To think the 70s/80s/90s were better?

I would love to think that every generation feels this way and is nostalgic for the past... But unfortunately I think you're right. So much feels like it's going wrong on such a big scale. People don't seem as content with life on the whole. So much distraction, consumption, waste.

I would have loved to have been a teen in the 70s. I long for it. I experienced the tail end of the 90s and wish I was just 10 years older as that was great too.

This is really niche but I really long for my childhood Christmases in 80s. Lights were coloured and from Woolworths (I love it so much I’m collecting them from eBay), I love the little baubles made of foil cones, the glittery Father Christmases…

Sorry this is such a specific part of the 80s but I loved it. We had hardly any money but there was no better joy than sitting in our dark (beige) living room with just the colourful tree lights on. Wonderful. I am trying to recreate it for my children.

I agree with you in that there are somethings going on now that are making life extremely difficult - to the extent that if I were young enough I might not dare to have children.

But there were difficult things in the 1970s like massive inflation, and society changing so much that though it was fun people could get hurt. Also remember things like rape in marriage was legal; women couldn’t get mortgages or loans on their own; men could abuse their wives with impunity. Abortion wasn’t easy till later. There was the tree day week. There were constant strikes. Power would get turned off at one stage. It was more difficult for women to have good careers in a wide variety of fields.

In the 1980s a lot of young people, especially young men died of AIDS. Until 1989 there was still the Berlin Wall. There was apartheid in South Africa for most of that decade. There was a lot of racism in general.

One really horrible thing that just wasn’t around was mainlining porn. People had romantic relationships where in general no one would have thought of strangling you and spitting on you and trying to have anal sex with you. I do not recall the prevalence of date rape drugs. Sex was more likely to be called making love, or sleeping with someone.

I wasn't an adult until the 1980s so no, that's not what I said Saysama. I said many people who are over 40 now.

I was a child in the 70s and teen in the 80s and often think it was the best of times. So many rules, regulations and red tape these days and big brother tracking your every move. No mobiles or internet, simple pleasures and freedom. I feel sorry for the kids of today.

I was very young in the 70s. It was a great decade for music and social progress. We had so much more freedom than
kids of today.

Not so great for technology and medicine.
No ultra sound scans in pregnancy until the mid 70s, no internet, 3 TV channels, cancer was a death sentence and few people lived to beyond 80.

I saw what life was like in the UK in the late 1970s/early 1980s. It was shitty. People were poor. The food was terrible. The toilet paper was like wax paper. It was normal for uni students to live in bedsits where they would eat breakfast and supper with someone else's family and just live in an empty bedroom, but have to keep a constant supply of five p pieces to shove into the heater. I couldn't believe how little people got paid, yet how high the prices were. I don't know how people got by. People today are much luckier.

Born mid 80’s so most of my childhood memories are of the 90s. I think it was better for kids than now ie kids tv, toys, games, music, way of life (no screens/internet, playing outside with other kids etc).

You didn't have TV in the 90s?

I was born late 77 and think I have the best of all worlds. Old enough to remember most of the 80s music but the internet & computers were coming in as I went to college. No social media much in college so had a great time. Used maps and wrote letters or phoned friends, but had an SLR and later camera phones for travelling and holidays. I do wish we'd had more photos of ourselves as kids and there were no videos, my mother died in 2010 and I only have one video of her.

In saying that I was lucky enough to get a decent job before the recession and we managed to get married & buy a house a few years ago, things are more difficult now for young people.

The 90s was the best decade. Life was cheap. Everyone could get a council house, everyone working could buy a house. Food and fuel were cheap. Music and TV were great.

Going to the cinema was £3 and there were fab films out every week.

I feel sorry for my DC's.

1970s kid here.

OP - YABU about the 70s and 80s, but YANBU about the 90s.

70s - it still wasn't great to be a woman. They were mostly stay-at-home and housework was more difficult back then because the appliances were more basic. E.g. washing machine was twin-tub. Fridges were commonplace but freezers were a luxury. There were lots of power cuts. Rooms were divided up, so rooms were smaller, and fairly dimly lit compared to nowaday lighting. The toilet was often outside the house. Central heating wasn't that common yet. Sexism, racism and homophobia was rife. The main positive about the 70s though was 70s disco :-)

80s - a bit better, again with disco, music in general, and a great decade for movies. However, the fear of having a nuclear war was very real. This cast a shadow over most of the decade, and Chernobyl + aftermath only made it worse. Inflation was through the roof. Sexism/racism was still pretty bad.

90s - this is where I agree with the OP, that this decade was better than the 2010s-present. Music was at its best, especially Britpop/indie/dance. Politics started to ease off, especially with the voting in of Labour, and the IRA finally reached a peace agreement in the late 90s. It was a great time to be a clubber. Sexism/racism started to ease off a bit but still far from perfect.

00s - still pretty decent with early 00s music, internet and mobiles. Politics remained on the wayside, although 9/11 soured it somewhat.

10s and 20s - the rise of social media, and with that, the politics minefield. The left vs the right and Brexit. Corbyn destroying the Labour party so we're now a 1-party state. People getting into trouble on social media because of a witch-hunt digging up historic racist posts, but if it wasn't racist, they still get into trouble because someone got triggered. Then there is cancel culture for the same reasons. It's a minefield.

30s - probably a dystopian state and no one will have a voice any more.

Born mid 80’s so most of my childhood memories are of the 90s. I think it was better for kids than now ie kids tv, toys, games, music, way of life (no screens/internet, playing outside with other kids etc). I sometimes feel sorry for my own children that some of the more wholesome childhood experiences I had, they won’t.

As a 93 baby I regard myself highly lucky I was probably one of the last years to avoid social media becoming what it is today. It was just taking off when I finished secondary

The 80’s was amazing for music and clothes, so glad I was there.

@A580Hojas You know queer people who were adults in the 70’s (mere years after male homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967), no discrimination protections had existed for LGBT people (those turned up in 1999) and sane sex marriage was illegal - and they feel more marginalised now?

I AM both Black and queer, and I find that pretty unlikely.

I agree with your comments about the 80’s. It was a bad time. But it gave us Indie music, and for that I’ll always be thankful.

And the hope and optimism when Labour won in the 90’s. Like a different world….

I was born in 1959. Growing up in the 60s was exciting, being a teen in the 70s was fantastic, with the music we had - and then it got even better in the 80s! The future seemed so positive - I remember the arrival of the internet - and before that, foreign travel for 'ordinary' people, new exotic foods, it just seemed we were on an upwards trajectory.

Nowadays the future is frightening, with climate change, coronavirus etc. I truly believe my generation had the best years, and am grateful for that.

Born in the late 60s with stereotypically Irish looks and name.

The 70s were shit. Women were paid less, were excluded from some professions and suffered horribly.

Erin Pizzey set up Chiswick Women's Aid near to us and it was revolutionary.

Say what you like about her later years (MRA? 🤨), but she is revered by many of the women she helped in the early years.

There were strikes, power cuts, short working weeks and it threw families for six - in any one week, children had to stay home because schools were in areas scheduled to suffer power cuts, wages were short, everybody was skint and racism was perfectly acceptable.

I wasn't allowed to play out with friends because they played with the 'wrong' kids, whose families were 'friends' with the police, who had strange (male) relatives (and miserable daughters who 'played up') or who went out playing on the bomb sites.

Corruption and inertia meant bomb sites were still around in the 1970s.

www.bushtheatre.co.uk/bushgreen/life-in-1970s-britain/

The 1980s were also shit if you were young and disadvantaged.

It truly was an age of the haves and the have nots

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/remembering-the-80s-6101125.html

School students above the age of 16, who were going on to VI Forms were unable to claim UB for the summer, effectively becoming financial burdens to their families, it became harder to afford an education as grants were replaced with student loans and racism, homophobia and sexism, although officially frowned upon, was still rife.

The attitude that the poor were only poor because they didn't work hard enough really started to shine through and has stayed 'til today.

The mining industry was decimated, as were the industries that depended on them and whole regions are still struggling after that sudden loss of any kind of work and income.

High income was practically worshipped and a lot of the policies that favoured short term, 'cheap', options over long term 'visions' that has decimated life were put in place.

Conservative London boroughs gerrymandering and re-housing tenants that would probably vote Labour out of 'marginal wards' into sub-standard housing, the 'Right to Buy' to encourage tenants to vote Conservative and the wholesale selling of utilities, public transport and health services to the private sector was rife.

The 90s, where the Conservatives finally imploded with sleaze was also hard.

The Labour win was a bright spot, but it all turned to shit when Labour failed to revise the Tory policies.

There was no 'Golden Age'.

What a lot of old bollocks! Anyone growing up in the 70s and the 80s will remember the older generation pining for the war, rationing and a woman's place being in the home.

Being convinced that the world used to be lovely, but turned to shit when you turned 35 is nothing new.

Nope, it’s just that lots of us were younger then with more fun going on in life in many cases , all the fun stuff like relationships, weddings, kids , all still to come in many cases before cynicism sets in —and without the tedious stuff like bills, house payments. Also the last 2 years have been bloody awful in large chunks for many people too, so it’s easy for the rose tinted glasses to kick in.

I had much less than I have now, but everything seemed better somehow, the pubs, family parties, school discos, Christmas Day, Saturday morning TV, the music.

That's just being a child/teenager rather than an adult, though? Life is more fun when you have no responsibility. And a bit of the fading affect bias: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fading_affect_bias

I was born in the early 70s, it was always sunny and happy. I think it was the best decade ever. I was a bit of a moody teenager in the 80s and the music was mostly bad, but life was still good. The 90s were amazing. It's all been downhill since about the year 2002, especially the last 2 years. I miss my first 30 years. I never appreciated it enough at time but now I would give anything to go back.

Funny you should say that but I am close friends/related to very many older queer people (say 40+) who feel extremely marginalised in our new world order.