Kids these days… The Generation Game!

This is a post I had in www.IrishBusinessWomen.com a few months ago. A few people replied to it and several more read and commented on it to me. Even months later. Considering the subject matter of this blog, I though it might interest you too. I would love to know what you think!!

So, if you have the patience to read on……

I have 2 small kids and I often think back to how different my 1970’s childhood was. Same as the rest of us, really!

My two are FAR from spoilt but yet they have WAY more things than I ever had.

And, yes, so many of their activities are planned/arranged etc… They play in indoor playcentres, playgrounds, inside our house, outside our house. They go to visit some friends and others come to visit us.

They have dvds and toys, nice clothes etc… They have both been abroad. And, yes, if those two kids were in my class in school, they would appear to be totally spoilt and have everything handed to them on a plate.

But life has moved on 30 years since I was the same age as my oldest!  It’s the Generation Game!

We can’t criticise kids for being the way they are now and living the lives they live without looking in a mirror first! Life has changed for us all!!

My life as the mother/wife of the house is SO different to the life my mother’s generation had. We have phones in our houses, washing machines, microwaves, supermarkets, cars, disposable nappies, reasonable incomes. My husband as the hubby/father has such a different life too. He doesn’t have to cut turf by hand, he’s not the sole provider, he can cook, do housework, he can choose to grow his own vegetables - he doesn’t have to.

It’s just that life in general has changed. In some ways for better, in other ways for worse! In relation to kids playing outside, apart from the very obvious fear of the few nasty people out there, there’s a hole in the ozone layer that wasn’t there for any other generation. It’s not at all as SAFE to play outside, even in an enclosed garden, as it was when we were kids!

Would you believe, I think my son has a better imagination than I ever had?? He has a toy wooden sword which he uses for his imaginary (and sometimes real!) swordfights. His Dad and Grandad would have had a stick. They’d all still have had the same swordfights except he has a wider knowledge of the world now and knows the names of the dragons/dinosaurs he’s fighting, whereas his Grandad wouldn’t. By the age of 5, he’d been able to look at dinosaurs on the internet and seen them in the Natural History Museum in London. A little boy’s dream come true. His Grandad didn’t have that chance!

In the same way, I feed my family a healthy diet of some meat, fish and lots of veg. In my case, a lot of it comes from the supermarket. Some of the veg we grow ourselves. I don’t have to grow the potatoes or veg and don’t have to kill the meat or go fishing. I also have a great fridge which keeps the food fresh.
It’s just that life has moved on.

Coming to that realisation helped me STOP lamenting that ‘in this day and age’ my kids can’t do what I did at their ages. They wouldn’t want to. In the same way I wouldn’t want to do things the way my mother had to when she was the ‘woman of the house’ 30 years ago!.

I was able to stop wishing that my son would spend hours playing with a stick and a ball when I had NO intention of getting up early to milk a cow in time for breakfast! Or go to the local phonebox instead of sending a quick text message re meeting up with a friend.

Re imagination… I am still getting over witnessing my son spend a couple of hours on a car journey using his two index fingers as two superheroes. You wouldn’t believe the antics two superhero fingers can get up to in the back seat on a long journey!!

I think there’s always going to be a bit of ‘when I was your age’. Don’t we all remember how boring it was (as kids!) to listen to our parents talk about walking to school in their bare feet and only getting an orange from Santa. Believe me when I say that I’ve already had to stop myself from doing that in this house already! Our grandchildren will be SO bored to hear about mobile phones, playstations, x boxes, cds, dvds, the wii and videos. And the adults then will think it so archaic that we had to wash our own cars now they’ve all got self cleaning cars!

I reckon though that kids will still be playing with dolls, bikes, sand, water and lego. They’ve certainly spanned the generations in our family! Some things NEVER change!!

 

The price of a pack of Tayto!

This is something that has cropped up in conversations over the years. I bet you’ve talked about it too. It’s not that we have an unhealthy obsession with Tayto in our house!

It just highlights the innocence of childhood, when milestones were measured in crisps!!

I remember as far back as when a pack of Tayto cost 7p. My hubby remembers when they were 3p. And he’s only 4 years older than me!

So how far back can you remember?

Toy Catalogues - did they do it for you?

Toy catalogues – did they do it for you?

One of the things my children find most fascinating about me is that I sell a lot of toys and can often provide them with really cool suppliers catalogues to peruse.

When I was their age, I well remember the joy for me when the Christmas catalogues would come out and I would study them for hours, and hours, and hours…….

To me, at that tender age, it was almost like I got to have a little play with each and every toy pictured. I studied their picture, tried to imagine their size and devoured the description.

Of course, the price was irrelevant because no-one was going to have to pay for it. For the select and chosen few items I really, really, really wanted…. Santa was going to bring them so the price didn’t matter!!

In our house, Christmas comes early. We are now surrounded by catalogues from suppliers, samples and the early arrival of stock. My children, needless to say, love it. For them, Christmas lasts about 3 months and the build up, expectation and excitement they experience is a wonder to behold!

Of course, they still chance their arm and somedays ask for everything they see. Very rarely though. It goes without saying that my children are fantastic. But I’ll say it anyway. They know that 99 times out of 100, I’ll say…. ‘go way outa that!’ or ‘put it on the Christmas list’ or any other variation on the theme that is ‘NO!’. Sometimes though, they get lucky and it’s a yes to two great kids.

Can’t blame them for asking really, can I? I guess it’s like living in a sweetshop and being given rice cakes as a treat!

Hello out there!

Okay, well, after much thought from me and encouragement from a variety of people, I have eventually decided to start a blog. When I was at the www.IBW.com conference in Westport, I met a few bloggers who extolled the virtues of this new world. Seasoned bloggers such as Annette Clancy, Claire Wilson, Keith Bohanna and Frank Fullard were so positive about their blogging experiences that I’ve decided to give it a shot. They’ve convinced me.

I’ll blame them if it falls by the wayside!

Even though I run two businesses, www.BlackberryVillage.ie and www.CheckMate.ie, this will primarily be a blog that relates to BlackberryVillage and my experience as a business woman who works from home in the world of baby gifts and kids toys. I feel my work as a Mammy and my private life in general, relates to that so I know that will sneak in sometimes too!

I want to tell you a bit more about what goes on in the life of someone who runs a small business (or 2!), living in the country, married with children.

I look forward to talking to you and sometimes hearing back from you too!