I'd choose the past.
Stasha at The Good Life has picked a topic for this week's Monday Listicles
that is something I think about often: 10 Things We Wish Kids Could Do Back In The Day.
This topic is close to my heart, as I've been working on a YA novel, titled Surfacing in Clouds, that delves into this realm of wonder. Susanna Leonard Hill recently hosted me on her blog, giving me the opportunity to share the YA novel's pitch to get feedback on it, but in case you missed it this is the pitch:
Rigo and Esteban struggle to survive in a land without electricity, but when they set out to reach a world consumed by technology their friendship is ripped at the seams. This story chronicles the remarkable resilience of human nature in the face of losing what was once taken for granted: silence, privacy, and a connection with nature.After living in the rainforest with a single lightbulb and without indoor plumbing, with a black wood stove and without a TV and computer, with treks up into the mountains to talk with neighbors and without cell phones and Facebook, I was in for a shock when I returned to the U.S. and found absolutely every person had a cell phone and spoke on it!
I am taken to the future... Will my daughters get to live in a corner of the world like I did in the rainforest?
I hope so, but those corners are becoming smaller and harder to find every year.
Here are the 10 things I wish my daughters could experience, but may never know:
1. Life without the Internet and with card catalogs at libraries.
2. Life without social media and with conversations over hopscotch.
3. Life without cell phones and with intellectual topics being discussed among college students walking on campus.
4. Life without texting and with passing notes written in longhand.
5. Life without digital cameras and with film that takes a week to get developed.
6. Life without Wii and Nintendo and with snow forts and summer twilight freeze tag.
7. Life without facial recognition cameras and with privacy and anonymity.
8. Life without empty, vandalized playgrounds and with neighborhood gatherings.
9. Life without taking off shoes at airport security and with family allowed to accompany them to the gate to send them off on their journey.
10. Life without the constant hum of noise and with being able to stand in one place and hear in the 'silence' the sounds of nature.
What memories of your childhood do you yearn for?
What do you wish your children could experience of your past that may never be able to happen?
21 comments:
Like the Card Catalogue reference. Those were cool. One thing my daughter did get to REALLY experience is real physical encyclopedias. It was a happy day when my parents bought the World Book encyclopedias. They lived prominently in a bookshelf in the family room. All of us loved them. We actually read them for pleasure. This includes the parents! Sometimes you would hear one of us say something like: "Hey! Who is hogging the 'S'?"
I love your list, Kim...except the digital camera one. I LOVE digital cameras, and to develop film is SO stupidly expensive.
I love the passing notes one, and the card catalogue one. Do they still teach that in school? I'll have to ask my kids ;)
I loved the feel of pulling out a drawer in the card catalogue section, and also the little white index cards inside library books that had to get stamped with the date and we signed our names! Several of my books from my childhood still have my homemade index cards in them from when I pretended I was checking my own books out from my own library :)
Jen, I agree, I actually do love my digital camera :) I think what I miss about the film are the negatives and seeing how the images go from the negative on to paper and the patience it took to wait and see the photos; it was like a mini-Christmas morning when I got my photos back and all was revealed to me what I took! But I certainly like the instant feedback of digital cameras for sure!
Wonderful list, Kim. I believe if we guide our children towards the things that still exist (e.g. libraries and card catalogs - though those are probably going to be extinct soon!), we can still give them a little of what was so normal for us.
I just read that cassette tapes are making a comeback. For some reason, that made me happy. My son MIGHT be able to appreciate music that didn't come from a computer some day!
Great list, Kimberly. I forgot about airport security! Oy, how that has changed things. I can't bring milk for my child because he's over two and the airline doesn't offer it. WHAT is that about?
I miss the days of being able to go out to play and not have a parent watch over me. Sadly, that is not the world my son is growing up in.
Growing up, I would tack up my horse in the morning, take off to a friend's house and come home before dinner. No way would that happen anymore.
Isn't it incredible that we are all talking about 20 od years ago?!?!
I miss libraries and cards. I used to line up my teddy bears and pretend play libraries. I wrote inventory numbers in my books and put a check out card in them. And I loved spending hours looking for a bookmt take home. Because the best things you find when you are looking for something completely different.
Such a great list! I don't think my son will ever learn what a card catalog is and that makes me sad. It also makes me sad that my kids will probably never know how to read a paper map when they get lost or how to use an encyclopedia instead of Google! Although, I agree with Jen, I hated waiting to get film developed only to find out the pictures were horrible!
I, too, would like to go back to conversations over hopscotch rather than social media. I find it hard to believe I actually grew up without Facebook and Twitter and now as an adult it's the norm. I find myself deeply craving a more human connection than a 140-character tweet.
I love your list. It's all so true. I wish my kids would be able to walk into an old book store and dig through the stacks looking for an odd title or two. Remember that wonderful smell? I also wish they had had the joy of Sunday dinners at the grandparents. Mine are divorced. My ex-husband's were divorced. I remember going down to Delray almost every Sunday, playing with ALL of my cousins and having a wonderful dinner before heading home full and sunburned, but very, very content.
I love your list! You have perfectly articulated so many of the things I wish. I still have a few notes that my friends and I passed back in middle school - we used to create quizzes and pass them to each other to take, the more ridiculous and/or embarrassing the better! I think I might really like to live in Mayberry in the '50s :)
P.S. Thanks for the mention :)
Wow Kim! You defintely have a way with the words. So much of what we wrote was similar, but your piece is so much more eloquent. Card catalogues and passing notes, two things I loved about school!
this is SUCH a great list. man, the good old days!
Beautiful list Kim. You are a beautifully talented writer. I would love to read that YA book - what a timely topic!
Great list. I don't miss filing the catalog cards, but I do miss the beauty of the furniture--solid and stately. I miss children playing in neighborhood yards during the day, and being able to go around unsupervised (although my mother always knew my general location).
It's SO crazy the things our kids will never really know! Infact, I was just teaching a college Graphic Design class today and got a couple BLANK stares when trying to talk about getting film developed... And how we use to get negatives to make doubles from... College kids! Wow.
I was thinking about passing notes the other day. Do you suppose that it's possible that teens can do such horrendous things today because they don;t get "busted" for little things like passing notes anymore?
Sorry, question not a comment.
I loved how you did this - as with all of your lists. I am finally feeling a little bit of the blogging blaarghs you wrote about sometime back. My Terrible Two's not making things any easier either. Just haven't been inspired to write lately. I gave the prompt some thought over the weekend and just couldn't come up with anything. I think I need a break. Sorry, for some reason, I felt inspired to vent a little here, Kim. Hope you don't mind. :)
That list made me feel all nostalgic. I definitely agree about the social media/technology overload. Eating out last night, a family with two kids were seated at the table next to us. The boy spent almost the entire time playing on a handheld game, while the girl was glued to her mobile phone. She even threw a strop when she was told to put the phone down to eat! Whatever happened to the art of conversation, eh?
Sometimes, I wish children could experience a world without on tap entertainment too. In the UK, when I was growing up we only had four TV channels. Watching a particular programme was a big event and viewings figures would be over 20m. Nowadays, you're more likely to find everyone spread all over the house watching different things (or on computers, etc.).
Great post. Loved your list. I may sound crazy, but I miss washing dishes with my mom. Standing there and talking while methodically scrubbing, drying and putting away. We had the best conversations. Life seemed slower then, less hectic.
But my girls and I still do some of the things on your list. I plan to do more.
Remember the big airport gate farewell? Loved that. Ditto the big airport gate HELLO! WE'RE HERE! Now it's shuffle shuffle shuffle in socks, get the patdown, and wander off alone to the tincan tube. Sad. Does every generation feel this sense of loss at the passing of its youth?
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