Nadia

Wow.  I am reading about Nadia Comaneci and the childhood she had.  She grew up roaming her grandma’s farm, climbing and swinging off stuff.  She says she had a good childhood and despite not having brand names, they had enough of everything they needed.
My experience of much is limited and so may be flawed. I can only talk about what I have seen and the conclusions I have reached.
It unfortunately seems like so much has been lost today.  For me the cliché seems to fit “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”  Losing so much is a pity, as it seems much of what was good in the past, is in fashion again.  However so many talk of the past like it was perfect.  It was not.  There were good things and bad things.  It seems to me like we need to embrace the good, and dismiss the bad. This day and age is the same, and we need to embrace what is good.
A bad thing from the past that I have experienced, is the disregarding of the effects of the sun.  It is no wonder we are called the cancer capital of the world.  Our climate necessitates precaution.  Growing up, a tan was a thing of honour.  Council workers would disguard their shirts for the “tanned look.”  I saw one woman council worker who had cast aside her shirt and was working in a bra.  We are paying for our sun obsession now. I also heard about one English soldier that took his shirt off and fell asleep in the Darwin sun.  He was returned to England with 3rd degree burns.  The covering up today may not look as “cool,” but it seems sensible.
One of the good things of the past was the space we had.  These days estates cram as much as they can in.  Blocks are really small.  To me, it is in the developers interest to do this, after all, the more you have, the more you can make (this does not necessarily suite the end user).  Also more infrastructure is close together so one can put more on less.  I visited an estate where the wall of the neighbours house was the only place to bounce a ball off.  Many allotments have a token lawn.  It is hardly enough to play on, but means a mower must be bought to keep the lawn down.
The thinking today seems to be if the kids want to play they can do so at the local park.  For some though, the local park is to be avoided due to the “trouble makers.”
What’s a kid to do then?  Stay home, watch tv or be on the computer.  There are all sorts of problems that go with this life style including obesity.   Also because kids are not out digging in the dirt, they are not building up immunities like they did, and we see allergies that are more common than they used to be.  Because both parents need to work kids are often “home alone.”  To my mind this can lead to all sorts of attention disorders and rebellion.
Fortunately we do learn.  This may not help this generation but should help future ones.  Of course then there will be a whole new set of problems to deal with.
I guess I am a good cherry picker.  I believe we need to pick and use what is good both from this age, and times gone by.