18/09/2026
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📵 I WOULD PAY GOOD MONEY TO WATCH MY KIDS SURVIVE ONE DAY IN MY CHILDHOOD.
Not permanently.
I'm not a monster.
I'm talking about a controlled scientific experiment.
Twenty-four hours.
We'll call it:
“Welcome to the 90s, Bitches.”
First thing I'm taking?
The Wi-Fi.
Gone.
Immediately, I expect casualties.
“What do you mean there's no Wi-Fi?”
Exactly what I said.
“But how do I—”
YOU DON'T.
Welcome to history.
Then everybody's phone gets replaced with whatever communication technology we had available.
You want to call your friend?
Excellent.
There's the house phone.
It's attached to the wall.
Your entire family can hear your conversation.
And if your friend's parent answers, you must politely ask:
“Hi, is Ashley there?”
No texting them first to warn them.
No escape.
Develop social skills.
Then we're taking away Google.
You have a question?
Wonderful.
There's an encyclopedia.
“But this was printed five years ago.”
Yep.
That's all humanity knows now.
Good luck.
Need directions?
We're printing them before we leave.
If we miss a turn, the family will spend the next 45 minutes blaming one another until somebody finds a gas station and asks a stranger.
Entertainment?
Here's a television.
You may watch whatever is currently playing.
“What episode?”
Whichever one the television gods have selected.
“Can I start it over?”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.
You missed the first seven minutes because you were in the bathroom?
Perhaps someday you'll catch the rerun.
Want a movie?
We can go rent one.
But remember to rewind it, because apparently we lived in a society where returning a VHS without rewinding it was considered a personal attack.
Music?
You may listen to whatever is currently playing on the radio.
If your favorite song comes on, RUN.
You have approximately three seconds to find a blank cassette and hit record.
And some as***le DJ will inevitably talk over the beginning.
This is character development.
Then I'm sending everybody outside.
No phones.
No location sharing.
No constant check-ins.
Here's your bike.
Be home when the streetlights come on.
“But where can we go?”
I don't know.
Outside.
“What are we supposed to do?”
Again:
I don't know.
This is the 90s.
Find a stick.
Build something.
Ride somewhere.
Meet another unsupervised child.
Form a small government.
Just don't come inside every six minutes saying you're bored because eventually an adult will give you chores.
And THAT was the original parental-control software.
The funny part is, my kids probably think our childhood sounds absolutely miserable.
No instant entertainment.
No constant connection.
No entire internet sitting in your pocket.
No GPS.
No streaming.
No DoorDash bringing you McDonald's because nobody feels like putting pants on.
But we didn't know we were missing anything.
We were busy.
We had adventures.
We made up games that made absolutely no sense.
We got bored enough to become creative.
We fought with siblings and friends and usually had to figure out how to get along because blocking somebody wasn't an option when they lived three houses down.
And when we finally came home after being outside all day, dirty, exhausted and probably carrying at least one injury nobody planned to tell Mom about…
we felt like we'd actually DONE something.
Technology has given my kids things I couldn't have imagined growing up, and I'm absolutely not pretending everything was magically better back then.
Some s**t is MUCH better now.
But I do wish I could bottle up one little piece of that childhood and hand it to them.
The freedom.
The boredom.
The imagination.
The neighborhood adventures.
The feeling that the entire world extended as far as your bicycle could take you before those damn streetlights came on.
Then, after 24 hours, I'd give them their phones back.
Because let's be realistic.
I'd probably miss Wi-Fi before they did. 🤣
