It may seem like it was just yesterday when you got your first cordless house phone, or that your dad proudly came home and installed a color TV in your living room.
It can be hard to comprehend that kids today never experienced life as you did when they were your age.
Looking back at even my own childhood, it's hard for me to imagine growing up in the world as it is today. Things have moved exceptionally fast in the past decades, and many children have no idea how different they have it!
I sometimes still think of myself as a kid until I see all of these 7-year-olds looking at their Facebook pages on their smartphones. I vividly remember using a landline to call my friends at home, something most of them will never know.
These 10 things are certainly taken for granted by kids today, who can't really know what it was like for the generations before them.
Did we miss anything from our list? Let us know in the comments and please SHARE with your family and friends on Facebook!
Thumbnail sources: Pixabay, Flickr
1. Constant Entertainment
Kids are entertained at all times nowadays, with shows and games available on a wide array of handheld devices. There's never a moment that goes by where a child doesn't have something to do with their hands and mind.
Back in the day, kids had to use their imaginations more and get creative with how they stayed entertained. They also had to come to terms with the idea of being "bored" sometimes.
2. Reliably Safe Rides
Safety regulations — particularly with vehicles — are much stricter than they used to be, so kids definitely don't have as much to worry about.
For example, seat belts weren't a requirement for cars until Federal laws arrived in the late 1960s. Before then, the dangers of driving weren't fully realized, and folks drove with their kids in the back sans seat belts all the time.
3. Easy Channel Changing
It wasn't until 1950 that the first (wired) remote control was introduced to homes. Five long years of being tethered to the TV set by a wire passed by before the first wireless remote was invented in 1955. It was quite some time after that before remotes were commonplace in every household.
Nowadays, kids probably couldn't even find the "power" button on the back of their television!
4. Access To Mom At Any Moment
It used to be that Mom was just a phone call away, but you had to make that phone call from home. These days, Mom is just a text, chat, email, call, Facetime, or Snapchat away.
If Mom doesn't text back immediately with an answer to a question, kids often grow impatient, because she's supposed to be on call at all times.
5. New Clothes All The Time
New clothes these days, if you're shopping in the right places, are cheap and accessible enough to purchase all year long. In fact, the expectation is to get new clothes on a fairly regular basis in order to keep up with the current fashions.
Back in the day, new clothes only came around one or two times a year, as they were a bit more costly, comparatively, and there wasn't such pressure to keep changing up the look so often. Once you had enough well-made, sturdy outfits, that was it for the year.
6. Choosing What's For Dinner
Not to say that Mom's cooking wasn't wonderful, but families used to be expected to all sit down at the table together and eat the same meal, no matter what it was, and no matter who didn't like which side dish. Plates were to be cleared before it was time for dessert.
While some families still choose to approach dinner time in a similar fashion, it's become much more common to either make a different dish for everybody or simply grab takeout where everyone can order what they want. Food delivery has made choosing exactly what you eat so much easier.
7. Climate Control At The Touch Of A Button
Before central air became a pretty standard fixture for residential buildings and homes, kids and families had to depend on open windows, fans, or even a window unit air conditioner once they started to become a household item around 1947. Either that, or they had to head out to a pool to cool down.
These days, all it takes to keep the sweat from dripping down our backs is to push the button on the thermostat. Some homes even have voice activated systems or thermostats that can be adjusted through mobile devices. Kids don't understand how bad it used to be during the summer!
8. Hearing A Favorite Song Whenever And Wherever
In order to hear your favorite song on the go, it used to be that you had to wait for it to come on the radio, or maybe it was in your soda shop's jukebox. Other than that, you had to purchase a physical record and play it on your record player at home.
Kids today have music streaming apps that have almost every song in existence right on a phone, and they can play them over and over again at the touch of a button — even on the go.
9. Access To Any Piece Of Information In A Second
Wondering how far away Jupiter is from planet Earth? These days, you type your question into any search engine and you'll get the answer in a second. You don't even have to spell everything correctly and the web will still autocorrect you and understand what you're trying to say.
Back in the day, you'd have to go to a library, look up the book (so you'd have to know how to use a card catalog), then go find the book itself, read through the table of contents, find the proper chapter, and then skim through until you found the bit of information you were looking for.
10. Fast Pain Relief
Over-the-counter name-brand painkillers that parents and kids alike now rely on weren't around until the middle of the 1900s. They certainly weren't in every mother's purse, ready to help with any ache or pain.
Before then, it was all left to cold compresses and sitting in a dark room if you had a brain-splitting headache. And a child who bumped their knee would probably just have to "tough it out." I personally don't know what I would do without my precious acetaminophen!
Did we miss anything else that kids today take for granted? Let us know in the comments and please SHARE with family and friends on Facebook!
