Over the weekend, I received an amusing email. However on reading it in more detail, (after I had stopped smiling about it), I found that I actually found myself actually agreeing with the content, line by line!

The content was originally posted on different blogs last year, but I am not sure if the originators actually realised the generational significance of the content!
The 25 things I have listed below describe a whole heap of things 'back in the day', when gen Y'ers were just a figment of a  gen X'ers Friday night out!! They will surely go down this list and go, 'no way!', simply because society and technology has made the world we live in a whole new place!

I just wonder how many of the fabled gen Y'ers would have actually benefited if just a few of the items below had stayed as they were?

Get your pen ready and start ticking them off and nodding in agreement (well,only if you are an X'er or a boomer) - I know you will!

So here are the 25 things that gen Y'ers will just not believe ever happened to the gen X'ers or baby boomers during their formative years:

1. They survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
2. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
3. Then after that trauma, their baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
4. They had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
5. As children, they would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
6. They drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
7. Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway or Nandos.
8. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow they didn't starve to death!
9. They shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
10. They ate fairy cakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but they weren't overweight because……THEY WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
11. They would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as they were back when the streetlights came on.
12. No one was able to reach them all day. And they were O.K.
13. They would spend hours building their go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out they forgot the brakes. They built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.
14. They did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd  films,no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms………..THEY HAD FRIENDS and they went outside and found them!
15. They fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
16. Only girls had pierced ears!
17. They ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in them forever.
18. You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time…
19. They rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
20. Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
21. The sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT !!
22. The teachers used to hit them with canes and gym shoes and bully's always ruled the playground at school.
23. The idea of a parent bailing them out if they broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
24. The parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'
25. They had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and they learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !

For me one that really stand out. If I could change the way our society has moved on, then I would make sure  that we could turn back time and make no.21 true again - I strongly believe that this has had a large effect on the gen Y'ers - they simply have no idea what the word competition means!  They are going for jobs and university places, and just don't know how to deal with failure, because they have never been allowed to previously fail!

I am sure any of you X'ers and boomers reading this, will probably get a little nostalgic, but the reality of times 'back in the day', was that we all survived and as it says in the last point, we just learned to deal with what came along, and got on with it!!

If you are a gen Y'er, it would be great to get your perspective. Which of these are points are the most scary for you?