Could kids today even do this? 7 things boomers grew up doing that feel almost impossible now

Try dropping a modern kid into a boomer’s childhood for an afternoon, and there’s a good chance they’d struggle quite a lot.

The little envelope

A cereal box wasn’t simply breakfast. No, it was like a tiny shopping catalog. They stared at the back panel. They circled what they wanted. Then, they cut out the proof-of-purchase tab to claim their prize.

Sometimes you needed a few box tops. Sometimes you needed 25 cents. There was also the wait. Not two days, not next week, but more like four to six weeks. You couldn’t hit ‘claim prize’ on a screen. Kids today don’t have the patience. 

The folded paper

‘Take a right at the gas station. Pass the church. Hit the railroad tracks, and you’ve gone too far.’ That was how navigation worked. There were no blue dots. No, you had to use landmarks and memory to find your way. Forget your directions? Good luck.

Kids learned directions by hearing them. Sometimes they read them. But they definitely didn’t read them on a screen. Unfortunately, modern kids can’t do that since they’re used to maps. They’ve got no sense of direction.

The backyard argument

Try playing a game with ten kids and no adults around. Boomers could. One of them brought a tennis ball. The other found a stick. Now, there was a game, although there were no official rules. Why? Because they changed every six minutes.

The game kept going anyway. Kids argued. Kids changed things. It was a kind of self-directed play. But modern kids lack imagination. They need someone to structure the rules. They need someone to tell them exactly what to play and, you know, how.

The cardboard kingdom

Boomer kids didn’t need a toy aisle. They didn’t even need an actual toy. A refrigerator box was a spaceship. They just needed random bits from the house to push their imagination. That’s hard for kids today. Most toys already tell you what they are, after all.

They tell you how to use them. They tell you what button to press. Sadly, free play doesn’t exist in the same way. Kids lack the imagination and self-control for it. But boomer kids could turn junk into worlds pretty easily.

The other grown-up

You’re at your friend’s house. You open the fridge without asking. Their mom looks at you and says, ‘No.’ She’s not angry. She’s not mean. Hearing ‘no’ was enough. It’s because boomers grew up around adults who weren’t their parents. They understood ‘no’ like it was a sentence.

Because it was. Boomers were fine with being corrected by other adults when they were out of line. But modern kids aren’t the same way. Correction comes only from mom or dad. That’s even if they get corrected, thanks to the gentle parenting trend.

The final score

The truth is, boomers lost sometimes. But it was okay. It was quick, brutally quick. It didn’t matter that you thought the other kid missed the base. The game was over. You had lost. Nobody reviewed the footage. No parents stepped in to talk about what happened.

Participation trophies? They weren’t really popular until the 1990s. Boomers lost games and got annoyed. Then they came back fine the next day. Unfortunately, kids today don’t know how to actually lose. They’re used to getting an A for effort.

The shaky moment

Being scared as a kid was natural. Maybe you rode your bike downhill faster than you should. Maybe you climbed one branch higher. Sure, they were small fears. But boomers dealt with it all the time because nobody stopped doing it, just because they were uncomfortable.

They kept going. That sort of risky play helped them. Boomers learned about being confident and how to cope. Not modern kids, though. They feel a little discomfort. The activity ends right there.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.