Prue DeAraugo
RyanaSurviving Childhood in the 80s
June 2nd 2008 23:02
The other day while watching children playing in the local playground with its enclosed slides, and rubber play areas, I started to wonder how I survived my own childhood relatively unscarred. I think my generation was one of the last to grow up in a time before safety guidelines sucked the fun out of childhood.
Playgrounds didn’t have the rubber play surfaces that we demand for our children nowadays, but it didn’t stop us hanging upside down from monkey bars shouting “Look mum, no hands” with nothing but the hard cement to break our fall.
We survived swings chains that pinched our hands. We used to make those swings fly high and then just as we could not go any higher, we would jump off and fly through the air, and most of the time would land relatively unscathed.
We would head off on our bikes early in the morning in the days before helmets were compulsory and mobile phones were the size of bricks, and we would not be seen again until the early evening. I am sure that I still have bits of road still embedded in my forehead due to the number of times the front mudguard of my old bike used to jam sending me flying head over heels.
There were no childhood obesity problems, even though we used to sell the old glass fizzy drink bottles for a few cents and buy a big bag of sweets, but we were not overweight because we had were far too busy running around the streets climbing the neighbourhood trees (yes occasionally we even fell out).
It was not even compulsory to wear seatbelts in the back seat in those days. We used to stand up in the back seat of the car, or hang our heads out the windows. Sometimes my father used to let us ride in the trailer or the back of the Ute around the streets.
Ahh yes I remember the days when childhood meant pushing boundaries and discovering rather than being told our own limitations.
Playgrounds didn’t have the rubber play surfaces that we demand for our children nowadays, but it didn’t stop us hanging upside down from monkey bars shouting “Look mum, no hands” with nothing but the hard cement to break our fall.
We survived swings chains that pinched our hands. We used to make those swings fly high and then just as we could not go any higher, we would jump off and fly through the air, and most of the time would land relatively unscathed.
We would head off on our bikes early in the morning in the days before helmets were compulsory and mobile phones were the size of bricks, and we would not be seen again until the early evening. I am sure that I still have bits of road still embedded in my forehead due to the number of times the front mudguard of my old bike used to jam sending me flying head over heels.
There were no childhood obesity problems, even though we used to sell the old glass fizzy drink bottles for a few cents and buy a big bag of sweets, but we were not overweight because we had were far too busy running around the streets climbing the neighbourhood trees (yes occasionally we even fell out).
It was not even compulsory to wear seatbelts in the back seat in those days. We used to stand up in the back seat of the car, or hang our heads out the windows. Sometimes my father used to let us ride in the trailer or the back of the Ute around the streets.
Ahh yes I remember the days when childhood meant pushing boundaries and discovering rather than being told our own limitations.
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