7 Reasons We Had The Best Childhood

Raise your hand if you're a 90s kid!  Holla!

Let it be known that the childhood that kids are experiencing today WILL NEVER hold a candle to the one we cultivated back in the day.  All this technology can't even begin to compare to the good old fashioned fun we dreamt up on the daily, am I right?  

Maybe I am just one for nostalgia?  Or maybe I'm right?!  Oh, and I come with proof:

Playing Dress Up

This was the pinnacle of my childhood.  I was in dance for years and accumulated quite the collection of costumes.  Apparently, I was also an aspiring designer because I would affix elastic to tights and pull them up to make body suits and I would make wigs out of paper (maybe I'll find a few pictures for you guys.)

But the best part is this: my brothers would play with me.  When I would get home from school I would dress myself in a leotard and tutu and put my brothers in random girly hard and we would twirl around the living room to Michael Bolton and then COSTUME CHANGE!  Then back out for some more dancing to Clint Black.  Magical, I'm telling ya!

Beanie Babies

These were the best and anyone who disagrees just has no heart!  They were the cutest little things.

Yeah, I was one of those kids that collected them.  I even got my little brothers in on the action.  Between us all we probably had a hundred or so and let me tell you, it was a whole operation!  They all had names and birthdays and we were all really close so we, naturally, had to celebrate birthdays and things.  I'm really serious about this.  We would set them all out in the living room in rows and they all had miniature, hand colored (and taped) birthday hats and honorary beanie babies would give speeches and it was grand, really.  

Tamagachis

This is on the list because BEST TOY EVERRR.  I had a cat and a dog and I was a stellar digi pet owner.  I even risked detention so that I could keep my babies alive and well.  Which reminds me of how, looking back, teachers must have hated these things.  I'm sure no less than half the class had one and they would beep throughout the day..

But let's talk for a second... did anyone else hear that they made angel ones?  My friend told me so and, consequently, that they were only made in Japan.  Lucky for this girl, my Dad traveled there and back all the time for work so he humored me in looking for one while on a trip, but to no avail.  In retrospect, my friend probably had no idea what she was talking about.

The "Technology"

With the likes of magna doodle and the magic copier, I was feeling pretty up on the times.  So what if I had to press down uncomfortably hard on that copier thing, I was about to get a sweet print out of it.

Carrying my music with me was soooo easy!  All I had to do was clip my hit clips to my backpack and I was ready to go with 60 seconds of any of the 5 backstreet boys "discs" I had. Rocking.

It was super fun to sit by my boom box and wait for the new Brittney Spears song to come on so I could quickly hit record and BOOM, I could play that baby back, after I rewinded the tape, of course.

And for the times when I wanted to record my voice and play it back in an unrecognizable way, I could just whip out my talk boy.  Those things were really helpful.

Board Games

Like, the classics.  Chutes and ladders, candy land, monopoly, life, battleship, clue!  That was our go to indoor entertainment.  I can't remember how many rainy days were spent indoors with a stack of these boxes next to us, just making our way through them.  I think that I am just a sucker for the classics but come on, it's hard to top these.  

Playing Outside

So, I don't have kids and my friends have just started having kids so I'm not sure where we are on this but I don't really see many kids just playing outside.  

When I look back on my childhood, this was the majority of my life.  Right?  I remember my little brother and I packing a backpack with sandwiches and drinks, blankets, "tools", books, and a few things that we snuck out, like my parents camera or binoculars (sorry, guys!) and staying out in the treehouse in the backyard until we absolutely had to come in.

We had such crazy imaginations back then.  One day we'd have to ration our food because we were stuck in the wild and had no way of finding civilization.  One day we were at an amusement park and the roller coaster was a little tikes picnic table turned upside down, being pushed down the slide (which was super unsafe, but hella fun).  One day we decided we should "bungee jump" off the tree house with a rope tied to our belt loops (also unsafe, goodness gracious! - but no worries, the rope broke).  Then there were super soakers, and watermelon seed spitting, and swing jumping, and even some video making.

No judging, you know you did these things too.

And we're the better for it, I think.  Those are the memories I look back on the most fondly.

Cartoons

Cartoons were the best when I was little.  If you're watching TV there was Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, Loony Toons, The Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Speed Racer!  And oh boy the movies!  The Land Before Time, Cinderella, The Great Mouse Detective, The Swan Princess, The Rescuers Down Under, Prancer, Charlotte's Web.  I just want to keep going.

My mom saved all these movies when were grew up.  She's saving them for her grandchildren, she says.  Which is very exciting because, yes, my kids will be watching these gems. 

Honorable mentions: Powerbeads, chocker necklaces, the ice cream truck