Where Have All The Innocence Gone?

Today I decided to write about a different aspect of me, which i believe is needed today. Growing up in the 80's there wasn't a'lot of emphasis/pressure about your body image. I grew up with both parents until the death of my father last year. You can also say I was raised by a community who happened to be both my grandmother's, aunts and cousins.

Life was very simple then, my childhood was spent exploring, climbing rocks pretending it was a mountain, going 'mountain' with my grandmother, bathing in the river (deep hole) my older cousins built, reading book... We would spend the entire day in 'granny's garden picking plums, plum rose, cherries, mangoes, sugar apples, grava, spanish nut, hog plums,  grate coconuts and sugar, cocoa and bananas. Our parents had to call us to come and eat lunch by that time we were already full.

In those days guys and girls played in my harmony with nature as well as clean fun with each other. Neighborhood kids would come along and we play hide and seek for the pure fun of it. It is soo different today.

What I most enjoyed was interacting with the animals, my grandmother and oldest cousin reared a variety of animals from sheep, goats, ducks, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, pigeons & fish. All the kids loved taking care of them and we spent the entire day chasing rabbits when my cousin would let them loose in the garden for us to catch.

As you can see I was so occupied and learning so many things about nature, there wasn't any need for us to worry about our looks or the clothes we wore they were full of dirt and grass stains when we were finished with them lol. We weren't influenced by the different forms of technology that was available to us, which was mainly the television and radio. There were different programming as well, on Saturday morning's we were so excited to watch the National Geographic Programme, it was like visiting a new country every week. We didn't have any cable in those days what every the antenna picked up lol... but it didn't matter to us.

I wonder how kids would describe their childhood today? It seems like every thing is getting corrupted, parents have to extra vigilant to protect  their kids from harmful influences. There has been a shift in the moral standards and we are now seeing the devastating impact on the youths of today.

I won't cast blame and say who went wrong but I will say each of us have to live a positive live that someone would want to emulate. I'm doing my part are you? If your kids had the opportunity to read/view your life story what would your reaction be?