Today, children have some advantages, as modern technology helps provide faster communication and access to information for everyone. There is also a wealth of entertainment. However, today's children are also missing out. As the world becomes a less trusting place and technology changes the way we act, many of the things we took for granted as children may disappear forever.
10. Snowy days
Most adults are nostalgic for snow days and remember them fondly. There’s nothing better than waking up on a school day with a thick layer of snow on the ground and the confirmation from the TV that you don’t have to go to school and have the whole day free to play in the snow with your friends. Sure, maybe deep down you know you’ll have to make up for it later, but as a kid you don’t have much of a sense of long-term perspective and one day is just pure bliss.
Unfortunately, it seems like snow days are slowly becoming a thing of the past in favor of distance learning. While experiments have already begun, the pandemic seems to have been the blow schools were waiting for, with 39% school districts now using some form of distance learning in place of snow days. While some places are resisting, either out of fear that distance learning won’t be good enough or out of pure nostalgia, the snowier states that need continuity of education the most are the ones phasing out snow days the fastest.
9. Safety at school
Today, America experiences dozens to hundreds of school shootings each year, and there seems to be no sign of it stopping or slowing down anytime soon. This has led to Americans doing what they do really well: debating the issue from every angle, getting mad at each other, doing nothing, and then doing it all over again.
People have talked about mental health and gun control, and almost nothing has been done about either of those issues. What has been done, however, is a little bit of increased school security and active shooter drills to teach kids what to do if a shooter comes to kill them. It's that last part that many parents object to, as they feel it's too traumatic for their kids. Of course, the counter-argument is that it's supposed to save lives, but some feel it's unlikely to help kids in a real-life situation, and the odds of an individual child getting involved in one aren't that high.
8. Old School Trick or Treat
Trick or treating used to be one of the most revered childhood traditions around the world, but it’s slowly fading from what it once was. Many people remember lovingly going door to door throughout their neighborhood, buying all sorts of candy, and stuffing a pillowcase with pounds of the spoils. It was a way for neighbors to get to know each other, and it was like a big festival for everyone—like a giant moving party on the streets, going door to door with no organization to worry about.
Unfortunately, while trick or treating will continue to exist, it is evolving from the free-spirited activity it once was to something much more regimented and safety-focused. Many parents are uncomfortable with their children going door to door without them for a variety of reasons, but mostly it’s probably because they simply don’t know their neighbors anymore. In the 1970s, about 30% people regularly talked to their neighbors, and only 20% didn’t. Now, that statistic has changed, and things like trunk or trick-or-treating, where parents are more likely to know all the people involved, have become much more popular.
7. Free play in kindergarten
Many parents have to find someone to watch their younger children while they are at work or watch their older children after school before they can go home. For this reason, daycare has been around for a long time and is a necessity for many parents. For a long time, it was a place where there might be some rules, some activities, and your child is safe, but mostly they play, have fun, and hang out with other children.
Today, however, things are changing in a much more businesslike and success-oriented direction. Call it daycare, call it after-school care, call it preschool, or whatever you want, because at this point they are becoming more and more the same in all but name. To attract parents, almost every institution that watches your children now wants to teach them something to impress you and make you open your wallet and choose them over all the others. To provide instant gratification, many now regularly send children home with finished crafts so that parents can see what the children are doing. The child's success is becoming a product, and it is becoming a bigger number to the system than ever before.
6. Licking the corolla
Most people have fond memories of licking the beaters, often while making desserts with their mom, grandma, or other baking-loving caregiver. That taste of the dough before it goes into the oven is a delicious way to prepare our taste buds for what’s to come, and helps us be patient when we know it’s not only going to bake, but also cool. Now that people are more food-safe, many caregivers are throwing this venerable tradition in the trash for once.
The problem, unfortunately, is twofold, and this makes the problem worse. First, many people were already considering stopping the tradition due to concerns about salmonella, an illness that can be contracted from eating raw eggs. and thought it might be worth continuing. However, health experts are now pointing out that even worse is E. coli, which you can get from raw flour, which is found in most types of dough, even if it does not contain eggs.
5. School music programs
Many people have fond memories of music programs from school, whether it was choir or band. Going to band camp used to be common enough that it’s a meme from an old comedy movie that almost everyone knows. Even if you didn’t use it to become a musician, many people credit it with helping them improve their communication skills and making them want to go to school and learn.
Now, while many educators agree that these are valid reasons to keep a school music program, they are often the first to be cut when budget cuts hit. In the United States, when the first recession hit in the late 2000s, school music programs were among the first to face the hammer. Since then, only about half the country’s population has access to school music programs, with minorities and poorer communities the least likely to have one. However, it’s not just the United States that is cutting school music programs. In the United Kingdom, a study of school budget cuts has found that if things continue at the current pace, A-level music programs could disappear by 2033.
4. Drink from a garden hose
One thing that just reeks of summer nostalgia is drinking from a garden hose. Many kids have done this for years without any ill effects and remember the experience fondly. It’s something many kids will do in a group so they can all play outside together without hanging around inside and annoying the neighbor moms while they clean mom’s house. To avoid sharing germs, kids drank from the stream coming out of the hose rather than the metal itself.
However, it seems that parents are now teaching their children that this practice is dangerous and doing everything they can to discourage it. The problem at play is mainly germs, and nothing more. With the Internet at their fingertips, parents in the modern world have full access to information that tells them that garden hoses are a petri dish for bacteria and viruses. There is also the problem of insects that can nest inside the garden hose you drink from. Worse, since garden hoses are not designed for drinking, they do not have to comply with drinking water laws. This means that the fittings can often contain or leach lead.
3. Fast food playgrounds in America and Britain
Before America became a little more health conscious, at least on the surface, you could go to almost any fast food restaurant, especially McDonald's, and find a playground full of colorful slides and almost certainly a ball pit. These playgrounds were prone to all sorts of bodily fluids, and the employees almost certainly hated cleaning them up, but they had a certain romantic ring to them. The idea that after eating, a child would go play and exercise with other children was a good idea. Unfortunately, since fast food no longer wants to sell food to children, those days are over.
Adventure playgrounds are slowly starting to disappear in the UK. For those unfamiliar with them, an adventure playground is a safe place, usually more natural, where children can play freely and explore the world with each other. There are often wardens around to help guide children and keep things safe. While this is a great idea, budget cuts are starting to wipe them out in the UK. Already 28 have closed, which is 15% of the original number. Sadly, this seems to be a trend with local councils.
2. Pokemon cards
Pokemon cards have always been popular with collectors, even in the early days. Kids of the 90s will remember how popular Charizard could be, even when it first came out, and how much people would pay for a first edition in mint condition. However, over the years, the problem has become even more serious, culminating in kids completely rejecting something that was meant for them and really only for them.
We’re not saying that an adult can’t love Pokémon or collect old cards, but there comes a point where you’re being unfair to the kids. Logan Paul recently bought a first-run Charizard in mint condition for $300,000, which helped fuel the speculation market even more. That speculation, along with the pandemic, has led to renewed interest from adults, causing prices to skyrocket not just for old cards but for new ones as well. Adults started buying up all the cards so kids couldn’t, so Target put a limit on how many you could buy at a time. Then there was the parking lot gun incident and they stopped selling them altogether for safety reasons. Again, we’re not saying that an adult can’t love Pokémon, but if your hobby involves buying up every toy meant for little kids and ending in a shootout, there’s something seriously wrong.
1. Lemonade stands
It used to be that if little kids wanted to save up for something, they would build a lemonade stand on their front lawn. Most people always thought it was just cute and mostly harmless. Many have fond memories of making their own lemonade stand as a kid, and many others have fond memories of buying lemonade from kids, knowing they had just helped a budding entrepreneur work hard to achieve their goals—and enjoying delicious lemonade while doing it.
However, especially in the United States where regulations are king, it has become nearly impossible for children to run a lemonade stand. Between all the different pieces of cane tape, they are usually soon shut down by the local sheriff. In one recent case, an eight-year-old boy in Ohio had his stand shut down because he did not have a vendor's permit. In another recent case, a group of ten- and eleven-year-old female cousins who were trying to save up money had to close their lemonade stand because they did not have a business license or a health permit. To add insult to injury, they told the girls, who had been running their stand for almost a year, that they needed to calculate the excise tax and pay it to the government.
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