The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did as Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today

By Daisy Luther

With all of the ridiculous new regulations, coddling, and societal mores that seem to be the norm these days, it’s a miracle those of us over 30 survived our childhoods.

Here’s the problem with all of this babying: it creates a society of weenies.

There won’t be more more rebels because this generation has been frightened into submission and apathy through a deliberately orchestrated culture of fear. No one will have faced adventure and lived to greatly embroider the story.

Kids are brainwashed – yes, brainwashed – into believing that the mere thought of a gun means you’re a psychotic killer waiting for a place to rampage.

They are terrified to do anything when they aren’t wrapped up with helmets, knee pads, wrist guards, and other protective gear.

Parents can’t let them go out and be independent or they’re charged with neglect and the children are taken away.

Woe betide any teen who uses a tool like a pocket knife, or heck, even a table knife to cut meat.

Lighting their own fire? Good grief, those parents must either not care if their child is disfigured by 3rd-degree burns over 90% of his body or they’re purposely nurturing a little arsonist.

Heaven forbid that a child describe another child as “black” or, for that matter, refer to others as girls or boys. No actual descriptors can be used for the fear of “offending” that person, and “offending” someone is incredibly high on the hierarchy of Things Never To Do.

“Free range parenting” is all but illegal and childhood is a completely different experience these days.

All of this babying creates incompetent, fearful adults.

Our children have been enveloped in this softly padded culture of fear, and it’s creating a society of people who are fearful, out of shape, overly cautious, and painfully politically correct.  They are incredibly incompetent when they go out on their own because they’ve never actually done anything on their own.

When my oldest daughter came home after her first semester away at college, she told me how grateful she was to be an independent person. She described the scene in the dorm.  “I had to show a bunch of them how to do laundry and they didn’t even know how to make a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese,” she said.  Apparently they were in awe of her ability to cook actual food that did not originate in a pouch or box, her skills at changing a tire, her knack for making coffee using a French press instead of a coffee maker, and her ease at operating a washing machine and clothes dryer.  She says that even though she thought I was being mean at the time I began making her do things for herself, she’s now glad that she possesses those skills.  Hers was also the room that had everything needed to solve everyday problems: basic tools, first aid supplies, OTC medicine, and home remedies.

I was truly surprised when my daughter told me about the lack of life skills her friends have.  I always thought maybe I was secretly lazy and that was the basis on my insistence that my girls be able to fend for themselves, but it honestly prepares them for life far better than if I was a hands-on mom that did absolutely everything for them.  They need to realize that clothing does not get worn and then neatly reappear on a hanger in the closet, ready to be worn again. They need to understand that meals do not magically appear on the table, created by singing appliances a la Beauty and the Beast.

If the country is populated by a bunch of people who can’t even cook a box of macaroni and cheese when their stoves function at optimum efficiency, how on earth will they sustain themselves when they have to not only acquire their food, but must use off-grid methods to prepare it? How can someone who requires an instruction manual to operate a digital thermostat hope to keep warm when their home environment it controlled by wood they have collected and fires they have lit with it? How can someone who is afraid of getting dirty plant a garden and shovel manure?

Did you do any of these things and live to tell the tale?

While I did make my children wear bicycle helmets and never took them on the highway in the back of a pick-up, many of the things on this list were not just allowed, they were encouraged. Before someone pipes up with outrage (because they’re *cough* offended) I’m not suggesting that you throw caution to the wind and let your kids attempt to hang-glide off the roof with a sheet attached to a kite frame. (I’ve got a scar proving that makeshift hang-gliding is, in fact, a terrible idea). Common sense evolves, and I obviously don’t recommend that you purposely put your children in unsafe situations with a high risk of injury.

But, let them be kids. Let them explore and take reasonable risks. Let them learn to live life without fear.

Raise your hand if you survived a childhood in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that included one or more of the following, frowned-upon activities (raise both hands if you bear a scar proving your daredevil participation in these dare-devilish events):

  1. Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids
  2. Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble
  3. Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria
  4. Riding your bike without a helmet
  5. Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets
  6. Drinking water from the hose in the yard
  7. Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* “wild swimming“)
  8. Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)
  9. Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)
  10. Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL
  11. Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)
  12. Camping
  13. Throwing rocks at snakes in the river
  14. Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians
  15. Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns
  16. Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns
  17. Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school
  18. Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there’s actually a freakin’ CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)
  19. Working for your pocket money well before your teen years
  20. Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting
  21. Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode
  22. Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower
  23. Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper
  24. Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover (The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)
  25. Walking to school alone

Come on, be honest.  Tell us what crazy stuff you did as a child.

Teach your children to be independent this summer.

We didn’t get trophies just for showing up. We were forced, yes, forced – to do actual work and no one called protective services. And we gained something from all of this.

Our independence.

Do you really think that children who are terrified by someone pointing his finger and saying “bang” are going to lead the revolution against tyranny? No, they will cower in their tiny apartments, hoping that if they behave well enough, they’ll continue to be fed.

Do you think our ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war were afraid to climb a tree or get dirty?

Those of us who grew up this way (and who raise our children to be fearless) are the resistance against a coddled, helmeted, non-offending society that aims for a dependent populace. In a country that was built on rugged self-reliance, we are now the minority.

Nurture the rebellion this summer. Boot them outside. Get your kids away from their TVs, laptops, and video games. Get sweaty and dirty. Do things that makes the wind blow through your hair. Go off in search of the best climbing tree you can find. Shoot guns. Learn to use a bow and arrow. Play outside all day long and catch fireflies after dark. Do things that the coddled world considers too dangerous and watch your children blossom.

Teach your kids what freedom feels like.

Daisy Luther lives in a small village in the Pacific Northwestern area of the United States.  She is the author of The Organic Canner,  The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget, and the soon-to-be-released The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide: Harvest, Treat, and Store Your Most Vital Resource. On her website, The Organic Prepper, where this article first appeared. Daisy uses her background in alternative journalism to provide a unique perspective on health and preparedness, and offers a path of rational anarchy against a system that will leave us broke, unhealthy, and enslaved if we comply.  Daisy’s articles are widely republished throughout alternative media. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest,  and Twitter.


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14 Comments on "The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did as Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today"

  1. 22/25 here… not enough hands here, here in the UK I had the luck to grow up on a farm, but we didn’t have peanut butter and jam sandwiches, snakes and I never remember getting lines 😉

  2. Frances McCandless | June 16, 2015 at 5:06 pm |

    I had the privilege of doing most of the 25 and I turned out fine. I even allowed my children to do most of those things only because I wanted them to experience life and be self-sufficient and independent thinkers. The PC crowd has taken over and their agenda is a UN Agenda 21 scenario. Scary.

  3. All 25 and way more,growing up in the 50`s – early 60`s.
    Not to mention antics in jr – high skrewel (as Rush likes to say), or as many say today, with two syllables – skooal, days.

  4. Back about 1960, before we made the bomb shelter, we’d stack newspapers floor to ceiling in the basement and shoot targets with .22’s. (Mpls. MN)
    Also in High School in the fall on a Friday. at least 1/4 of the vehicles in the parking lot had fire arms in them. And REALLY it was no big deal. A lot of guy brought shot guns in there trunks all the time so we could go straight across the river after school and get a couple hours of hunting in.
    When I was about 4, I would sit on my great grandfathers knee, and he’d teach me how to shoot his .22 cal. in his basement.
    Growing up. whether I was in the city, country or on a farm, a loaded shotgun over the kitchen door was normal to me.
    We used to go to Taylors Falls WS and jump off the cliffs (from 25 – 80 feet high) into the St. Croix River. They had rope swings too!
    I’m sure this will make some one crap! We use to have shotgun fights! The object was to spray hot lead on the other guys. Even the old man wouldn’t like to know that one.
    The old man got mad at me for putting an arrow through the roof of the patio. LOL (know wonder he blamed me for an ulcer)
    Snowskiing behind a car.
    In the Marines we’d tie a rope to a car bumper and water ski in canals that were only 12 – 16 feet wide at 60 + MPH!
    Would stick ball in the street be daring?? Or canoeing in the creek and sloughs?

  5. Excellent article and a true reading enjoyment. Inspiring that there are others who still retain the greater value of common sense and appreciate the great benefits and wisdom of liberty despite its petty risks.

    Who could have imagined 5 or 6 decades ago it would be an acceptable norm to raise future generations of ‘bubble’ boys and girls. But I can see the advantages to an evolving tyrannical socialist government in having a sissified, compliant, weak and stupefied electorate.

  6. I grew up witrh 8 brothers and sisters. By the time we were ten years old, all of us were capable of riding a horse bareback without reins, ride a year old bullcalf for 8 seconds, shoot a 22 or a 12 guage and hit the target, keep our knife honed and do a days work before taking our place at the dinner table. We had chores to do and in the summer, that included farming at my uncle’s farm. We even had to endure our mother’s anatomy classes when we butchered our livestock. We could watch Annette Funechello’s “Mickey Mouse Club”, “Fred-n-Fey’s”, and “Sheriff Scotty” If our homework and chores were done. We were allowed to play c’boys n injuns on our horses and we made our own bows n arrows, and yes, there were injuries, but we survived. Our parents were stearn but loving and taught us how to be self reliant and dependable. Could you ask for anything more? Oh Yeah, and we used to piss our granpaw off by climbing “his” trees and daring him to come get us. But I think it was just his act to get us to scream and giggle.

  7. yeah but we did’nt run aroud with automatics either

  8. i still enjoy most all of that listed…yea, right! Can’t mend like i used to.

  9. Grew up in the English countryside surrounded by farms. I did most of the things on your list and plenty more besides (and have a few scars too). Both of my brothers were much older than me so I spent a lot of time playing on my own, building bonfires, letting off fireworks, going for long exploratory walks through fields that sometimes contained dangerous bulls and with treacherous bogs and ditches to be crossed. I also went fishing alone and didn’t drown once! Later on I befriended some kids at one of the farms and we’d spend all day surrounded by myriad hazards whilst riding our bicycles like maniacs around the superb obstacle course that a working farm provides. We built carts with no brakes to race down the steep hill next to the farm, whilst keeping a sharp eye out for the frequent tractors and other vehicles that used the same piece of road. No-one died and injuries were rare.
    I got my first car at 14 years old — a beaten up old Mini from a scrapyard that was so rusty the doors eventually fell off! I drove it like a rally car around the various lanes and dusty farm tracks near our house and never even came close to having an accident. Maintaining and repairing it was a great introduction to mechanics and I eventually graduated as a mechanical engineer. I wanted a motorbike as well but that was a bit too much to ask for at the time.
    I started learning to cook (from scratch ingredients) when I was only four, and it’s one of the most valuable attributes that I possess. I still love cooking and (if I say so myself) I’m quite good at it.
    Despite the fact that we were surrounded by mud and farm animals (we kept a few pigs, chickens and goats), had a filthy house full of pets and an outside toilet, I hardly ever got ill and never with anything serious.
    It wasn’t entirely idyllic due to a severe shortage of money and violent parents, but it was vastly more preferable to how most kids are brought up these days.
    I

  10. Yes, a society of “weenies” is easier to conquer, subdue, control and enslave. Scary, Huh.
    We use to have bottle rocket fights on an old bridge that was nothing left but the steel girders across the local creek. This went on for several years and not one of us was ever severely injured. A few minor burns and busted eardrums but we knew better than to aim directly at each other. Our other favorite pastime was tying ropes to the back of golf carts and ride our skateboards behind them. No helmets.

  11. If the country is populated by a bunch of people who can’t even cook a box of macaroni and cheese when their stoves function at optimum efficiency, how on earth will they sustain themselves when they have to not only acquire their food, but must use off-grid methods to prepare it? How can someone who requires an instruction manual to operate a digital thermostat hope to keep warm when their home environment it controlled by wood they have collected and fires they have lit with it? How can someone who is afraid of getting dirty plant a garden and shovel manure?

    It’s all in the plan…

  12. Great article, great web site..finally some sanity..

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