School is out for the summer! Raise your hand if you loved summer break. Sleeping late, going swimming, camp, no homework. It makes me long for my youth. But kids these days do things differently than we did back in the 1900’s when we were young.

Then
We rode our bikes without helmets.

Now
Kids wear helmets, sometimes knee pads and elbow pads… maybe even a maxi pad, just for extra protection.

Then
We would go “out to play,” roam the neighborhood helmetless on our bikes, and manage to make it home in time for dinner.

Now
We track our kids on an app like Life360 so we know where they are at all times. You can track their speed, too, so if you have a young driver you can greet them at the door with “So how was it driving 70 in a 55 and living to tell about it?” I even track my 86 year old mother on an app, so I don’t have to call my sister, who doesn’t even live here, to ask “Where is Mom?”

Then
In gym class we had to take the Presidential Fitness Test and for one part they would weigh the kids and announce their weight. Out loud. For people to hear. Sadly, crawling into a hole was not part of the Fitness Test.

Now
We have body inclusivity and if you make a comment it’s called “fat shaming.”

Then
For Halloween we would dress as cops and robbers.

Now
Dressing that way would be offensive to both the cops and the robbers.

Then
We drank whole milk.

Now
There are umpteen milk choices now including cow milk, oat milk, soy milk, almond milk… I didn’t even know almonds had nipples.

Then
For your birthday you brought treats to school for your class, baked at home by your mom. No one was allergic to gluten or nuts.

Now
No more school birthday treats because we have so much food in America we’ve now become allergic to it, and kids could become seriously ill if they eat the wrong thing. And since we are so sensitive to everything these days the schools feel that kids with summer birthdays would feel left out.  So no treats.

Then
When you picked someone up at the airport you could go in and meet them at the gate.

Now
Only passengers with a ticket are allowed in, and you have to show about 97 forms of identification before even going through security.

Then
Smoking cigarettes.  Everywhere. You could smoke in the office, the grocery store, on an airplane.

Now
You can only smoke cigarettes in designated areas. Oddly, though, everywhere you go it smells like weed. Come on, stoners, just eat a gummy. We don’t care if you do it, but we don’t want to smell it.

Then
When we had fights, we had real fights. Like fist fights. Like, meet me out back after school fist fights.

Now
Kids fight with words. On the internet. Or if you tick someone off in traffic you get shot. Kind of makes fist fights look pretty good, don’t you think?

Then
Long distance prices made it rare for you to talk on the phone to friends and family who didn’t live in the same city as you. The phone company charged by the minute!

Now
You can call anyone, anywhere, anytime and talk as long as you want for no extra charge. But nobody actually talks on the phone anymore. They just text. Except my son Leo. That kid hasn’t answered my texts in like three years.