Of late I have found myself pondering the style of parenting those of my generation experienced with what is expected of parents in the early 21st century (I have specified “early 21st century” just in case one day in the distant future, many millennia away, due to various unlikely circumstances the only record of current human civilisation left will be Fat Edgar’s blog and this may help dating the archaeological record. What will they make of the world we live in?).
Certain things I remember from being a child, such as being given my first knife when I was 5 years old, would be unheard of now. I also distinctly remember being given a small crossbow (a real one made of wood and metal, not plastic) for Xmas when I was about 7. I used to be able to fire pencils through sheets of plasterboard at about 10 feet with it. Fucking lethal. It was on “Watchdog” a few months afterwards.
It’s not even as if my parents were particularly unusual in this kind of behaviour. On the contrary, they were very good parents. When we went on holiday to places like the Dales we were given our own little tents to sleep in, about 15 feet away form the main one our parents slept in. Can’t remember being abducted by any paedophiles, unless my mind has blocked that one out…
We were also given a rubber dinghy and told to play on our own in the rapids. In fact I remember that my dad was unusually caring and thoughtful for the era and advised us that if we were going to go out with the dinghy, to head upstream for the first half of the day, then we could rely on the current bringing us back in the afternoon.
How many parents would take their kids on holiday today and tell them “Go on, off you go and play “Deliverance” for the afternoon”. You just don’t get the same intensity of experience at a place like “centerparcs”…
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