Sesame Street season one. Not suitable for children.

[kickysnana]

35. Ah the good old days. My kids born 75 and 77.

When the youngest was 4 both were invited to a neighborhood birthday party for another 4 year old boy. I am thinking balloons, cake and pin the tail on the donkey.

Me: "What did you do at the party today?"

Them: "We watched 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' it was really cool!" (The four year old had teenage siblings.)

Me: Jaw and stomach on the floor. World in shambles. But they did survive and were good kids anyway.

Yes they woke up with nightmares and yes I asked what was going to happen at all future birthdays but nothing of that sort was ever repeated.

The kids did not just go out to play until they were 5 and when the youngest hit 5 they asked to go play down at a brownstone 6plex that several friends lived in. The oldest came home crying and bleeding from the head and I had to explain at the ER for stitches that the 5 year old had dropped a real bowling pin from the third floor onto his brother's head, and worse his brother just stood there and let him. Later that year I learned they were hotwheeling off the high porch down the stairs onto the sidewalk using parked cars as a stop. One of the mother's put a stop to that before anyone was hurt but again "it was cool!".

When the youngest was 9 I was still very careful about what they watched but someone told me that "Married with Children" was a funny show and the kids wanted to see it so we watched the one where Santa parachuted to his death in the Bundy's back yard. I was in shock, they not so much. We didn't watch MWC again, until they were in their teens. It was a funny show.