My son Rhys will no doubt grow up being more Seppo than Kiwi.  I instill in him every day his “Kiwiness” from saying Kia Ora to dressing in his ABs gear.

Kids grow up different in the States.  There is an incredible amount of cotton wool swathed around kids here.  This made me remember the cool things that Kiwi kids would get up to back in my day (man am I getting old!)

• The corner dairy
• Four square
• Cricket in front of the garbage bin and inviting everyone on your street to join in
• Gutter ball
• Bull rush
• Footy on the best lawn in the street. 
• The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass.
• Mr Whippy cones on a warm summer night after you’ve chased him round the block
• 20 cents worth of mixed lollies lasted a week and pretending to smoke “cigarettes” (the lollies) was really cool!
• A dollars’ worth of chips from the corner take-away fed two people (AND the sauce was free!!).
• Watching Saturday morning cartoons: ‘The Smurfs’, ‘Captain Caveman’, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ or staying up late and being amazed when you watched TV right up until the ‘Goodnight Kiwi!’
• When After School with Olly Olsen or Jason Gunn & Thingie had a cult following and What Now was on Saturday mornings!
• When around the corner seemed a long way, and going into town seemed like going somewhere.
• Where running away meant you did laps around the block because you weren’t allowed to cross the road.
• Going down to the school swimming pool when you didn’t have a key and your friends letting you in. 
• Climbing trees and building huts out of every sheet your mum had in the cupboard (and never putting them back folded)
• Walking around in bare feet, no matter what the weather.
• You knew everyone in your street – and so did your parents! It wasn’t odd to have two or three “best friends”.
• You didn’t sleep a wink on Christmas Eve and tried (and failed) to wait up for the tooth fairy
• 50c was decent pocket money
• When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at Cobb’n'Co with your family.
• When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed her or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.
• Terrorism was when the older kids were at the end of your street with pea-shooters waiting to ambush you, or the neighborhood Alsatian chased you up a tree!
• The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was boy/girl germs, and the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to one
• Blue light disco’s were the equivalent to a Rave
• Taking drugs meant Scoffing orange-flavored chewable vitamin C’s, or swallowing half a Panadol
• Ice cream was considered a basic food group
• Going to the beach and catching a wave was a dream come true. Boogie boarding in the white wash made you the next Kelly Slater.

Anybody remembering this kind of upbringing or was it just me?  I will be sure Rhys calls his Mum “Mum” and not “Mom”, calls confectionery “Lollies” and not “Candy” and takes out the “Rubbish” rather than the “Trash”.

Hamish McDonald