Were we all abused?

While not detracting from the grave injustice of abuse in its various tyrannical forms, the way society sanctions behaviour also changes with time, has its own fashions and trends, as the following information circulating a while ago suggests:

- If you lived as a child in the 60's,70's or the 80's, looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have........
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!) We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No mobile phones. Unthinkable. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugary pop but we were never overweight.........

We were always outside playing. We shared one bottle of pop with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this? We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games and all 99 channels on Sky Digital TV, video tape movies, surround sound personal mobile phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms........

We had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it? We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to. We were the ones that had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good! -