I don’t think I would make it as a kid today. For starters, I’m terrible at video games. Unless I’m mistaken, the only way to be accepted by a middle school pack of boys is to be a proficient gamer. There is a plethora of other challenges that the kids (more specifically boys) contend with daily, which leads me to believe that most of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s couldn’t hack it in today’s world. My guess is virtually all of us would crumble like a high protein energy bar if we were to somehow spend time as a middle school student today with a junior high school student mentality or frame of reference from yester-year.
My Isaac Newton Graham Junior High School days were filled with school, friends, sports, girls/hormones, TV, family, and my neighborhood. I lived a typical suburban life similar to the one described in Steve Rushin’s book Sting-Ray Afternoons. My unofficial book review rates this a must read for anyone 50 to 60 years of age.
School is a lot tougher than it used to be. There’s more pressure than ever to deliver good grades and establish good study habits straight out of elementary school. Most of my buddies and I pretty much skated through the 7th and 8th grade on our wit and good looks. We all thought you didn’t really need to apply yourself until high school. Nowadays, you would think your kid’s middle school grades are part of their UC college admission application. “Sorry Mike, you’re just not UCLA material due to that “C” you got in 7th grade woodshop class.” Candidly, I was never UCLA material.
Grant H, 8th Grade Los Cerros Middle School: There’s a lot of pressure to do good in school and it’s tough juggling school with sports and everything else. There’s always a lot of work to stay up on and you can’t afford to get behind if you want to maintain good grades.
Kevin A. 8th grader at Harvest Park Middle School. School puts a lot of pressure on all of us. It’s not just from parents and teachers. There’s a lot of competition with friends at school. Everybody wants to do well at school, sports and everything to prepare for high school.
In our day, it was the jocks and cheerleaders who ran the school, but today, its science and mathaletes who call the shots. Future app developers and start-up entrepreneurs control the lunchroom power as they offer stock options for early VC funding.
Sports –Dressing for PE was mandatory in the 70s and it didn’t take long to figure out who the alpha males were based on their size, speed and skill set. Guys like Russell Peoples, Frank Dowse, Ron Mendez, Mike Lara were feared and revered due to their superior athletic abilities. PE class, after school sports, and neighborhood pick-up games taught us the importance of teamwork, communication, time management, and conflict resolution. It seems today, boys are either over-committed with overlapping team activities or they can opt out of sports for any variety of reasons including anxiety, stress or having an allergic reaction to AXE body spray. A lot of tween-age boys’ idea of exercise in 2019 is playing FORTNITE online.
Reilly G., 8th Grade at Charlotte Wood Middle School. There’s always pressure at school because we have so much going on after school. I often feel overworked and tired because I go from one thing to another without a lot of down time.
Friends are often our lifeline during the turbulent times of adolescence. Keeping in mind that my middle school years took place shortly after the very first video game (Pong) was released, unlike today’s youth, my gang of hooligans didn’t let it take over our lives. Jeff, Derek, Mark, Luis and I chose to occupy our after school and weekend hours with an assortment of neighborhood games (tag, hide and seek and doorbell ditch) along with riding our bikes. “Be home by dark” was my mom’s go-to line as I headed out the door. I liked that line much better than “Just wait until your father gets home.” I had a paper route with the San Jose Mercury News to make a little spending money. Kids today probably don’t know what a newspaper is let alone the notion of folding, packing and throwing them at houses from a moving bicycle. Do kids even ride bicycles anymore or do they rely on Uber to get them everywhere even if it’s just a few blocks away? A bike used to mean freedom and independence. That said, my Uber driver’s name was “Mom” and she always helped me deliver my newspapers on rainy days.
Cooper P. 8th grader at St. Isidore School. I love the time away from school when I get to work out in the gym. The more you put into it the more the more you get out of it. The trainers at Cal Strength really help you to learn the proper techniques to help you reach your goals.
Girls or just an attraction to someone of the opposite sex (or same sex – no judgment here) is a confusing realization at any age, but in those early teen years it can be downright petrifying. Who of us understood what we were feeling or thinking, let alone the reactions our body was processing during that turbulent time of puberty? My harmless early crushes included Pam, Linda, Judy, Elise and Kristy, among others. They don’t even make names like those anymore. It’s a shame that I couldn’t bottle and sell nervous perspiration because I had plenty of that coursing over my body anytime one of those young ladies crossed by path near a locker, in the lunch line or sitting next to me in a class. Thank goodness for school dances and Forget Me Not fundraisers.
Our pre-disco era school dances were held on Friday nights and hosted live bands covering the most popular songs of The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan. This was the best time to talk, flirt and interact with someone you were smitten by, but couldn’t muster the courage to approach during the typical school day. A Forget Me Not fundraiser allowed kids to send flowers or candy to someone during sixth period, usually around a holiday like Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Thankfully, we could also send an anonymous FMN to a special friend we might be “crushing” on. Even though none of the girls mentioned above were ever interested in me, they probably all received a carnation or candy cane from me with a note signed Your Secret Admirer. Today, that would be grounds for expulsion for expressing unwanted attention, but back then it was just “sweet.”
Hannah O., 8th grader at St. Isidore School. Some boys are really immature and some are nice and polite. Our school doesn’t allow us to use phones on campus so it kind of forces us to talk to each other more, but all of the boys are obsessed with video games and that’s all they ever talk about.
Television is obsolete. Despite having hundreds of mainstream and cable channels to select from, most kids don’t seem to have time for television. As a kid, I spent way too many hours in front of a TV. I don’t want to brag, but we had two TVs in our house, one color and one black and white. Today, on the rare occasion when kids do have down time, they stream Netflix on their computer or phone in the privacy of their bedrooms. Our TV viewing was always in the family room, usually with Mom and Dad as company. Programs such as MASH, Good Times and Happy Days have been replaced by the likes of Stranger Things, The Walking Dead and Ridiculousness. I would gladly trade being the human remote for a little me time.
Social Media –Since texting has replaced talking, I would first need to become immersed in social media for all my communication needs. Every middle schooler today seems to have an Apple iPhone 10X, Apple Watch and wireless Apple ear buds and I’m barely able to operate my two-year-old iPhone 6 without having to ask my teenage daughter how to insert a smiley face emoji in a text. I long for the days when my entire family shared one landline with a very long extension cord for those private closet conversations. I’ve already written about the fear every teen boy had when calling a girl’s house and getting her dad on the line. I still break out in a sweat thinking about Mr. Boudreau’s phone interrogations and I’m older now then he was then. What type of trouble would I have gotten into with Snap Chat or Instagram you ask? Trust me, you don’t even want to know.
I get the impression that kids are under a lot of pressure these days. Pressure to do well in school, excel in sports or other extracurricular activities, and even social media pressure. I’m sure we had pressures too, although for the life of me I can’t remember what they might have been. I think of the wasted days and fun filled nights we had and I feel bad that kids today don’t know what it’s like to have that type of freedom. It’s a different time and I get the impression it’s much tougher to be a kid today.
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