I must confess, I would not want to be a teenager today – it was so very different when I was young way back in the early seventies a time of learning about boys and girls and other things. As I, when to the shop around the corner this morning for my Sunday papers I walked out to a boy and a girl making out up against the wall outside. I felt like shouting, “Get a room” but I decided eyes front they must have been around 12 or 13 years of age, I had no idea who they were.
They had disappeared on my return, saving me any embarrassment, were they gone because they felt the same.
Today Young people have so much freedom they can do pretty much what they like – out of the view of their parents as the taboos of yesteryear have all but gone. Our neighbour’s eyes were our parent’s eyes because everyone knew each other unlike today. This whole 'sex thing' has now been turned around but not everyone makes use of such liberties.
In my day making out in the public would never happen and it was near impossible to find somewhere with everyone out playing not stuck at home on games machines or social media. Sneaking into some random bush or some cubbyhole and if u were spied out comes the denial and in fact it would be more times than Peter denied Christ.
I remember early teens finding myself home alone and inviting a neighbourhood girl into the house maybe for a bit of snogging if I was lucky however, the next-door neighbours swooped to my door telling me she would tell my mum. So out goes the girl and later the neighbour told mum and I had a bollicking it was the last time I invited a girl into my parents’ house until my wife and I were courting many years later because she was the one. Other girlfriends just never made the grade to meet mum, sorry.
We were all so incredibly naive - the way our parents wanted us to be as they were in their days, they thought keeping us in ignorance would keep us out of trouble. In those far off days, kissing and cuddling were the standard elements of 'boy-girl' relationships - and very little more. Walking down the street holding hands was usually, a sign that you were 'courting' you were a couple. After the show outside my house today's anything goes free for all has put an end to that lovely romantic interlude.
There is just no anticipation any more today. In my day, it was about one girl you would chase until it was deem to be a waste of time and sooner or later you would move on to pastures new. Girls unlike boys had a reputation to keep too many boys you were considered a flirt.
If it was discovered that you had let a boy 'fondle you in a rather intimate way' ' - you were considered 'easy', and became very popular among boys. But if you had 'gone all the way' (shock, horror - no, really?) you were virtually ostracized in shock. While the boy was treated as some kind of hero. Once in the open the girl would deny it boys do like to brag while today, it is worn like a badge of honour with both.
I have never been the bragging kind as a kid I like to think I showed some respect it was not quantity for me remember most girls you mixed with were a friend, and mate.
Sex was not a subject discussed around the Ugarte dinner table and I was 14 years old before my one and only sex-ed class in school under the instruction of the catholic religion. I probably learnt more reading the letters page of the Playboy magazine.
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