When would you choose to be born?

[Dalmaney]

A question to the forums:
If you could choose to be born in a completely different time, what date would you pick? When exactly were these "good old days" ?

I'm afraid that I would keep my birthday exactly where it is (1981), purely from a medical standpoint. If I was born more than say, thirty years before that, I'm pretty sure I'd be crippled and/or dead. I was born with a club foot requiring surgery, and without that surgery, walking would be very difficult. I also have pretty weak lungs and have had pnumonia a few times, once bad enough to hospitalize me. I'm pretty sure that pre-pennicillin, my life would have either ended or sucked hardcore for a long time. And then a couple years ago, a cat bit me. Without the antivenom... um, antibiotics, I'd have again been very miserable, or very dead.

I realize my arguement is very logical and lacks romance. Feel free to take a different, less practical stance. :)

[Ashley]

That's a hard question. I think I have several answers depending on different factors:
1: I'd like to be born in the later half of the 20th century because I too was a sickly child and probably would not be alive today if I hadn't gotten a lot of medicine. For example: I got pnemonia 3 times before I was six years old.

2: I'd like to be born (I'm going to throw in a place too cause I want to ;) )
in America before white people came cause I'd really like to see how Indian tribes worked. I think all of their cultures are amazingly interesting.

3: I'd like to be born in Roman times (sorry, I'm a poor illiterate that can't remember the exact dates of the Roman empire I would like to visit) perhaps around Marcus Aurelius's reign. They had running and hot water and everything (ok not everything obviously, but that's pretty good!) And a pretty good run of art for a while.

[nuKKe]

I'd choose to be born in the 1960's, so I'll be there when punk-rock started. Location is only secondary; being a teenager in Vancouver in the late 1970's is cool, being a teenager in NY, SF, LA or FInland at the same time is cool as well.

I don't think I'd like to live then and there but I'd sure like to visit Weimar republic Germany. It's an extremely interesting era, in politics and art, but I sure wouldn't like to be there before the Republic was funded or when it collapsed. In the end of the day, I am a Jew :ph34r:

[Curlita]

This question reminds me of the saying, "May you live in interesting times..."

Part of me would like to have been born around 1895 so I could experience the massive changes social and technological changes that came about between that era and, say, the 1960s. Also, I would have been in my prime during the era of the flapper. I would have loved to flap. :)

But another part of me would like to have been born in 1948 or so, so I could participate in the women's movement of the early 1970s and get to feel like we were accomplishing things.

But I have to say, I feel that I'm first and foremost a feminist and I know that my best opportunities for living in a world where I get to work at a job I love, keep my last name, and more or less get recognized equally (some days and some ways more so than others) are in the present.

I also have asthma and acid reflux and other issues, so I'm not sure how I would have faired pre-modern medecine. Not to mention my horrible eyesight! I'd have been screwed in any time period that didn't offer some serious optometry. I used to joke that if I'd been born a Cro Magnon, I would have had to think up some really good stories to tell the other people because I'm so blind I wouldn't be able to find my way out of the cave, let alone hunt and gather and pull my own weight!

[Cuilanië]

Hmmm. I would like to live in a distant future, when starflight is commonplace, so I could explore the galaxy, visit new worlds, discover other civilizations, perhaps.

This future would also need to have time-travel to keep me perfectly happy, so I could visit all those interesting times in the past - take part in the great scientific discoveries, meet the founders or the great thinkers of the great religions, experience how the first nations of the world lived... and go home to my modern existence with its comforts I would really have trouble giving up (like a shower every day, indoor plumbing, refrigerators and electric stoves, heating and insulation...)

[nymphette]

i think i would have liked to be around in the 16&1700's in england... i loved the book 'forever amber' and would have loved living then... plague and london burning aside... :) very romantic..

however, i am with the others about the whole modern medicine/technology aspect... i kept thinking that i am grateful for it because my son is still alive, becuse he would have died without medication and the surgical procedures, and iv's etc... but then again, i wouldn't have lived to have him iif it weren't for these types of advances- i had a c- section with both of my boys, and i am pretty sure they didn't have that particular procedure around in the 17th century!!!

i don't think i would enjoy being in the future as much as the past...

robyn

[velma]

Hmmmm...

1) Regency/Early Victorian England--time of Jane Austen & the Bronte Sisters
2) Minoan Crete when women & snakes were worshipped instead of subjugated & reviled
2) In the distant future, when we've made contact with other planets

(I've actually fantasized much on this subject. Maybe too much... :unsure: )

velma

[hammerquill]

In a generation or two from now (I hope), just in time to be an early colonist of Mars.

I'm an academic historian, and the one impossibility I would like most of all is to have a time machine to go back and observe history, but being born then and living out your life then is a different matter entirely. Although it would be interesting to teach the Incas to make gunpowder in about 1450...

[Cuilanië]

Originally posted by hammerquill@Sep 11 2003, 05:36 AM
Although it would be interesting to teach the Incas to make gunpowder in about 1450...
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Yeah, wouldn't ~that~ be a smash...

[hammerquill]

QUOTE (hammerquill @ Sep 11 2003, 05:36 AM)
Although it would be interesting to teach the Incas to make gunpowder in about 1450...


Yeah, wouldn't ~that~ be a smash...

Can't......leave......well.....enough.......alone!.....Must.....pun!
(STop me someone! - Nope, too late.)
You mean, "Wouldn't ~that~ be a blast..." don't you?

<g, d, r>

[Cuilanië]

~cbr~

Yes, there's a party that would go off with a bang and a flash... ;)



[Uhm, excuse my net-illiteracy, but what does <g, d, r> stand for?]

[witegots]

I would choose to be born at the start of the 20th century, so that I could be a 20-something year old during the 1920s in America.

I would then proceed to be the greatest flapper of all time...


: D

[mysundown15]

I think living in the 1780s would be interesting. With all of the states having their own currency, charging tariffs to one another, and such a weak central gov't - it seems like a really chaotic time period to live in. Plus Shays' Rebellion, and all of the other political movements, it would be interesting to witness it firsthand.

Maybe it's just me? Yeah. Most likely.

[hammerquill]

[Uhm, excuse my net-illiteracy, but what does <g, d, r> stand for?]
That's used more often on some lists and forums than others. An extention of <g> for "grinning" (or "giggling"), it means "grinning, ducking, running." For use in case of very bad jokes where the rest of the list might be throwing virtual food....

I would choose to be born at the start of the 20th century, so that I could be a 20-something year old during the 1920s in America.

This would be fun, too. I love that era (and I'm in love with Clara Bow, but then, who isn't if they (a) have seen her, and (B) are male?). Only problem is the minor matter of the '30s and '40s, but if you're the greatest flapper of them all you might not last that long....

[witegots]

Originally posted by hammerquill@Sep 13 2003, 12:53 AM
This would be fun, too. I love that era (and I'm in love with Clara Bow, but then, who isn't if they (a) have seen her, and (B) are male?). Only problem is the minor matter of the '30s and '40s, but if you're the greatest flapper of them all you might not last that long....
Pfff...I'll just be a war artist after that. As long as you keep coming up with new ways to keep busy, every decade is fun.


In the words of Homer Simpson:
EVERYTHING LASTS FOREVER!

[queenmab]

i guess i would've liked to have been born in such a year that i'd be growing up as a teen/young adult in the roaring 20s. i've always been a fan of that era. i'd go to the speakeasys and dance all crazy and free in my flappergirl wear and dyed bob hair cut (which i already have!). i'd see silent films with stars like clara bow in them, and maybe i'd be one too. either that, or i'd grow in the marylin monroe/james dean era, because well...it was just all so beautiful and simple and magical, it seemed.

but i wouldn't have wanted to have been a lil' miss susie homemaker. none of that crap ;)

[Loriko]

Either right where I am now or much further in the future. When space travel becomes common place. Yeah, that would rock. :lol:

Loriko

[nuKKe]

Originally posted by mysundown15@Sep 12 2003, 02:23 PM
I think living in the 1780s would be interesting. With all of the states having their own currency, charging tariffs to one another, and such a weak central gov't - it seems like a really chaotic time period to live in. Plus Shays' Rebellion, and all of the other political movements, it would be interesting to witness it firsthand.

Maybe it's just me? Yeah. Most likely.
I'd say, living in the 1780's in France and being a pervertish Libertine. Then being one of the few that were actually being executed for sodomy. It's a Sade world out there....

[kittymao]

Ak! too many choices.

I'd actually like to have my prime in the US forties.
Granted, that means I'd be one of you "twenty-somethigns in the 20's" offspring.
Which is fine. I adored the clothes, and imagine how romantic it'd be to have your own army boy come home safe and sound from the War?
*swoons*
I consider myself to be sound of body, so no fears of illness from me.

If not then- the early 1900's also America. But Not San Francisco. ak.
*thinks*
If I spent my prime in the 00's, then my 26th birthday would be the SF quake of 1906.
Yes. Being a bay area girl and having that date has indeed shaped me.
In some grotesque way.

[PetiePal]

I'd choose the same date I was born this time. It's not when you're born that counts, it's what you make of your life regardless of when you were born. There are people in my life I wouldn't trade for anything. Ever.

[Christine_0701]

I would choose to be born when I was, because I too have many medical problems....even if I was born just a few years earlier, they wouldn't have had the capabilities to fix some of my medical problems :o

[nymphette]

i do agree with christine here... i have had many conversations with my mom and sister about medical science and it's miracles!!! not only would harrison have died (even 15-20 years ago) with his disorder, *I* would never have had harrison- both of my kids were c-section and i would have died with julian... i was in hard labor for 16 hours, after my water broke, and started running a fever... i had been 'stuck' at 9 cm for 8 hours and no progression, even WITH drugs to help... i would have died for sure....

though i'd still loved otohave been one of charles II's mistresses.... :)

[Christine_0701]

Originally posted by nymphette@Jan 8 2004, 09:25 AM
i do agree with christine here... i have had many conversations with my mom and sister about medical science and it's miracles!!! not only would harrison have died (even 15-20 years ago) with his disorder, *I* would never have had harrison- both of my kids were c-section and i would have died with julian... i was in hard labor for 16 hours, after my water broke, and started running a fever... i had been 'stuck' at 9 cm for 8 hours and no progression, even WITH drugs to help... i would have died for sure....

though i'd still loved otohave been one of charles II's mistresses.... :)
oh! yeah, i forgot....i would've died shortly after birth, let alone the medical problems that arose after....i was born 2.5 months early...even back then, the survival rate for that premie was pretty low

[cryptaesia]

probably about ten years earlier or later,