With special thanks to Amy:
My Thursday Thirteen well had run dry, so I sent an SOS to Amy and she responded with WEEKS of ideas.
So, for this week:
13 Things My Kids Take For Granted that I Didn't Have as a Kid
1. More than one bathroom in the house. Seriously...when I was growing up, four people and one bathroom. And I don't remember it being a huge deal.
2. ATM's. Money was dispensed from one source only...my Mom...until I was old enough to earn it babysitting
3. iPods. Instant access to just about any song you want (except anything by the Beatles). We had to wait for the songs to come on the radio...and sometimes, if we were really high tech, we would tape the song on our cassette recorder. And at a party we had to listen to whole albums at a time...no party mixes.
4. 21 as the legal drinking age. Ha! There's at least one thing that was better for me! The drinking age was 18, so I never experienced this whole getting carded and wearing a wristband to tell if you can drink thing.
5. Self-Serve Gas. When the attendant came up to your car, you asked him to put in $10 or whatever. "Fill 'er up" was for the rich kids. Now you can get gas, pay for it and get a receipt all without speaking to a soul.
6. Media Centers and Media Specialists. All we had were lame libraries and librarians! Oh, they are the same thing. Well their name certainly has a more modern sound to it.
7. Free Long Distance. Pretty much everyone now has access to free long distance either through a home calling plan or a cell plan. Calling long distance was a BIG deal when I was a kid. You had to ask permission. You waited until Sundays after 10 p.m. or whenever the rates were lowest and kept an eye on the clock. And when the bill came, my mother would present it to me with my calls circled, totalled and the tax added in to pay her back!
8. Instant Messaging. When I was a kid, bad grammar and misspelling were negative things. Now they are talents cultivated for the world of IM.
9. Adults have First Names. All parents now are called by their first names. Even in North Carolina, parents are referred to as "Miss Barbara", "Mr. Tim", etc. We were only vaguely aware that parents HAD first names!!!
10. Superstores. We used to have to go to the grocery store for groceries, the drug store for prescriptions, the bookstore for books and a clothing store for clothes. Now you can get all of these items in different places. You can get coffee at a bookstore. You can get clothing at the drug store. You can get prescriptions at the grocery store.
11. Hair Care Products. My daughter can get products that are so specific to her particular hair that I almost expect the bottle to have her name on it. I think we had Prell and Breck.
12. Dishwashers. And they still manage to complain about being asked to load them or empty them. My parents had two dishwashers....Diane and Linda.
13. DVR. There's no such thing as missing your favorite show anymore! It's recorded. And if it's not recorded at your house, it's probably recorded at your friend's house.
I wouldn't trade my childhood for their childhood...but I still have to wonder how my dating world would have been different if there had been caller ID and voice mail!!!!
Di
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