Generation Gap: 5 Ways Childhood Has Changed
The Gentlemen from the Handbook remember being a child, running around outside all day, playing with indeterminably large groups of children, gathering around anything of interest (dead animals, gruesome wounds, exceptionally large dog shits), being abjectly terrified of bigger boys, knowing people only by nicknames they richly deserve and passing weeks with never, ever seeing a games console. We remember those days fondly, and fear for the youth of today, who just don’t know what being a kid is. With this in mind, we here have donned our rose tinted specs and decided to teach the kids of today what it meant to be a kid.
This was our childhood. Remember?
1) AVOIDING THE FOWLER BROTHERS
What it meant: In every neighbourhood, there were always a set of boys who delighted in tormenting smaller children. They usually had surnames like Fowler, Johnson or Cooper, and their eyes were small and piggy like and just a little bit too close together and, due to some form of poor breeding, their adolescent hormones kicked in three or four years before everyone else’s, so they probably had to shave twice a day by the time they were eleven.
This is exactly what bullies look like.
Situations where it needed to be used: Avoidance of such boys was paramount on every child’s life. Terrifying bigger boys were a constant fear for the youth, and everyone had a run in with at least one of them (a situation resulting in noggies, burns or a soggy head from a head flush), and everyone knew someone who knew someone who had been permanently scarred for life after one of the Baxter brothers pinned him down and held a magnifying glass in his face, or did something unspeakable involving ants and jam.
As such, even if the group of children outnumbered the Carter boys twenty to one, the merest sight of them would cause a panicked ripple to run throughout the group (not unlike the desperate flapping of a school of fish when a predator is spotted). The lucky few would be able to scamper off through the woods or down alleyways, but usually, a large group would be cornered down an alley and would lose approximately half their number to dead arms or wedgies until the bigger boys became bored and decided to go and steal porn from the local shop. The only escape was to sacrifice those smaller or less mobile, or with unsightly skin disorders, over to the bigger boys, so as to preserve your own existence.
Who could have benefited from this: Poland in 1939. If the Poles had handed Lithuania and Estonia over to the Nazis and then picked up their country and scampered for safety down past the Caspian Sea, chances are the Nazis would have soon got bored of giving the Baltic nations an Atomic Wedgie, and gone off to steal cigarettes from some ageing relative.
This so would have worked.
Equivalent for today’s youth: Despite the urine-squirting terror such bigger boys could create in our ten year old selves, they never really stepped beyond petty thievery and occasional assault and battery. Today’s equivalent of Darryl and Sonny Stone would be criminal masterminds by the time they’re ten, and would be proficient in a wide array of small arms and personal rocket launchers by their early teens. And instead of merely stealing smokes, they’d be smuggling them into the county by the thousand.
2. SWEARING ON YOUR MOTHER’S LIFE
What it meant: It meant that you were SO SURE of some information that you would quite literally place the importance your mother’s life beneath the hugeness, and truthfulness, of the tale told.
Situations it could be used: “My brother’s got a friend called John Moore who lives in Deal who once came to visit and was in the old churchyard past midnight, and he said that if you run around the old tree three times calling out “Nathaniel!”, a dead boy comes up and strangles you because he was strangled in the same spot a hundred years ago and is still looking for revenge.”
“No way, you’re lying.”
“No I’m not, I swear on my mother’s life!”
And thus, everyone knew you were telling nothing but gospel truth, and the huge logical inconsistencies of the story be damned (though they were usually pointed out by a small child with ill-fitting glasses and hand-me-down clothes who was subsequently given a swift beating by either the story teller or the story teller’s friend).
I tapped all these asses. I swear on my mother’s life.
Who could have benefited from this: Bill Clinton. If he’d sworn on his mother’s life that he never had sex with that woman, then Monica Lewinsky would have forever been marked down as a liar capable of telling such whoppers that her pants are in a constant state of incineration. The fact that Clinton’s mother had passed away some years before the Lewinsky incident has absolutely no impact on the gravity of the vow.
Equivalent for today: Kids don’t swear on anything worthwhile these days. They either pick something meaningless, or just swear willy-nilly. Sometimes they even achieve both.
“I swear we just did a vr run and there was only 20 of us but we still did it and I never got healed once and I was the tank and I did the boss at the end and no one was helping me cos my guild are all fags”
“f u ur lying”
“no I swear on my guildmasters life!”
“f u u lying fuck.”
“fuck u u dick”.
3. CHILDHOOD TORTURES
What it meant: Childhood tortures were astronomically painful and, at the same time, could be excruciatingly embarrassing but, of course, left no permanent mark, save for a slightly sore botty and ruffled hair. They include, but are not limited to, burns (Chinese and Indian), wedgies (hanging, atomic or standard), strung up on coat hooks, knuckle raps, noogies, enforced imprisonment in small places and bare-arse farts to the face. In all of the above, if girls were present, the victim was usually trouser-less, for extra embarrassment.
The noogie spans cultures.
Situations where they were used: Tortures were frequently used among kids, as punishments for anything from losing a bet, losing a game or just being a loser. Every child knows that if you are given a wedgie, noogie, head flush or any other similar torture, then you thoroughly deserved it, even if you did not quite know why, and no amount of crying to parents, teachers or friends would be of any use whatsoever.
How they worked was thus: Usually, they occurred in deserted school corridors or distant playgrounds – either way, places where it would be unlikely for an adult to stumble upon. Perpetrators rounded on the victim in the manner of a pack of jackals. The victim would have a growing sense of unease as his friends sidled off or suddenly found pressing reasons to be elsewhere. Then, with a growing feeling of dread, the victim (usually a small boy with ill-fitting glasses who smelt of bread and margarine) would notice large shadows looming from behind, then, with a sharp pain in the nether regions, his underpants would be wrenched up his back, his knuckles sharply rapped and his head swiftly noogied, before he was whisked away and his head was soundly flushed down the nearest toilet, a toilet usually well prepared after several boys had emptied their bladders and then locked in a closet which smelt as if someone had taken a dump in there only moments before. Which was probably the case.
Who could have benefited from this: The guards at Guantanamo Bay. Forget blasting loud metal music at those you want information from – get three girls into the cell and then subject the prisoner to three minutes of pantless noogies and he’ll be singing quicker than Snow.
Equivalent for today’s youth: The art of delivering a perfect wedgie has, tragically, been lost from today’s youth. Instead, the only underpant related shenanigans today’s kids partake in is of their removal so the kids can have dangerously pre-marital sex with each other. Likewise, delivering a well-timed head flush or dead arm has devolved into shaven headed youngsters beating the stuffing out of someone and recording it on a mobile phone, which they probably show each other whilst having dangerously pre-marital sex.
4. UNSPEAKABLE DISEASES FROM THE OPPOSITE GENDER
What it meant: Primarily the lurgy or cooties, this pant-wettingly scary disease can only be caught by coming in direct contact with a girl. The disease was widely known to be fatal, though there was, of course, no actual evidence of this. It was just the Truth.
Situations it could be used: When a group of boys were playing, usually a complex war game involving clasped hands and extended fingers to portray machine guns, or a hugely important game of football which could determine your future playground status, any approaching girl will be viewed with suspicion, if not downright hostility.
The girls would usually want to play some crazy-arse game involving a rope, jumping and the type of illogical chanting you would normally see only from a half-crazed drunk staggering around the town centre, waving his arms and sweating profusely. They’d march right into the middle of the playground and stand right on top of the German base, magically produce that unfeasibly long rope and start this methodical chanting and strange, ritualistic dancing. Clearly someone would have to go and shoo them along, else they’d totally ruin the game of football.
What the dickens are they doing?
But who would brave such a task? If you went and spoke to them, you’d catch the Lurgy! You’d be as good as dead! Everyone knew that girls were riddled with it, they were walking epidemics and should be locked up. Merely approaching the girls put you in risk, but talking to them, even if said talking was a screamed demand that they move, well, you might as well go and take that nice new copper golf club and play some shots in a storm.
If you caught the Lurgy, there was only one course of action, and it hand to be taken quickly, otherwise you’d die within a minute. You had to run around the playground, frantically trying to wipe your hands on someone else, for only then will the disease pass on, leaving you weakened, sweating but elated that you might live to see another day.
The girls would never move though, of course, and would alternate between their strange games and shouting insults at the boys, who continue to play their game of football, but on a strange banana shaped pitch, bending around the girls (who would now be totally ignored. Hey, we wanted to play on a banana shaped pitch. Some boys would even comment that it was better this way, but their remarks were met with a flat stare and dead silence).
Riddled with the lurgy. Absolutely riddled with it.
Who could have benefited from this: British Olympic sprinters. Put a group of hopscotch-playing girls just behind them on the starting line and you won’t even see the sprinter move. They’d materialise on the finishing line instead of coming a limping, painfully embarrassing last.
Equivalent for today’s youth: Kids today still catch unspeakably bad diseases from each other, but sadly, they’re not made up and require the immediate application of a lot of antibiotics or cream, available from local chemists.
5. CHILDHOOD GAMES
What they were: From organised games like Bulldog, Complicated War Games, 42-Bunker Home and a fifty-a-side football match using a tiny, deflated, out-of-shape piece of leather as a ball, to much more disorganised, spontaneous games, like stuck-in-the-mud, bundles and kiss chase (the only time you wouldn’t catch the Lurgy, incidentally, unless that fat Tamsin Braithwaite caught you, but you’d run like the dickens from her, usually towards Kate Gainsdale, who for the simple reason of early development, had every single boy chasing her). The names for the games changed from school to school, but everyone knew the rules – just don’t be the spotty, badly dressed kid who always gets picked last.
Situations it could be used: Games were always played outside, usually in a playground or field, and could start spontaneously. Every child knows instinctively how to play – evidently rules for all these games seep into brains by osmosis. If you didn’t know the rules, though, you’d keep your mouth shut, as admitting such a fact would not only see you ousted from the game, but also called a selection of names including, but not limited to, gay, girl, spanner and dweeb.
Played in a playground, games were primarily to determine the playground pecking order. They were not fun, by any stretch of the imagination. Participation in them was a tense affair. One slip up could damage your playground reputation immeasurably. Too many mistake, and you could find yourself alienated from the cool group and have to spend several lunchtimes in exile, sitting with the fat, wheezy kids who can’t play because they’ve got heart conditions.
Another use of playground games was to humiliate the kids no one really liked. Bundles was one such game, usually instigated by bigger boys (though they would not necessarily play, thus passing blame onto younger, more suggestible kids), and would start when one of the bored, older youths would spot someone they have not terrorised in several hours, and cry ‘Bundles!’, thrusting a finger towards their intended victim. The victim would turn to see anything from five to ninety children dashing at them, a crazed bloodlust evident on each and every face, and would try to flee, but their weak legs, usually coupled with an excessive girth, meant they only managed a useless five or six steps before they crashed, mewling, to the floor, borne down by the weight of a dozen or more of their peers.
Just like this, but with kids instead.
The pile of shrieking schoolboys, which appeared to be little more than arms and legs, would quickly grow to several feet in height, and could remain in one place indefinitely, as every passing child, of either gender, would usually hurl themselves onto the top of the bundle. For those unfortunate to be stuck in the middle, the usual tactic was to give the muffled cry of “seriously guys, I can’t fucking breathe! Get off!” whilst those above were squashed down by the weight of yet more schoolchildren. At this point, the pressure on top of the fatty victim would sometimes cause him to noisily break wind, which would result in several cries for help and, if the victim had eaten a school lunch comprised of processed meats, mash and boiled cabbage, vicious gagging and occasional vomiting.
The bundle would only usually end when a passing teacher waded into the pile, hauling bodies off until she found the instigator. With quick thinking, children could usually convince the teacher that the fat, flatulent victim started the whole thing by being a fatty, probably because teachers secretly loathe those kids as well.
Who could have benefited from this: The authorities and amassed crowds in Jerusalem, who saw Jesus crucified and thus made into a martyr. If they had just bundled him, or picked him last for a game of Bulldog, then the shame he’d have experienced would have ensured he’d not have the last, two thousand-year-long laugh.
Equivalent for today’s youth: Today’s youth do play games, but to Gentlemen who grew up in those golden times of the 1980s and before, they are totally incomprehensible. Today’s youth do not participate in activities which require running (unless it is either to get away from the Law, or to chase someone down with the intention of mugging them), nor do today’s youth attempt any kind of spontaneous, disorganised fun, preferring instead to stand to one side, trying desperately hard to be cool and look appealing to members of the opposite gender, and loudly shout grammatically incorrect slights to those who are playing.
Dave @ August 20, 2008
