Childhood is a fading memory, the best days of your life? A chilhood being child, playing with dolls, toy guns, have real life adventures on bombed out houses amongst the dirt and fallen bricks. We were copying the grown-ups. I remember dressing up in mum’s wedding dress that she still had when I was 10 years old.I didn’t notice that it was cheap silk imitation, going slightly yellow. I was practicing for my later years perhaps, although I never wore a bride’s dress, I did not want one or need one.
Times change and do the ideas about having a chldhood? I do not miss my childhood, it was great while it lasted, but it does not last. I left home at 20 for another country. Of course, my kids also had a childhood but it was something different. Boys will be boys and they gathered the scars and scratches of playing outside, but they had something that I did not have.
They had a gameboy childhhood. Instead of climbing trees or playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians they would sit in a chair and have their own Game Boy with it various games. Mario was not an Italian waiter, it was Super Mario and he overcame all sorts of obstacles on his way through a virtual adventure course. He jumped over obstacles, climbed surreal mountains and if he was lucky he would survive to continue on the next part of his life. I know all about it, I watched with itchy fingers at the progress my son made in this make believe world. Of course just one game was not enough, you had to have a choice. The choice was made by his colleagues at school becaue they also had a game boy. Someone somewhere had that little plastic square packed with new experiences of life. Not all were about Super Mario, although most. You could pile up bricks in various shapes and sizes and colours. Of course this was educational, at least that is what we parent decided, especially when the kids were in bed in the evening and they could also play uninterrupted.
Childhood progresses and what was the childhood of my kids has now developed in to something completely different. I found the discarded Gameboy equipment in a cupboard. I must had kept it for my grandchildren, although up to now there are none on the horizon and I am sure if and when they arrive the Gameboy would definitely be out. I experienced today’s childhood with the kids I meet in every day life. They are now equipped with mobile phones. Everyone has one, and it might be that mummy and daddy need to know where their children are 24/7. Of course the children must have this means of communication. Everyone has one and it is educational. They can even write messages to their colleagues instead of speaking and the language of mobile telephone speak is now in. Why bother to learn how to spell at school. For example the word “you” can be substituted by one letter “u”. It is so much easier. The use of a vowel also has become obsolete, consonents suffice.
We want our chldren to grow up and become fully equipped adults and so we do our best to show them how. I am slowly becoming a child hater, what a terrible thing to say. I wish the parents would leave them at home with gran or the neighbour instead of dragging them to the supermarket, but it is all in the name of education and becoming a grown-up. Childhood is a disappearing occupation.
Arriving at the car park in the supermarket you seach for a shopping trolley. If your children are with you, then this is wrong and you are making a mistake in their development and education. They must be part of the action and it all begins with those children that are not yet able to move as fast as mummy. They can accompany mummy by sitting in their own mini car, attached to the shopping trolley and available in nice bright colours. For the older children smaller versions of mummy’s shopping trolley are supplied. There are many proud mothers that throw the selected goods into Jonny’s/Jenny’s shopping cart, after all they have to learn how it works. One day they will also be grown ups and it is all in preparation of this day.
Unfortunately there are still golden oldies that use these shopping temples like me. How often is your pathway blocked by these dear little children playinjg grown up and using their miniature trolley as a sort of obstacle course, winding their way through the golden oldies who are far too slow and complicated.
Oh childhood, where have your days gone when you would clutch your doll in your arms . Where are the barren lands of adventure where you would climb over a wall to discover what was on the other side, or even kick a football through a window. These were the days of risk and survival, making experiences in life. Today our children go shopping like mummy, even help mummy to pay at the cash desk with a plastic card and when at home they can log-on to their very own computer.
Just a minute, forget the last part about logging on, they are too busy speaking to Charlie or Janet on their mobile phone or sending messages.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
Childhood was the best days for any person. You don’t worry about anything because your parents were always there for you. Thanks for sharing.
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This theme has been used many times on the daily prompt, but you can always treat it from a different point of view. I am glad my childhood is now gone, and I do not really look back on it very much. they were other times. I notice how different the childhood from the youngsters is today and wonder what they will write in say 40 years about it.
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My childhood was not a pretty thing. The good news? The older I get, the less of it I remember. Maybe, eventually, I’ll forget so much, I’ll think it was wonderful.
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It was really wonderful
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Marilyn, I just get a bit fed up with all these prompts about the “good” old days when we were young. I have laid out my complete childhood on this prompt stuff. They now use prompts from suggestions. I mean there are really enough words in the Collins/Webster dictionaries as well as Encyclopedia Britannica and all that stuff. Why do I always have to talk about earlier. It is the present that I have to face up to, the past has been dealt with.
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Everyone has different experiences in their life and most manage to survive, so I would believe the present day’s childhood will somehow survive as well.
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It will. I just have a little apprehension in the way that the companies see in children an instrument for making more profit. Show them how mummy does the shopping with the little carts. They even produced a mini package range of their own products for the kids to collect in our supermarket chain a couple of years ago. I do not like seeing childhood being used as a means of manipulation.
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I have to agree with you there. 😃
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I think I must have been just a year or two out of the rise of the Game Boy and the Nintendo console as myself and many of my friends either had a Commodore 64 or a ZX Spectrum. If someone had a Sega or Nintendo they were considered child royalty at school, I think my parents took the plunge for the game console when I was about 10 and got the Super Nintendo which was the 16 Bit console. Amusing looking back now how 16 bit graphics seemed like a real Killer-diller back in the late 80s/early 90s. Curiously enough the gaming bug hasn’t caught me as an adult, especially not the online gaming world with things such as World of Warcraft and the like. Ironically it is the emergence of the retro market which does turn my head back to gaming, games made in the style of the Commodore games I used to play, sometimes set up with a nod and wink to the game player.
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We never had a game console, Nintendo or anything like that, just the commodore and amiga. Mr. Swiss was already using the computer at work and then it moved into my office. I enjoyed computer and I let my son get on with it. Now and again he would have a mate around or visit a mate for a gaming session, but it was all within reason. When he was at the uni he needed the computer for other things, so it was definitely not lost time.
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My trio, now 27, 26 & 21 grew up video games. Our first desk top computer was purchased when my youngest was a toddler. They played outside. Climbed trees, rode bikes, painted, read (alot!), played with friends and even wrote interesting stories (like how one shot a turkey for Thanksgiving one year in the forest behind our house) no turkey, a toy riffle and six small peach tree’s. 😉 They went everywhere with me, including dressing rooms when I bought new clothes. I had no one to watch them. They are good young men who I am sure will manage to keep their kids off video games and out the door to make mud pies. Childhood is dependent largely on the parents choices. Healthy balance is a good things. Interesting piece to read.
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One of my boys was autistic, so his childhood days took a special course. My other son was sensible and I let him get on with it. He enjoyed gaming but also had a more serious side to his life, especially when he was at the university and studying. He had other things to do on the computer then.
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Your sons have kept you quite busy, haven’t they? It’s kind of funny (said son and I have laughed about this). My oldest works in an online gaming and is not a fan of smart phones etc. He has said he gets enough of it at work now. I think cell phones are the bane of existence and children shouldn’t have them until they’re at least 16. In a perfect world :sighs:
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I don’t know what decision I would make if I had children in today’s world with the cell phone. It is other times. It is also a question of money. I would probably not be prepared to foot the bill for the son’s telephone conversations and messages.
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I agree. They are costly and in most cases really not necessary. Young kids really do not need or / should not have that much freedom – in my opinion.
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I feel much the sane way — childhood isn’t what it use to be
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Times change and my parents and grandparents would probably say the same.
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