inthefade:

I kind of feel sorry for kids these days. Thanks to several things - the self-esteem movement of the early 90’s; the paralyzing touchy-feely don’t-let-your-kids-deal-with-reality method of dealing with life that is rampant in our public schools and the endless parade of rules and regulations designed to protect but only stifle - our children are living the life of Bubble Boy.

Back in my day, we didn’t worry about self-esteem or agonize over feelings. We didn’t care about elbow pads and cooperative games where everyone was a winner.

A little head wound builds character, you know.

Reading this post brought up so many memories of my early life and I want to write couple of them down. This post is written as I remember things and probably not very well. I also think that this self-esteem movement of the early 90’s hadn’t reached Iceland when I was growing up so I guess life for the kids in Iceland today may be totally different and more like you describe.

Anyway here goes:

At the age of 5 I would go visit my cousin at the next farm (3-4km away) on my bike alone with out any helmet or padding or what so ever. Then I would spend the whole day there playing outside and then going home with bruises and whatnot after the day. This we would do almost every day, sometimes at my farm and sometimes at his. If he came over we would play in the creek, the beach or sometimes even go to the quarry and play there, which is hindsight was very stupid but lots of fun. Our parents would never know where we were but I guess they were used to that since they never complained.

At school we were more protected I guess but not as much as you describe. We played soccer on a gravel field without helmets (I have never seen soccer played with helmets btw) and in the spring the skater crowd would never even think about using protection while jumping down a flight of stairs. We would fight and use bad names and what not and I’m not even sure if the school had a nurse on staff and it definitely didn’t have a school psychiatrist.

When my brother was in 2. grade at the age of 7 in 1997 a new kid started school and he went to the same class as my brother. The new kid decided to try to be cool and said some bad names and started bullying one buy in the class. That same day my brother and some other boys from the class took the new kid far behind the school where no one would find them and beat him up for bullying their friend. The next day my mom got a call from the school and all that but no one was suspended, nothing happened and now my mom tells this story while laughing about it because they were only helping their friend.

So my life was not as extreme as yours but thankfully it wasn’t like the one you describe. As you said, a little head wound only builds character.