Blog Assignment 1, Childhood memories

I grew up in the sixities and early seventies. I was the eldest of three children, my mother was a housewife and my father earned the money for the family necessities. And that was the case for most families during that time. I didn´t have many activities on leisure time. Before I started school at the age of seven I didn´t go to any organizes activity for children. I knew a classmate who was in a dancing class once a week and I was very jealous of her. As an aside, I can tell you that both my own girls have danced since they were four years old. Talk about to re experience their mother´s dreams!

When I got older I joined a couple of leisure activites e.g. I started to sing in a choir which is an activity I still do. A big difference between now and then is that children nowadays. neraly always are driven to their activities by their parents. In my time, children usually take themselves to their activities. An other difference is that today children have more than one activity in fact a lot of children have something to do in their spare time several times a week and even during the weekends.

Food is also something that is different. I was 16-17 years old when I ate my first pizza. There was one pizza restaurant newly opened in Karlstad at that time and everybody was eager to go there. When my own son was between 15 and 19 years old I used to say that he had punch ticket on our nearest pizzeria. He could eat pizza two to three times a week.

I think it´s natural that things change over time. If I compare my childhood with my mother´s childhood there will be differences as well as similarities in fact even the Old Greeks complained about "the youth of today". The world developes faster and faster and it seems to me that the world also "gets smaller". More people today travel round the world, especially young people. I think that is very good because if you get knowledge of other cultures you also get a better understanding of other cultures which promotes human perception positive and xenophobia negative in our society.

I think the most importent thing for children is to feel loved and safe. As a parent your responsibility is to respect your child and your child´s feelings. You don´t own your child you take care of the child and raise it. I think that one of the goals of parenting is to nurture the children to feel proud of themselves and that they have an intrinsic value.

Finally I think it´s important that children learn about themselves so they can say no to drugs when they grow up. This is not an easy task for a parent but I think it facilitated if the parents give their children respect for their views.