29th September, 2006
Double Bubble, Toil and Trouble
Someone brought a tub of single-serving sized Double Bubble gum into work this week (4 flavors! I grabbed some grape, natch). As I was chewing my way through a couple pieces of sugary, artificially flavored, jaw-aching goodness (still tastes the same as it did when I was a kid, but I swear the flavor doesn’t last as long), I was reminded of the lazy summer days of childhood when friends and I would ride our bikes all around town, collecting cans and bottles that we would then turn in for refund (the sole benefit, as far as I’m concerned, of growing up in Michigan is that there is a $0.10 refund on cans and bottles, but I digress). Afterwards, we’d spend our freshly earned loot on candy and coin-op video games.
My thoughts soon wandered to other memories of the halcyon days of old. My generation ate fatty, cholesterol-laden foods as kids. We were carted around town in the back of station wagons without seatbelts. We rode our bikes without helmets on. We lived in homes and attended schools filled with asbestos and lead-based paint. I’m sure there are plenty of other things we did that today are no longer considered “safe”, yet despite all this, we seem to have turned out OK.
Jumping forward to today, I found myself wondering what sort of “unsafe” things my daughter will have to avoid when she is raising her own children. It seems like despite our continued attempts to make things “safe” for our children, we constantly create new and as-of-yet-unknown “dangers”. Anti-bacterial materials, electronic devices, wireless technologies; all of these could turn out to be the perceived equivalent of letting your child play with broken shards of glass.
Is it just a symptom of society that we must constantly have things to worry about? Is it so hard for us to just accept that Life is not predictable, nor is it controllable? Take a step back and breathe, people. Things will turn out OK.
Posted at 6:15 am | Comments (2)
On September 29, 2006 at 13:22 Shae said:
September 29, 2006 at 13:22
Where do you come up with your spiffy titles for your blog anyways? You must be slow at work today, but I guess it’s nice to get a break here and there.
Our daughter isn’t at that age yet ;; Don’t even want to picture that age yet cuz that will make us UBER old. WAH!
On September 29, 2006 at 14:15 Gog said:
September 29, 2006 at 14:15
Yep, a slow afternoon. XD