Babies in the 50s, 60s & early 70s

The article below was written by Patrick Teoh in his blog "Niamah!!".

To All those Born in the 50's , 60's & early '70s...
First, we survived with mothers who had no maids. They cooked /cleaned while taking care of us at the same time.
They took aspirin, candies floss ,fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrups and diabetes were rare. Salt added to Pepsi or Coke was remedy for fever.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
As children, we would ride with our parents on bicycles/ motorcycles for 2 or 3. Richer ones in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a private taxi was a special treat.
We drank water from the tap and NOT from a bottle.
We would spend hours on the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV ray which never seem to affect us.
We go to jungle to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.
With mere 5 pebbles (stones) would be an endless game. With a ball (tennis ball best) we boys would ran like crazy for hours.
We catch guppy in drains / canals and when it rain we swim there.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually worry about being unhygienic.
We ate salty, very sweet & oily food, candies, bread and real butter and drank very sweet soft sweet coffee/ tea, ice kacang, but we weren't overweight because...... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, till streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. AND WE DONT HAVE HANDPHONES TO BUG US. And we were O.K. AND WE ARE SAFE.
We would spend hours repairing our old bicycles and wooden scooters out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, X-boxes, Nintendo's, multiple channels on cable TV, DVD movies, no surround sound, no phones, no personal computers, no Internet. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts.
We never had birthdays parties till we are 21.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just yelled for them!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 40 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

I, among babies born in those years, had joyful childhood. No fear of playing outside, running freely on the road in our neighbourhood playing games such as ‘rounders’ and ‘tuju selipar’. Played ‘konda-kondi” next to the house, play ‘Pondok-Pondok” pretending leaves and ‘fried’ ground as food and having some acted as family members such as father, mother or playing congkak which was either hols dug o nthe ground next to or under the house or made from wood (we had one last time) without parents worrying about us getting sick.

Me and friends also played games such as Teng-Teng, Batu Seremban, Galah Panjang, tudung botol, riding on pelepah pinang and few more games which I couldn’t recall the names (these traditional games can be found in Warisan Budaya Malaysia website http://malaysiana.pnm.my/03/0310konda_kondi.htm and http://www.maribelajar.blogspot.com/2008/09/konda-kondi.html )

Those days when I wanted to play dolls, I would make it from paper (even its clothes were from paper!). As for TV programs, only TV1 and TV2 were available, TV3 only first made available at our area when I was about 12 years old (if not mistaken). I first learnt to use computer when I was 13-years-old (end of 80s), reading books on the mango trees infront of the house were among my favourite moments, went up the roof by climbing rambutan trees were normal stuff for me – watching our neighbourhood or plucked rambutans that were not easily reachable (of course my mom scolded me whenever she discovered that I was on the roof as that's considered not a lady-like character), walking back from school which about 2km away from home (school located in town) but never diverted to somewhere else other than straight to home.

Riding bikes with friends, fell and bled my knee was something I had to endure myself and my mom didn’t even rushed me to clinic for further check up in case I broke a bone, but instead just asked me to put ointment on it. There were once I climbed a tree behind our old house before (when I was not yet 8 years old) and fell with my face up and my back hit something (can't remember whether it's a rock or a wood), but definitely something hard. Though it hurt so much, I quietly went into the house not telling my parents what had happened as firstly I surely will be scolded for climbing the tree before they checked if I had badly hurt myself. However, no doubt that's a lesson to me not to do it again (or be extra careful next time not to step on fragile branch - climbing trees was a norm to me). Guess an angel was there looking after me as I am fine till today, alhamdulillah.

Even parents nowadays have all the facilities they wish for to give to their children and do their best (sometimes to the extreme) to be good parents, I believe they are having much bigger challenge in raising their kids compared to parents those years.

Despite technology limitation and far from today's modern life, kids those days were blessed to know the real meaning of childhood – I know I am.