We had behavioural freedom - Do as your told or get a clip around the ear/or a boot up the bum. Our choices were entirely our own and somehow, most of us seemed to make the right ones, grew up with a brain, and are mostly self reliant and law abiding adults ..... but somewhere over the ages these things became watered down. Disciplining children was a no no, self respect and common seems to be a rare commodity these days, there are attitude problems aplenty and I seem to be seeing alot of young ones who think the world owes them a living and everything that relates to climate change is our fault - the older generations fault that is ... despite the fact that the young ones are the techos, the users of energy, the ones who need more and more roads to drive faster cars on.Maybe too I have just become another whinging old fart who has passed her use by date.
So that set me to wondering over the eternal question - Were the good old days really the good old days? Or does memory become selective as it ages?FOR BETTER - FOR WORSE ... Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet
I remember the days of my childhood
growing up in a far distant place
where I played in streets dreary and dirty
where bomb sites had created space.
I recall how I was then a loner
and suspect that I still am today;
it was animals then were my comfort
and with animals still I would stay.
We never lived too long in one place;
my Dad was cursed with itchy feet.
So there was fair mileage beneath me -
always the new kid in the street.
My Mum was at home with the littlies
whilst my Dad gave service at sea
it seemed like I led a charmed childhood
with no one to share it but me.
As I age seems my memory recalls now
things that these days just wouldn't be right.
I doubt if my Mum knew where I was
from dawn until dusk's evening light.
I wandered the beaches and meadows
with never a thought in my head
of any harm that might befall me -
I just enjoyed freedom instead.
We didn't have cars then, nor TV
and we never once had a house phone
I barely knew my Aunts or Uncles,
my Grandparents lived far from my home.
My cousins weren't in the equation
we've become friends in our old age
We're no longer in the same country ..
we converse today on Facebook's page.
Today life is so very different,
the freedoms of childhood are gone.
Children are packed up and delivered,
to football, dance class, art and song.
Now Mums are just glorified drivers -
conveyors of children en route
in SUV's, Sedans and Wagons
all loaded with gear in the boot.
Their every hour is documented
with diaries to keep them on track
via smartphones or their laptops,
with never a moment of slack.
They're prodded and poked and then jabbed now,
and some have braces on their teeth.
The clothes worn, tagged with high end labels
but few know the child underneath.
They are not big fans of the outdoors,
for sunlight they're slipped, slapped and slopped.
Easier to play games on the smartphone
or watch videos - on the lounge propped.
So is freedom just a state of mindset?
Are we kidding ourselves we are free?
And what price to we pay. I just wonder
who takes responsibility?
We have to teach our kids resilience
they need to learn the basic skills
to survive the pitfalls and potholes
and manage the dangers and ills.
Life won't always be a smooth journey
of that one can be quite assured
some days just aren't guaranteed happy -
hardship and pain must be endured.
If we reach our old age .. disillusioned,
our lives squandered from following the throng.
Never striving to gain, no directive, no aim.
then who do we blame - who was wrong?
Is it better or worse if life's lived unrehearsed?
Well I doubt it will ever be known -
as for me I sit here and write poems
And guess what - I just do it alone.
2.7.2023
