Why do many kids not have freckles these days?

youtube!

Here's another one for ya, kids these days just don't have big freckle faces like they did when I were a kid.
Now I my self was cursed with a face full and I would say about 73% of kids had them too,thankfully they are all but gone by the time you are grown but still.

Now here's the thing, I had them my wife not so much but my kids NONE. My siblings are even weirder, my brother was plastered in them his missus was even worse but both their kids are totally free of them. And then I decided to look around and what I found was there are very few kids these days with the affliction of freckles, anyone else notice this? Why is it happening? I am intrigued!

Melion

Because kids dont go out and play in the sun anymore, they are all stuck indoors on their DS' etc.

anncoates

youtube! wrote: »

And then I decided to look around and what I found was there are very few kids these days with the affliction of freckles, !

So you spend your day hanging around schools checking kids "for freckles".

Love2love

Eh.....Suncream?

Digs

Kids aren't out running about the fields playing kiss chasing until all hours anymore and getting the sun on their faces. The playstation won't give you freckles!

That and the sun seems to have given up on Ireland altogether in the last few years.

antodeco

My daughter has them! I think its down to more use of sun tan lotion!

krudler

bloody modern kids and their lack of skin damage

meoklmrk91

My guess is kids don't spend as much time outside and most people put sunscreen on their kids now where as years ago they didn't.

youtube!

Melion wrote: »

Because kids dont go out and play in the sun anymore, they are all stuck indoors on their DS' etc.

do you know i never considered that angle! that probably has a lot to do with it in which case it's a very sad state of affairs.

Micky Dolenz

Back in my day we had proper summers.

krudler

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Back in my day we had proper summers.

1995, last great summer in this country.

Pushtrak

youtube! wrote: »

do you know i never considered that angle! that probably has a lot to do with it in which case it's a very sad state of affairs.

Screen name: youtube!

Looks legit.

Sofiztikated

They're not your kids?

Is the milkman free of freckles?

Terry1985

could be that freckle faces find it harder to reproduce, just like gingers. So there's less of their kids around.

Gambas

krudler wrote: »

1995, last great summer in this country.

The only great summer. It was awesome.

I think the 'playstation' theory is weak, and more a case of an answer looking for a question. Not sure about the sun lotion theory either but has more merit IMO. I suspect that genetics has more than a bit of a part to play, with freckles being part of a suite of features like red hair and pale skin that are less common as local populations mix more.

Ush1

krudler wrote: »

1995, last great summer in this country.

2006 man, World cup in Germany. Was hotter in Dublin than Greece.

donvito99

Because of the feckin' Swan eating poles.

youtube!

Gambas wrote: »

The only great summer. It was awesome.

you must be very young

TeddyTedson

Well when I was in school in the 90s kids with them would have been the minority.

youtube!

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Well when I was in school in the 90s kids with them would have been the minority.

ye see that's what I mean I was in primary in the 1970's and 3/4 of the kids had them, I think it's just over the years kids didn't go out and play outdoors like they used to. But maybe other factors too.

HondaSami

I love freckles, they are so cute on kids maybe not as cute on adults.

AnonoBoy

Photoshop.

Ush1

HondaSami wrote: »

I love freckles, they are so cute on kids maybe not as cute on adults.

You produce more melanin as your get older anyway so often freckly kids will not be freckly adults.

deconduo

Melion wrote: »

Because kids dont go out and play in the sun anymore, they are all stuck indoors on their DS' etc.

Sun?

1ZRed

Handy if we could photoshop the lard off them as well and solve our obesity problem

starlings

it's only March, and still cold .
Mine don't come up till the first fine day of May/June. Sunscreen doesn't prevent them - it just stops the rest of the skin from burning.

jester77

Blessed be the sun cream and endless wet summers!

I remember as a kid I would get the "irish tan" and be in agony and no one cared. I would be shedding lumps of skin everywhere and my arms would be blistered. There was no such thing as sun cream back then. I have 2 very freckled arms up to the t-shirt line as a result, from there up I have milk coloured, freckeless skin and it looks feckin weird!

krudler

deconduo wrote: »

Sun?

Mythological Irish element, said to appear briefly one day a year,hovers in the sky looking like a disc of pure white light, some say it even generates its own heat source although there aren't many eyewitness accounts of it so evidence is sketchy at best. Worshipped in the traditional manner by wearing wifebeater vests and drinking cider in the park.

smash

Evolution!

TeddyTedson

youtube! wrote: »

ye see that's what I mean I was in primary in the 1970's and 3/4 of the kids had them, I think it's just over the years kids didn't go out and play outdoors like they used to. But maybe other factors too.

They would have in the 90s still. I remember we weren't allowed back in the house until diner time.
Then we were back outside again during the Summer evenings.
When did kids stop playing outdoors? It is a bit sad really. We had so many adventures... Not super adventures now

AnonoBoy

krudler wrote: »

Mythological Irish element, said to appear briefly one day a year,hovers in the sky looking like a disc of pure white light, some say it even generates its own heat source although there aren't many eyewitness accounts of it so evidence is sketchy at best. Worshipped in the traditional manner by wearing wifebeater vests and drinking cider in the park.

Shrine was set up to supposed appearance of it in Knock.

Thousands of people gather there every year to stare into the sky and swear that they saw it.

starlings

jester77 wrote: »

Blessed be the sun cream and endless wet summers!

I remember as a kid I would get the "irish tan" and be in agony and no one cared. I would be shedding lumps of skin everywhere and my arms would be blistered. There was no such thing as sun cream back then. I have 2 very freckled arms up to the t-shirt line as a result, from there up I have milk coloured, freckeless skin and it looks feckin weird!

you poor divil!

My freckles were the early warning sign so I got covered in lotion as soon as the sun came out. Later I'd be chasing my pet cat with the one white ear to do the same to her.

Dravokivich

Ush1 wrote: »

2006 man, World cup in Germany. Was hotter in Dublin than Greece.

That one lasted up to November!

Ush1

Dravokivich wrote: »

That one lasted up to November!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_heat_wave#Ireland

BoredNaMoaner

Hmm. I remember reading somewhere that the reduction of freckles in the Irish population was an unintended side-effect of the fluoridation of the national water supply. The only freckles you will see these days are on kids who live in areas with private water schemes.

Real Life

Gambas wrote: »

The only great summer. It was awesome.

I think the 'playstation' theory is weak, and more a case of an answer looking for a question. Not sure about the sun lotion theory either but has more merit IMO. I suspect that genetics has more than a bit of a part to play, with freckles being part of a suite of features like red hair and pale skin that are less common as local populations mix more.

This is most likely the cause i would say.

alphabeat

TeddyTedson wrote: »

When did kids stop playing outdoors? It is a bit sad really. We had so many adventures:p

one reason :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNjgzzmMYu8

michellie

My sister used to be covered in them, she has red hair and would still get them. The sun is not her friend.

My daughter doesn't have any, she has red hair, it's probably because I plaster her in 50+ as soon as it goes over 14° B-)

TheIrishGrover

Well, there was the great purges of 2000 and 2001. The Freckle Purge or "Operation Freedom-From-Freckles" was a huge success, eliminating almost very kid with freckles and driving the rest underground where their kind belong. Alas The Ginger Purge or "Operation Gingocalypse" was not all that successful.......

Agricola

A whole family of kids who went to school with me had the worst case of freckles I have ever seen. They looked like someone with a mouthful of runny chocolate had sneezed on their face.

pickarooney

This woman stole them all.

Gambas

TeddyTedson wrote: »

They would have in the 90s still. I remember we weren't allowed back in the house until diner time.
Then we were back outside again during the Summer evenings.
When did kids stop playing outdoors? It is a bit sad really. We had so many adventures... Not super adventures now

They didn't. Fine day today and every kid under ten seems to be out on the green from what I can see.

As for all the talk about how kids used to play outside all the time and were never let into the house, start up a thread about wanderly wagon or some other 'cult' tv show from the 80's and and sit back while all the children of the 80's who never saw the inside of their house before tea time tell you all about the TV shows that they never missed as kids. Alf will flush them out. And then start one on the commodore 64, or the atari. Maybe bi-location was a feature of 80's childhoods, but I don't remember having that power myself

Some kids are couch potatoes, but there were plenty of them in the 80's too.

jester77

Gambas wrote: »

They didn't. Fine day today and every kid under ten seems to be out on the green from what I can see.

As for all the talk about how kids used to play outside all the time and were never let into the house, start up a thread about wanderly wagon or some other 'cult' tv show from the 80's and and sit back while all the children of the 80's who never saw the inside of their house before tea time tell you all about the TV shows that they never missed as kids. Alf will flush them out. And then start one on the commodore 64, or the atari. Maybe bi-location was a feature of 80's childhoods, but I don't remember having that power myself

Some kids are couch potatoes, but there were plenty of them in the 80's too.

Day time TV in the 80s consisted of either looking at a frosty screen or this

Sofiztikated

Gambas wrote: »

They didn't. Fine day today and every kid under ten seems to be out on the green from what I can see.

As for all the talk about how kids used to play outside all the time and were never let into the house, start up a thread about wanderly wagon or some other 'cult' tv show from the 80's and and sit back while all the children of the 80's who never saw the inside of their house before tea time tell you all about the TV shows that they never missed as kids. Alf will flush them out. And then start one on the commodore 64, or the atari. Maybe bi-location was a feature of 80's childhoods, but I don't remember having that power myself

Some kids are couch potatoes, but there were plenty of them in the 80's too.

Away with your reasonable arguments, and stop pulling the nostalgia rug from under their feet.

Gambas

jester77 wrote: »

Day time TV in the 80s consisted of either looking at a frosty screen or this

Ah yeah, I forgot about the kids with 'multi-channel'. They were the ones that watched more TV than the rest. Cool stuff like 'Inspector Gadget' that RTE2 never showed.

If you want to make a case for the entertainment desert of the 80's this is what you were looking for :

kowloon

My folks took me to a lot of places when I was a child. I was a blond haired kid with freckles and the amount of attention I got was unreal. A dancing monkey wouldn't have attracted as many stares. It seems to be a very Irish trait. I never noticed it wasn't common anymore. If I get done for staring at children at least I know who to blame now.

Gambas wrote: »

Ah yeah, I forgot about the kids with 'multi-channel'. They were the ones that watched more TV than the rest. Cool stuff like 'Inspector Gadget' that RTE2 never showed.

In some places you got BBC, UTV/ITV and Channel 4. Not everyone suffered the total entertainment drought.

TeddyTedson

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Away with your reasonable arguments, and stop pulling the nostalgia rug from under their feet.

Well said, it there's one thing I won't tolerate particularly here in AH is reasonable arguments. Be off with you!

Archeron

Try new Freckle-B-Gone. Simply spray on, leave a couple of minutes and rinse with warm water.

tan11ie

Kids are not kicked out the door and left to roast like in the 80's.