This is for anybody over 50 years old.?

Question

How would teenagers today handle the lives our parents had when they were teenagers? How many could get up at 5am milk the cow gather the eggs feed the livestock and them get ready to go to school. Then come home repeat the process then take a bath in a round wash tub. Take one last trip to the outhouse before going to bed. And go to bed knowing they had the same chores to do the next day.

Answer 1

You left out working the garden, Teenagers today don't realize how easy they have it. Plus I walked to school. I never eat out at a restaurant or went to a movie show until I was 16 years old. The first restaurant I ate at was a Hardees, some dinning experience ugh? Gasoline then was only 16 cent a gal. and a coke was only 5 cents. On my first job, my weeks check would only be for $11.32. We had to raise our food if we wanted to eat. But we had it good, I remember watching my Grandpa plow with a mule. At least we had a tractor.

Answer 2

I will be 54 next month and do MORE in my old age than I see most HALF my age. You are right, kids today wouldn't be able to handle the ways we grew up as I "too" fit the schedule you layed out. You left out a few things though. How about have to clean up the cow paddies AFTER school, go "plow" the field or seed it, weed it, irrigate it, ETC ETC ETC. I learned to drive a tractor by the age of "seven" ( small ford) which my father had me using until I could drive the John Deere. You ONLY MENTIONED the "morning" schedule. I used to hate the outhouse as it smelled, had spiders all over the place and you never knew if some thing else might be down that pit.

At my age, I have been working since the age of "5." I still work. I look at my nephews who are in their 20's STILL living around their mother. I left home at the age of 17, been in the Marines during Vietnam and work for a living. You don't FIND many who grow up fast or desire to bust their butt anymore. So I agree you got a GOOD point when it come to kids today.

Answer 3

Actually, there are teenagers today who do just that.

Well... maybe not the outhouse part...

There are still alot of country folk out there, they all haven't moved to the city.

I never did those things when I was a teenager. I moved from the city to the country after I had grown up. But I still have good eyes and I can see what's going on around me.

Give the kids a break. Every generation has their own set of problems. Every generation gets through them.

Every generation thinks they have it worse than the last. Then they grow up and think the next one has it easy. Doesn't make sense does it? That's OK. It doesn't really have to. We're humans, remember?

Answer 4

I am not over 50 but my mom is in her late 60's so I *could* be in my 50s but I was born late. I am appalled by the kids of today, running around in the sagging jeans (because people in jail can't use belts so their jail uniforms hang and gangsta's think it's cool to look like little convicts) I actually looked it up to find out what in the world they do that. I'm in my 30's and I've seen 30yr old men doing it! It's shameful that they have no sense of pride at all.
Now, for my next rant, the work ethic! or lack thereof I should say. The teenagers today, lazy lazy lazy. Just surviving is a chore for them, god forbid they actually get up from the tv, go to the kitchen and have to stick something in the microwave and life is so tough. My mother lived without electricity until she was 15 years old and and then it was a string across the kitchen with a lightbulb hanging from it. My mother helped her mother scrub the clothes of 9 children on a washboard. I myself, have only seen pictures of a washboard and I am ashamed of every convenience I ever complained about growing up, now that as an adult, I can now understand and appreciate all that she went through. As someone with an obsessive compulsive streak and the need to wash my hands, I don't know how I myself could have survived the days of the outhouse much less the spoiled rotton youth that is coming up these days.

Nothing makes me angrier or more frustrated to go to a business and have some lazy teenager acting all inconvenienced to THEIR JOBS!! I just wanna smack the punk kid and explain that this is what they get paid to do! Just do it and lose the freaking attitude! Oh and smile and add these words to you vocabulary: please and thank you!

My mother made her own clothes. She didn't know what it meant to have 3 meals a day. She'd never think to get out of line because every adult she came in contact with either knew her parents, or could find them easily and in those days, kids had the fear of God in them. Kids today aren't scared of anything and their hearts are so hardened from todays "you're ok, I'm ok, everybody is ok" society that no one is actually held accountable. Kids learn to make excuses earlier and if it's not one disorder or another or because every other kid is labeled "gifted". Our parents knew the value of things, not only of the dollar but of what it means to be respectful and the value of having pride in yourself but in the humblest of ways.

Unfortunately a kid today that could cut it back in the days of our parents, they are in a slim minority and it honestly, it scares me and I'm sure I'll have the urge to smack some punk kid my next turn through a drive-through and I'm sure I'll have the urge for years to come.

Answer 5

I am 52 and I never did any of that. What makes you think that everyone over 50 lived on a farm ? Oh yeah, and we had full size rectangular bath tubs with running water.

But my teenage son has to get up earlier than I ever did for school. He takes before and after school classes. Next year, as a senior in high school, he will be going to college and high school concurrently. His teen years are tougher than mine were.

Answer 6

The age doesn't always tell the tale. I live in rural Tennessee, and there are MANY families here whose children do these tasks and are excused from school in order to go home to help with farm tasks. They may have four-wheelers and lots of advanced heavy equipment, but the work is still hard, and it certainly didn't end with the modern age. Life is still hard for many children in the same way it was hard for their ancestors.

Answer 7

Humm - my grandparents might have done that - but my parents were "city folk" (all 4 of them). We lived on a farm for a little while, but we just rented there and didn't help with much of the work.

Is that part of the "walking to school in the winter uphill both ways" school of thought.

BTW - I think most of today's teenagers are great! At least the ones I know - they sure aren't any worse than we were in the 60s!

Ahhh - makes one long for the good ole days, eh. ;)

Answer 8

They would think that Howdy Doody and the Mousecateers were gay. Black and white TV would drive them to tears. And almost zero places to get fast food.

Out houses (I still have one standing one the property) were as clean and odorless as how often you limed them. My house was built in the 20's and I still have the original out house. There is indoor plumbing, but you can see where everything was added and how all my electricity has been brought under the house and it sits on top of of the baseboards. Thank Goddess that I have central heat and air!

Answer 9

"If I was rabbit, I would run to!"
It just is not good enough to be better than the generation that follows us, as a point of pride. If it were that way, we would all obviously be hunting for the up and down smile, a place to hide and turn into a one celled animal.
No, we are here, passing the money belt to our children, along with the Science and Religion of the past, and let us not forget to give them something useful in their future.
If was rabbit, I would not go to Iraq!

Answer 10

ouch. Sorry, but I am a teen and I know this would be really hard for me. I've adapted to sleeping in late and playing on the computer all day. To think that life was once so grueling, but it was just normal to you! It scares me to think one day, the world's children will be such huge slackers that they'll look back on us and think WE had it hard. Good point, though. I try to do things worthwhile with my time and I understand where you're coming from. So many of...my kind...just sit around all day. I take Irish Stepdance classes and that's useful. :0) I hope you get some good answers! Good night!