Are fireworks treated differently now than when you were a kid?

[Moiraine]

When I was young my brothers and I would light fireworks every day for a week or two leading up to the 4th of July and we were unsupervised. I was lighting them by myself by the age of 8, maybe a little younger. We were just taught to be careful. My mom wasn't even home some of the time.

 

Now when I go to the family 4th of July thing, if the kids get to light them at all it's with an adult right next to them.

[teachercd]

Oh for sure...it isn't even close now.

 

[JJ Husker]

It's like everything with kids now. When I was a kid we would shoot them unsupervised and, like you said, for about a full week leading up to the fourth. And we would have neighborhood baseball and football games with no parents around. You just don't see that anymore. It's all structured, sanctioned sports and kids do very little unsupervised. I'm not sure it's a good thing but inevitable with the way the world is now. 

[BigRedBuster]

Well, we used to all get big packs of bottle rockets, split up into teams, get on each side of the street and shoot them at each other.  Kind of like a mixture between war games and a really cool version of dodge ball.  I haven't seen kids doing that for quite a while.

[Calvin]

For sure.  We'd have roman candle fights.  I think my son was about 10 when he started lighting them up on his own, with a punk.  

[Enhance]

It feels like a progression in line with a lot of things in life, much like @JJ Husker's comments regarding sports. It's similar to older generations saying "I used to go out unsupervised until the street lights came on" or "we never locked our doors growing up." I think it's largely a mix of people being more aware of dangerous situations but also just wanting to be protective.

 

Technically speaking, I think kids under the age of 16 aren't allowed to light off fireworks in Nebraska without adult supervision anyways.

 

@BigRedBuster - you're a mad man.  We never did something quite like that, but I remember we used to play a game where one kid would ride a scooter/bicycle down the street while we all had long, hollow metal poles. We'd light the bottle rocket on one end and then aim it out towards the person riding. This probably would've been 15 years ago but I can say with full confidence that our parents would've severely punished us if they had caught us. It was a stupid game, in hindsight. We just got fortunate with nobody ever getting seriously hurt.

[BigRedBuster]

6 minutes ago, Enhance said:

- you're a mad man. 

It was actually pretty damn fun.  Our front yard and the one across the street had just enough things in them that you could hide.....sort of.  I'll tell you, it was a bitch when, for some reason, you didn't have a punk and you're getting bombarded and you're trying to light those dang things with cardboard matches.  

 

The cops would come around and tell us to stop, they would be sort of chuckling.  They would turn the corner and it was "game on" again. 

 

When it wasn't around July 4th, we would do it with pollack goose guns.  

[JJ Husker]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

Well, we used to all get big packs of bottle rockets, split up into teams, get on each side of the street and shoot them at each other.  Kind of like a mixture between war games and a really cool version of dodge ball.  I haven't seen kids doing that for quite a while.

 

Yeah, we would do that too only we would try to dress up like army guys, goggles etc. and we would go all over the neighborhood playing war. One time we chased the other team into a guy's house. As they were all piling in the front door (we were still shooting bottle rockets at them) one went through the doorway and exploded on a wall. Left a big black mark...his mom was piiiissed and shut down bottle rocket war that day.

 

We'd also play war with BB guns. Only rule was you had to stay on the block. That was fun until one kid got hit smack between the eyes, went home crying and his mom saw the little indentation above his nose. She put an end to BB gun war. Anyway that's the only two times I recall adults getting involved.

 

I also think some of the difference in times had to do with the Vietnam war and general social strife  being on the news every night. It was a more innocent time before that. But then you toss in some abductions, Charles Manson, drugs, etc. and things were bound to have to change.

[Calvin]

We had BB gun wars as well.  We'd give my brother a single shot pistol, give him a 10 minute head start (farm w/woods), then track him down.  

[teachercd]

We did BB gun wars...here were the rules

 

1.  Wear goggles (that we stole from school)

2.  No more than 3 pumps (no one followed it)

 

It ended when my friend got shot just above his eye and had to have it removed at the hospital.  My other friend got one stuck in his f#&%ing tongue...it was so gross.

[Calvin]

Just now, teachercd said:

2.  No more than 3 pumps (no one followed it)

Ha, this was our rule too, and no one followed it either.  Our wars ended when my brother had a BB go through his nose.  We made up a story, but then bragged about it on the bus.  Being a small town, word got back to our dad and guns were taken away for a while.  Eventually got paint ball guns.  

[BigRedBuster]

30 minutes ago, teachercd said:

It ended when my friend got shot just above his eye and had to have it removed at the hospital.

 

Hope you're talking about the BB and not his eye.  But, if that's the way you lose your eye, at least you got a good story.

 

We didn't have pump BB guns, we had the kind that you c$%ked like a Henry rifle.  BB gun wars were pretty dang fun.  I did it with my son when he was little only used air soft guns.  We have a pretty long tree grove and would each start on opposite ends and sneak towards each other.  

[Moiraine]

So why the hell did this happen? Most of the parents being super careful (including my brother) are the ones who weren’t forced to be careful when they were kids. And it’s not like people are smarter now. We knew explodey things could hurt people before. 

 

 

The only thing I can think of is national news. Every time a kid gets hurt in a fireworks accident, everyone in the country hears about it. Back in the 80s and before, maybe we only heard about it happening in Nebraska, so we heard about it way less often. 

 

This is the case for a lot of other dangerous things too. We think they happen way more often than they do because we always hear about every incident even if it’s rare. 

[BigRedBuster]

7 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

So why the hell did this happen? Most of the parents being super careful (including my brother) are the ones who weren’t forced to be careful when they were kids. And it’s not like people are smarter now. We knew explodey things could hurt people before. 

 

 

The only thing I can think of is national news. Every time a kid gets hurt in a fireworks accident, everyone in the country hears about it. Back in the 80s and before, maybe we only heard about it happening in Nebraska, so we heard about it way less often. 

 

This is the case for a lot of other dangerous things too. We think they happen way more often than they do because we always hear about every incident even if it’s rare. 

Maybe the girls that we grew up with saw us doing these things....and became moms.

[Moiraine]

28 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Maybe the girls that we grew up with saw us doing these things....and became moms.

 

 

But I was doing them too, and my mom saw a girl get severely burned by fireworks when she was a kid, and yet she was okay with us playing with them as kids. Also at the party I go to it’s usually the dads freaking out.