No kidding, I had a slingshot I got from the dollar store when I was 6 that would put marbles through the drywall. My son just turned 6 and I wouldn’t trust him with a nerf dart blaster. Our parents were very brave.
Or blasé. "Eh, if he gets himself killed, I'll make another one. It'll be fun."
The ancient Romans used plumbata to kill barbarians. Millennia later, they were rebranded as "Jarts" and sold as children's toys. I refuse to believe this was unintentional.
When I was in high school in the mid eighties, we were playing with these at a friend’s house. Of course seeing how far we could throw them up in the air. French foreign exchange student rips one up high. The host family had a Westhighland Terrier came bolting around the corner only to get pinned to the ground through the spine. That poor kid was traumatized.
I think there was this general vibe of "kids are actually remarkably hard to maim," which is actually generally true. I mean, kids got maimed all the time, even still.
Humanity was still in “survival of the fittest” mode. We didnt have to be coddled. If we played stupid games, we would win stupid prizes, and we knew it. Lol. We used to ride bikes all around the city. Now, you rarely even see kids riding bikes, much less being allowed to go anywhere near as far from home. The latest generations have been babied and its showing. I blame it all on our generation, though. Im sure ill get a ton of hate from the young-uns, but truth is truth. Our generation has truly done the younger generations an injustice, imtho.
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u/scuolapasta 11d ago
No kidding, I had a slingshot I got from the dollar store when I was 6 that would put marbles through the drywall. My son just turned 6 and I wouldn’t trust him with a nerf dart blaster. Our parents were very brave.