Reminiscing

Full disclosure- I’m sitting by the bonfire and I’ve have more than my share so if I wake up and get pummeled or feel embarrassed so be it.

I was sitting by the fire tonight with a neighbor who’s about the same age and we got to talking about the old days. We had similar stories.

I was born in 1982. I am currently 40 years old. By almost anyone’s account I started “exploring life” early. By the time I had reached 13 I was smoking cigarettes every day, as well as smoking other things, consuming alcohol, and I did pretty well with the ladies which lead to some problems of their own.

I was telling my friend about the first time I smoked or had alcohol. I was 12. I was sleeping over at my friend Matt’s house. We took 4 beers from his dad and had stolen some smokes from somewhere. We snuck out about midnight and met our friend Dave. It was February 26th 1994. I still remember the day. We met Dave in the middle of bass lake in maple grove at midnight. We drank all of the beers and each smoked cigarettes. I remember staggering home pretty messed up but enjoying the whole experience.

Flash forward and I’m now 40 with 3 boys aged 13, 10, 5. None of my boys are even close to doing anything like this. Not only is my 13 year old not doing this but if I think about him faced with the prospect of it he would probably say that “sounds like too much effort”

I’m feeling conflicted. On the one hand i’m happy my boys aren’t into the bad stuff but I’m also thinking back about all of the amazing experiences that came out of these adventures i had. My kids will never get those.

What I’m wondering i guess from the elders on this forum is, is this a normal feeling? I don’t think it’s appropriate to coax my kids to behave the way I did but have you found ways to relay your feelings about your upbringing in a way that makes them understand you feel they are missing something?

As far as what my kids become, frankly I don’t care as long as they are happy and healthy but I feel like so much of what I became was a result of this early mischief. it feels weird to accept that there is no place for any of it in my kids world.

Did you grow up the same way as your 40 year old elders?

Your kids would say it would be to much work to meet his buddies out and about or what do you mean ?
I will always try to steer my kids away from drinking and doing stupid poop. But he will ultimately make his own choices. And if he’s anything like my self, I likes to party from a young age until I was about 30. Have many great memories from growing up being a hell raiser. Sneaking out, hanging with girls, drinking, smoking, getting stoned. Hell I still enjoy all those things just way more in moderation. My son Is very soft and innocent which is opposite of how I was.
I caught him the other night trying to go out the basement sliding door after I was asleep, I gave him a solid kick in the ass and had a talk with him. I don’t want him following my path. But I won’t coddle him. I will do my part and lead him away from partying. At least until he is older. When he is a appropriate age he can do as he please. He is out with friends every day after school. And they bike around for hours. It’s only a matter of time before some one steals some weed from there dads. All I can do is keep up mine and his open and close relationship, so when it does happen he will be honest with me.
I won’t condone stupid behavior, nor will I try to feel like I would have to feel guilt because he isn’t having as much fun as me when I was young. I have and will continue to teach him to not follow my old path

crappie55369 wrote:

it feels weird to accept that there is no place for any of it in my kids world.

I’m not a parent but I think these are normal feelings. No one raises their kids in the generation that they grew up in, and life experiences are somewhat different for each generation. That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to have a full childhood – it’s just different. And I suspect things happen later in life for kids these days. People generally live longer than we did a century ago and more and more people are waiting until later in life for certain life experiences, and that’s okay. Your kids are young and still have time for mischief and character-building life lessons. Don’t feel the need to rush it just because of where you were at by those ages.

You know the old saying – you can’t be old and wise unless you were once young and dumb, but they still have plenty of time to be young and dumb! And not every kid wants to participate in some of life’s indulgences and that’s okay. Doesn’t mean they are missing out necessarily, just means they are finding their own path.

Just a thought,
the above comments seem to condone your behavior in your children,
did your parents condone your behavior?
and does your acceptance of your behavior in them,
expose them to push those limits further than you had?
The possibilities of bad things happening today seem far worse than we were exposed to.
just something to think about.

I don’t even know where to start.

Book titled “The Coddling of the American Mind”

Highly recommend to anyone, really spot on with what’s going on nowadays in regards to our youth and such a relief to find a book that puts into words what many have felt for so long backed by data and studies.

Good times don’t necessarily lead to a good life. When one thinks long term childhood especially those teenage years are quite short, messing those up can lead to a tough life for the rest of their life, I would know. Would never wish that upon my kids for some short lived fun. Albiet……..those times were fun as all he!l.

Ugh… I feel this is a good opportunity for beads (notmafiaguy) to make a meme lol

Let’s just say I’ll be glad if my kids learn not to post to IDO when drunk lol. I don’t even want to go back and look at what I wrote. I remember I said feeling embarrassed was a possible outcome. I’ll just accept that

Sharon wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>crappie55369 wrote:</div>
it feels weird to accept that there is no place for any of it in my kids world.

I’m not a parent but I think these are normal feelings. No one raises their kids in the generation that they grew up in, and life experiences are somewhat different for each generation. That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to have a full childhood – it’s just different. And I suspect things happen later in life for kids these days. People generally live longer than we did a century ago and more and more people are waiting until later in life for certain life experiences, and that’s okay. Your kids are young and still have time for mischief and character-building life lessons. Don’t feel the need to rush it just because of where you were at by those ages.

You know the old saying – you can’t be old and wise unless you were once young and dumb, but they still have plenty of time to be young and dumb! And not every kid wants to participate in some of life’s indulgences and that’s okay. Doesn’t mean they are missing out necessarily, just means they are finding their own path.

Spot on.

I was an alter boy and saint in my younger years.

While I agree with Sharon on many points I feel your intentions crappie of the OP, as high as the BAC may have been, is still bringing up a very important idea thrown around by many folks.

Kids might get those experiences at some point, but they are becoming more and more later in life in this current culture of safetyism, and that is having detrimental effects not only on society, but more importantly for the kids themselves.

Your children aren’t missing out on life experiences just because they may not go about the adolescent years the same way you did. x2 on the post above about everyone finding their own path.

For example, sports were such a huge part of my life from about age 5 to 22 that they gave me so many things. If my kids grow up to love theater and the fine arts, I don’t think they’re “missing out.” I too lived a little on the edge through my adolescence and early adulthood. I sure had fun. Others have fun and grow differently though…and one isn’t necessarily better than the other.

Get kids involved in something, anything. Support them without being a helicopter parent. Let them fail sometimes. Don’t expect them to be the second coming of yourself. ^These are all things I’m trying to do with my own children. Time will tell if I did it right.

Agree with Bucky.

I’m just a couple years older than you, crappie, and did a LOT of the same things you did. Mostly because I lived in the country. We only had 3 TV stations to watch and only one or two friends who lived close enough to hang-out regularly – and that meant a long bike ride down gravel roads. So we found ways to entertain ourselves. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But now we live in town, my kids play sports and have friends everywhere within walking distance. Plus a whole lot of other things like video games, phones, etc. Some of that’s good, some of that’s bad, but the point is that it’s a completely different time and environment. Just because they’re not pushing boundaries and experiencing life early doesn’t mean that they’re not gaining the life experiences they need to be a good person.

I know plenty of people that did the same things I did who didn’t “grow-up.” What I mean by that is those experiences only grew into doing more, far-worse things. Many people aren’t always “better for it.” Some aren’t around anymore to tell the stories to their kids and a few didn’t make it to parenthood.

I for one spent most of my parenthood hoping my kids don’t follow my path of drinking and doing drugs as a youth. I am possibly a better person for going though it and coming out the other side mostly ok. However as Thunderland eluded to not all my friends grew out of it or got away from it. It is different times for sure. I know we were not just talking about drinking and drugs. I do wish kids today would spend more time outdoors like we did and able to enjoy simple things. My larger worry is are these kids going to even have an imagination, we used to come up with games to play and invent ways to have fun. Now it is all on a screen and they just click and watch or play.

Experiences like this happen at some point in most lives. Childhood shapes our lives and makes us who we are. In my opinion, many kids are being raised in too soft of an environment now. Our outlook isn’t looking good in terms of resilient & tough people.

Imagine if the people who grew up to fight in WWII or Vietnam were this soft…

Crappie – I lived a youth not much different than yours ( Even though I graduated HS the year after your were born ). Those were just far different times. I think things were far different for rural kids verses city kids ( I think that is still true – Although not as much ) When I got to college a lot of the kids I meet were just getting their first taste of freedom and went overboard with it. They were just starting to do what I had already been doing for many years. Like others said, I would in no way encourage your children to live the same way as you did. You probably don’t have to worry. At some point they will start to make their own silly mistakes and will learn and glow from them just like you did.

rjthehunter wrote:

Experiences like this happen at some point in most lives. Childhood shapes our lives and makes us who we are. In my opinion, many kids are being raised in too soft of an environment now. Our outlook isn’t looking good in terms of resilient & tough people.

Imagine if the people who grew up to fight in WWII or Vietnam were this soft…

Ya, a draft of 18 year old these days would not be good. Not that a draft will ever happen again. Lets hope so anyway !!!!

At least with my kids, I wish I could’ve done some of the things that they get to do. Sports, in particular, teach all kinds of life lessons. I also look at some people I’m still in-touch with from my younger days that didn’t do some of the things I did. I would say a MUCH larger portion of them grew up to be decent people than the ones like me. They probably didn’t have as much fun getting there. But it’s all good!

Take it with a grain of salt. All you can do is pick one path forward. Whatever path that is will have its own experiences and opportunities.

Ill never share some of the stuff I did growing up. No doubt it made me a better adult.

I can relate Crappie, my kids are still pretty young, but old enough to know right from wrong, and they have a lot of common sense for their age (or at least more than I think I probably did when I was 7)

They’re getting to be so much fun and independent. I don’t have to be near them all of the time anymore to make sure they’re safe with their pellet guns or worry about them falling in the creek.

At the land this weekend we built a big deer stand for the family to hunt in, and they would disappear a quarter mile away into the woods for an hour or two here and there.

Later in the day Saturday they figured out they could shoot frogs with their pellet guns

Frogs turned out to be an appetizer for dinner that night lol

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Bman I always love seeing the pictures of your boys. One of them does not look to be so sure about eating that frog leg.

crappie55369 wrote:

By the time I had reached 13 I was smoking cigarettes every day,

Same here. I attribute that to having all adults in my family being smokers from my earliest memories. Was just something everyone did back then. Probably addicted well before starting smoking due to riding in smoke filled cars with the windows rolled up all winter!

I’m assuming you no longer smoke and likely don’t have people of influence around your kids smoking.

Probably one of the best social things to change since the early 80’s.

Pretty easy to get cigs when we were young. Cig vending machines everywhere and a pack cost .50 cents or less. Kids today don’t have that kind of access or the cash to take up a $10 a pack habit!!

-J.

John Rasmussen wrote:

Bman I always love seeing the pictures of your boys. One of them does not look to be so sure about eating that frog leg.

Steve Rinella (The Meat Eater Dude) just came out with a new book called Outdoor Kids In An Inside World, it’s about how to raise children with a connection to nature and all that it offers.

I just started reading it last night, and found it funny how it’s written literally how we’ve raised our boys. Coincidentally Steve’s wife is named Katie, the same as my wife’s name too lol

I recommend it to all parents or grandparents.

Crappie first and foremost, I think you are kidding yourself if you think just because your kids haven’t yet, they won’t go down some of those same paths. They just haven’t…yet. We are the same age, and my kids are a little younger, but life comes at kids fast these days so the longer they can hold onto some innocence and lack of adult problems the better. I’m still amazed my friends/cousins and I all survived our youth without tragedy or bigger life long problems .

Plus I hope to in part a little wisdom in my kids that prevent them from at least a few of the mistakes I made growing up. But I also want them to have freedom to explore and experiment, it’s just about finding that balance like most anything. Being there and encouraging them on productive paths is most of the battle as far as I can tell, and them learning discipline, accountability and responsibility comes from that.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Agree with Bucky.

I’m just a couple years older than you, crappie, and did a LOT of the same things you did. Mostly because I lived in the country. We only had 3 TV stations to watch and only one or two friends who lived close enough to hang-out regularly – and that meant a long bike ride down gravel roads. So we found ways to entertain ourselves. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But now we live in town, my kids play sports and have friends everywhere within walking distance. Plus a whole lot of other things like video games, phones, etc. Some of that’s good, some of that’s bad, but the point is that it’s a completely different time and environment. Just because they’re not pushing boundaries and experiencing life early doesn’t mean that they’re not gaining the life experiences they need to be a good person.

I know plenty of people that did the same things I did who didn’t “grow-up.” What I mean by that is those experiences only grew into doing more, far-worse things. Many people aren’t always “better for it.” Some aren’t around anymore to tell the stories to their kids and a few didn’t make it to parenthood.

Ha! I’m a little bit older than you and had 2 tv channels…on and off. Channel 7/12 out of Alex was my only tv diversion growing up so the outdoors were my entertainment.

I am MUCH older than all of you :-). While I did not do any of those “bad” things you are all talking about, I don’t feel deprived in any way. I feel like I lived a full life and have no regrets as far as NOT experiencing any of those things. I was and still into the outdoors and enjoy that time. I have two grown adults that also did not try those things and would think they feel good about that now as adults. Just too much stuff to get messed up with. I am glad to hear that those of you that tried those things came out OK, as stated, it does not happen to everyone.

B-man your boys need their own youtube channel. I’d be their 1st subscriber.

MX1825 wrote:

B-man your boys need their own youtube channel. I’d be their 1st subscriber.

Thank you for the kind words sir. They’re a hoot to be with and have been awesome little outdoorsmen since they were tiny.

I know YouTube is the cool thing to do these days, but I’ve seriously thought about starting a series of children’s books about them, something similar to Lucky Luke’s Hunting Adventures (we have a couple of them and they love them)

They provide more content in a few weekends than I could write about in a lifetime

I know I’ve shared this video before, but these kids have loved fishing and hunting since they were in diapers. One day that could change, but as long as they enjoy it I will provide them the opportunity to do so.