THE LAST REBELS: 25 THINGS WE DID AS KIDS THAT WOULD GET SOMEONE ARRESTED TODAY

ED Noor: I post this simply because we need to strengthen our children. No mention of the usual suspects, just a humourous look at a few changes we can make to increase their sense of well-being in a world designed to keep them weak and afraid. I also own the fact that my own generation helped to create this situation and for this, we owe our young an apology.  The reasons for this turn of events is complicated and deep, but, in the end, we must own our own mistakes. And a safer kinder world as it has become is just the polar opposite.

By Daisy Luther

With all of the ridiculous new regulations, coddling, and societal mores that seem to be the norm these days, it’s a miracle those of us over 30 survived our childhoods.

Here’s the problem with all of this babying: it creates a society of weenies.

There won’t be more more rebels because this generation has been frightened into submission and apathy through a deliberately orchestrated culture of fear. No one will have faced adventure and lived to greatly embroider the story.

Kids are brainwashed ~ yes, brainwashed ~ into believing that the mere thought of a gun means you’re a psychotic killer waiting for a place to rampage. 
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ED Noor: My family is a case of point up here in Canada ~ children and siblings! Mention the word “gun” and there is a spate of negative conversation if positive sounds are made towards them being in public hands.  I mentioned an interest in sport shooting recently and the outburst was beyond belief. WHY would I want to go near those dangerous things?

They are terrified to do anything when they aren’t wrapped up with helmets, knee pads, wrist guards, and other protective gear.

Parents can’t let them go out and be independent or they’re charged with neglect and the children are taken away.

Woe betide any teen who uses a tool like a pocket knife, or heck, even a table knife to cut meat.

Lighting their own fire? Good grief, those parents must either not care if their child is disfigured by 3rd-degree burns over 90% of his body or they’re purposely nurturing a little arsonist.

Heaven forbid that a child describe another child as “black” or, for that matter, refer to others as girls or boys. No actual descriptors can be used for the fear of “offending” that person, and “offending” someone is incredibly high on the hierarchy of Things Never To Do.

 

“Free range parenting” is all but illegal and childhood is a completely different experience these days.

All of this babying creates incompetent, fearful adults.

Our children have been enveloped in this softly padded culture of fear, and it’s creating a society of people who are fearful, out of shape, overly cautious, and painfully politically correct.  They are incredibly incompetent when they go out on their own because they’ve never actually done anything on their own.

When my oldest daughter came home after her first semester away at college, she told me how grateful she was to be an independent person. She described the scene in the dorm.  “I had to show a bunch of them how to do laundry and they didn’t even know how to make a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese,” she said.  Apparently they were in awe of her ability to cook actual food that did not originate in a pouch or box, her skills at changing a tire, her knack for making coffee using a French press instead of a coffee maker, and her ease at operating a washing machine and clothes dryer.  She says that even though she thought I was being mean at the time I began making her do things for herself, she’s now glad that she possesses those skills.  Hers was also the room that had everything needed to solve everyday problems: basic tools, first aid supplies, OTC medicine, and home remedies.

I was truly surprised when my daughter told me about the lack of life skills her friends have.  I always thought maybe I was secretly lazy and that was the basis on my insistence that my girls be able to fend for themselves, but it honestly prepares them for life far better than if I was a hands-on mom that did absolutely everything for them.  They need to realize that clothing does not get worn and then neatly reappear on a hanger in the closet, ready to be worn again. They need to understand that meals do not magically appear on the table, created by singing appliances a la Beauty and the Beast.



If the country is populated by a bunch of people who can’t even cook a box of macaroni and cheese when their stoves function at optimum efficiency, how on earth will they sustain themselves when they have to not only acquire their food, but must use off-grid methods to prepare it? How can someone who requires an instruction manual to operate a digital thermostat hope to keep warm when their home environment is controlled by wood they have collected and fires they have lit with it? How can someone who is afraid of getting dirty plant a garden and shovel manure?

Did you do any of these things and live to tell the tale?

While I did make my children wear bicycle helmets and never took them on the highway in the back of a pick-up, many of the things on this list were not just allowed, they were encouraged. Before someone pipes up with outrage (because they’re *cough* offended) I’m not suggesting that you throw caution to the wind and let your kids attempt to hang-glide off the roof with a sheet attached to a kite frame. (I’ve got a scar proving that makeshift hang-gliding is, in fact, a terrible idea). Common sense evolves, and I obviously don’t recommend that you purposely put your children in unsafe situations with a high risk of injury.

 

But, let them be kids. Let them explore and take reasonable risks. Let them learn to live life without fear.

Raise your hand if you survived a childhood in the '60s, '70s, and '80s that included one or more of the following, frowned-upon activities (raise both hands if you bear a scar proving your daredevil participation in these dare-devilish events):

ED Noor: Even better! I survived the 50’s!
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1. Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids.

2. Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble

3. Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria

4. Riding your bike without a helmet

5. Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets

6. Drinking water from the hose in the yard

7. Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* "wild swimming")

ED Noor: I grew up in Ontario cottage country in the middle of the forest and spent most of my life in a lake. Only a few years ago did I begin to use “chemical dip pools” for exercise; it had taken me decades to accept public pools as an option! “Wild swimming’? OMFG.

8. Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)

ED Noor: On the street my children were raised, every autumn when the trees dropped their leaves and the nests were seen, the tree in front of our house had no nests. Ever. It was the block “kid tree” and we welcomed the kids to use it. No one ever broke anything although many a parent did suffer heart palpitations as a dear one aimed for the top.

9. Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)

ED Noor: How can you live in snow country and never have committed this horrendous offense?

10. Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL

ED Noor; Ride a sled with a helmet? Oh give me a break. It is already tough enough pulling the sled back up the hill without a frigging helmet.

11. Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)

12. Camping

ED Noor: I will go a step further and suggest wilderness camping where you hike in, not just drive in with an RV and plug it in.

13. Throwing rocks at snakes in the river

14. Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians

ED Noor: Neil Young in 1952 being politically offensive at the rick kids' camp across the water from our cottage and private forest land. Chances are Neil and I swam in the same lake at the same time!

15. Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns

16. Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns

ED Noor: Sticks? My brothers had toy pop guns that made noises!

17. Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school

18. Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there's actually a freakin’ CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)

19. Working for your pocket money well before your teen years

20. Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting

ED Noor: Early math calculations. Many a child learned basic math skills over penny candy back in the day! That eagerness to get as much as you could for your pennies. Er, what’s a penny?

21. Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode

22. Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower

 

23. Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper

24. Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover (The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)

25. Walking to school alone

ED Noor: When I was 5 or 6 I can remember amazing freedom to walk anywhere in Toronto in my neighbourhood including the 6 blocks to school. As a teenager, the walk to my highschool was about 1.5 k and was through residential areas and along a creek. The last time I was in the town the creek was now all blocked off so that no one could tumble into the very small body of water! Apparently the route was no longer considered, after decades, to be safe.

Come on, be honest.  Tell us what crazy stuff you did as a child.

Teach your children to be independent this summer.

We didn’t get trophies just for showing up. We were forced, yes, forced ~ to do actual work and no one called protective services. And we gained something from all of this.

Our independence.

 

Do you really think that children who are terrified by someone pointing his finger and saying “bang” are going to lead the revolution against tyranny? No, they will cower in their tiny apartments, hoping that if they behave well enough, they’ll continue to be fed.

Do you think our ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war were afraid to climb a tree or get dirty?

Those of us who grew up this way (and who raise our children to be fearless) are the resistance against a coddled, helmeted, non-offending society that aims for a dependent populace. In a country that was built on rugged self-reliance, we are now the minority.

Nurture the rebellion this summer. Boot them outside. Get your kids away from their TVs, laptops, and video games. Get sweaty and dirty. Do things that make the wind blow through your hair. Go off in search of the best climbing tree you can find. Shoot guns. Learn to use a bow and arrow. Play outside all day long and catch fireflies after dark. Do things that the coddled world considers too dangerous and watch your children blossom.

TEACH YOUR KIDS WHAT FREEDOM FEELS LIKE.

Daisy Luther lives in a small village in the Pacific Northwestern area of the United States.  She is the author of The Organic Canner,  The Pantry Primer: A Prepper's Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget, and the soon-to-be-released The Prepper's Water Survival Guide: Harvest, Treat, and Store Your Most Vital Resource. On her website, The Organic Prepper, where this article first appeared. Daisy uses her background in alternative journalism to provide a unique perspective on health and preparedness, and offers a path of rational anarchy against a system that will leave us broke, unhealthy, and enslaved if we comply.  Daisy's articles are widely republished throughout alternative media.