sampling) of music I grew up listening to.

 

I think without doubt I lived through the best times for music - originality in so many different genres. Of course I recognise that I may have turned into my own Dad in so many ways - traffic, cost of living etc etc but on music I'm pretty sure I'm right !

 

Mark

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Nice one Alan, soooo true ;)

sounds like u had it so much easyer back then, nothing to worry about, nothing to go wrong, everything was cheap an easy

Pfft! I'm old but still, pfft!! Give me modern living any day, I remember the old days, they were sh1te lol

its only as good as what u make it

So true mate.lol

 

You forgot about porn though! There was no easy access to it at all, all we had was the occasional jazz mag found in a hedge if you were lucky. Those were the days :wheelchair:

Haha! God bless the t'interweb :xxx: :bow:

lol..making mixtapes off the radio..classic!! Many a weekend wasted doing that only to have the DJ talk over it all!!

yes them were the days . there was a strange thing back then that we used to do that the kids of today dont do . we used to knock on friends doors and play outside , sometimes all day long . good old days

Very true Alan.....

 

......I loved growing up in the 70s and 80s. In fact the 1970s certainly spawned the last "common sense" generation - the one before all the health and safety red tape came in to nanny us snd stop us taking risks.

 

Youngsters nowadays are wrapped in too much cotton wool; and they are supposed to be the country's future:beta1:

 

But like Jane says; I think I also prefer living in the present - however with the benefit of the experience I gained in the past. Today's generation will sadly never experience real life as they are too busy in virtual reality.

 

Richard:cool2:

Lol, sooo true, love it and loved the 80`s

i'm a mere 33 y/o but I can certainly agree with most of what you said! It really saddens me to see kids walking to school in small groups, but all of them engrossed in their mobile phones and not actually talking with eachother! (or perhaps they are, via their phones!) I recently used Google Maps to take a look at my old secondary school playground and most of it has now been fenced off :( me and my pals used to play footie/wallie/manhunt all day in the main school yard and around the buildings. We used to run till we sweated, fall over and get injured, argue, throw tennis balls around. Now all I can imagine is kids sat down on a bench stabbing buttons on their phones :( such a shame

goddamn, im only 25 but i agree totally! especially the bit about the H&S suing culture we now seem to live in. my dad always tells me about being allowed to climb a tree without carrying out a risk assessment in triplicate! and how if a police man told you to do something you bloody well did, not just tell him to F&^% off as loud as they can, knowing the copper cant do bugger all because they'l brand him a pedo if he even moves toward them. i mean even when i was growing up i was shit scared of the police if i was in the wrong, and any adult come to think of it. now the little sh^%s dont seem to be afraid of authority figures in any way!?!??

 

R.I.P common sense generation :hang::sad:

:lol::lol: yep thats true

Totally agree, and as I am one of the 70`s Raleigh Chopper brigade I can see many things are much better today but and this can cover a whole lot of things what can the average older teenager aspire to now?

 

For instance when I was racing up to my 17th birthday all I could think of was passing my test, £125 later a worn out Vauxhall Viva was mine, I spent 4 months doing it up whilst learing to drive and when I passed I was king of the road in my eyes, but wait... no central locking, no eleccy windows, no power steering,no alloy wheels and no flipping power...but I could dream of the day I got all of this and more like better clothes than mom thought I looked good in ( eek! moms choice of clothes ) a better watch, a better cassette player (yes really) maybe even a chance to go on a foreign holiday.

 

Now look at today, every electonic gadgets have been secured by the age of 15, also all latest clothes have been bought worn tossed and replaced at least 5 times, been to Disney so many times its hurts.

 

So 17 and along comes the new 1.3 Corsa on options £99 down and £99 per month comes with central locking, eleccy windows, alloy wheels, spoilers, and power.......so at age 19 what is to look forward to.......................anwer that. no wonder the youth of today seem so vacent....because they are.

 

Nicer times......... for sure now, but only if you did the 70`s apprenticeship otherwise you don`t know any better.

 

Jeff TT

Edited December 29, 201014 yr by JeffTT

Apoligies for spouting off troops, but, well, first Xmas without my daughter,

and a video call from China on Xmas morning was great, but sad at the same time. Had a wee dram as well ! :blushing:

 

Still, she is making a brilliant life out there for herself, so the wife and I are dead chuffed for her. Seeing as its just the two of us now, looking at sunnier Xmas destinations next year.

 

So, from an auld Victor Meldrew kinda guy, Happy New Year to all !!:cool2::cool2:

 

Alan........

Ha, got to laugh about getting a kicking as a boy. It seemed to me at the time, (I am 48)that everyone was out to give me a thrashing. My dad, my mother, my grandad, poxy neighbours, my school teachers. I was constantly getting it from all quarters, and did it affect me?

 

Of course it did, I was a right little b*stard!

sorry but im 30 an think ur all talking sh1t, i think kids have it harder now, with all this new tec they have to have, if u dont have a new iphone etc etc then ur not with it etc etc so kids are under pressure to keep buying the in things which coast shit loads of money every 5 mins, back in ur times there was nothing so was no pressure, so u had no stress an all that, nowa days u have to buy a 50" tv an a ps3 a xbox an a wii just to be part of part, back in ur time if u had a commadore 64 u was cool, yeah we have all this new tec now but its not fecking cheap, an eveything costs twice as much now

but i am pissed so what do i know lol

.....yeah we have all this new tec now but its not fecking cheap, an eveything costs twice as much now

 

And do you think that a Commodore 64 or an Atari console was cheap to us back then? No it bloody well wasn't!

I would say that, pound for pound, things are a lot cheaper now than they were then.

God you lot! Life has changed!! Deal with it!! Its different for us as it was for our parents and their parents before them. Its called modernisation and there aint no going back! I for one like my centrally heated house with double glazing, and a laptop and nice mobile phone and all my gadgets. And speaking as someone who had nowt as a kid and lived in a broken down old house with no heating or mod cons, I would NOT want to go back. If the attitudes of kids suck, blame the parents, not the kids, or the technology! My daughter won't go without like I always did as a kid, but she will also have a strong work ethic installed in her (not least because her dad's a lazy b@stard so I'm determined to show her that hard work means she will be rewarded well) and I will encourage her to get a job when she's a teen and earn pocket money round the house.

Now I'm getting off my soap box if you get off your high horses!

Bloody hell!!! I think some of you need to chill out a little and take the original first post in the manner to which it was obviously intended.... lightheartedly! That's certainly how I took it, as I'm also over 40 and have two kids who have most of those things, some of which I've bought them and some they've bought themselves.

Life wasn't as easy back in the old days as it is now, but that's progress. Parents, who could, spoilt their kids back then as well. It's the way of the world, those that can, do, those that can't don't!!

I think the youth of today are in a wonderfull position with what is available to them and also what will be (is being) developed. I also take advantage of what is available, and why not, as it's better than what I had before!