To think it’s not normal how much I miss the 90’s and my youth

Most people feel like that about whatever decade of their life they were a child, adolescent and young adult.

It's trendy on social media for it to be the 90s currently because those including me who were that age in the 90s are now middle aged and middle-age can be a difficult time for a number of reasons.

But talk to people in their late 60s and early 70s like my parents and they talk about how fantastic the 70s were.

It's common in every generation.

Absolutely not! Why on earth would you want to trade adult life with autonomy, a car, money, your own house, an established relationship and the internet (and of course, your children if you have them) for being a teenager in the 1990s where the most exciting things around were doing your GCSE homework, phoning a friend on a landline after 6pm, 5 channels of TV or drinking cider in a park?

I was a teenager in the 1980s and I think it was a very different decade to thr 90s but I'd go back again. Early 80s were not good at home, but mid late 80s, university etc, I'd go now.

In the 90s I think there was more optimism , the Cold War was over and the threat of nuclear war that we'd been under in the 80s receded.

I think a lot of is about being young and having life ahead of you, no matter what decade. But some decades are better than others. The 2020s have been awful so far.

Don't worry I still miss the 90s.. my dad died in 1992 and my life literally went to shit afterwards. I was 10. I miss the brief period he was alive and I was still happy

The funny thing is I remember in the early 90s when I was a teenager there was a massive 60s nostalgia trend. I remember thinking how much more exciting it would have been to be young then with so much change and optimism, how great the music and fashion was. The 90s at the time felt a bit undefined, we couldn’t imagine it being seen as a distinct time.
The 60s nostalgia then would have been driven by the young people from that time getting to their mid 40s (and being the people in charge of media). Of course now we look back and there is a lot to be nostalgic for in the 90s compared to now. My teens seem to be enjoying their social lives now and in 30 years time will probably be looking back fondly at memories of Taylor Swift and hanging out at each others houses

I think we can look back with rose tinted spectacles and forget things such as what 'new lads' were about, the terrible sexism for example.

Though one thing about the period does stand out, I moved house and made several friends whose friendship remains to this day.

I am the same. I think the bloody oasis reunion has a lot to answer for 😂

I miss the simplicity tbh. It definitely felt like life was just less complicated.

Mid 40s and yes! Had my kids and done all the marriage stuff, now back to having fun but with more confidence.
Not saying everyone has to, just pointing out that many of us are still doing that! It doesn’t become closed off to us.

Oh gosh - that’s so beautiful but so sad. I’m very sorry you went through this - it would make a wonderful novel or drama.

There is but it seems you have look much harder, dig much deeper, have more money etc to experience it. Just feels we're a lot worse off physically, mentally, socially, spiritually and economically.

This! Yes, there are probably days when I'd rather not be in my 40s - but there is not a single part of me that would want to swap being a child in the 80s and teen in the 90s with being a young person now. It really was the best of times...

I'm with you OP. No coincidence that so many 90s bands are enjoying major revivals; people want to go back to a time when life wasn't so shit. Even just for a little while...

I was 15 in 1995, and my DSis was 13. We went through a very traumatic period between 1995 and 1996 and one of the (welcome) by products of the resulting PTSD is that great swathes of 95 and 96 remain crystal clear in our memories.

Although there were really terrible things happening within our family, the 2 of us also had some really amazing times, and it's those that we try to focus on. If I hear a certain song (and I'm in the right mood), or smell a certain smell, I am totally transported back to the summer of 95, or clubbing on my 16th birthday.

Both DSis and I feel slightly emotionally stunted by how important that period was (and still is) to us, how it continues to affect us 30 years later, how much we still recall exactly how we felt back then, and how easy we find it to remember and recreate in our own minds, emotions from that period.

I wonder if there is also something around just how special the 90's were, as represented in this thread, that makes our experience particularly important to us. Despite the really awful things that happened, I would relive it in a heartbeat, and could probably recreate most of it without any prompts - there's no other time in my life that looms as large as 95 and 96 for me.

I'm 40.
Judging from your username you may be a bit older and you're planning an outfit to go out all night to hopefully snog hot men? Fair play to you. I haven't done that in many years.

It was the absolute best of times for so many reasons. It’s not that I hanker back for it for myself, it’s just very sad that the equivalent young people, economically, have such a compromised version now compared to what we had.

I’m in my early 50s now, and now that our DCs are young adults, we’re still doing a lot of what we did then. Many of my friends are also rediscovering the drugs they used to do! When we go out in our city, the pubs, restaurants, cinemas and clubs are packed…but mostly with people our age!

It seems for so many young people now it’s just bloody hard - it’s like they’ve had the capacity to dream taken away from them and they’ve just turned into these functioning people. What will they feel when they look back on their youth??

YANBU!

I am so nostalgic for the 90s…and tell this to my primary aged DC!

Cannot believe 1995 was now 30 years ago…the year I sat my GCSEs!

Such vivid memories from the 90s ahhhh

I totally agree. I was always worrying how I’d meet the right man and have kids etc
Boyfriends and dating was such an emotional period.
I guess we only remember the good stuff!

I keep getting reels about 90s nostalgia on my Facebook and Instagram. I could cry at some! It brings back the sights, the smells, everything!
Being young and having a good social life with no health or money worries was amazing!

That’s just life.

I think everyone, of every generation, does it.

I’m the same age - late 40s - and often feel overwhelmed with nostalgia for the 90s, coupled with a sense of sadness that being young seems far less ‘easy’ for my teen DC. They work much harder, fret about the geopolitical landscape and the climate crisis, worry how they’ll ever be able to afford a home in the city they’re growing up in…

I do think the 90s were a remarkable and exciting decade in the UK, so I don’t think it’s ‘just’ that we were young then.

One thing I do wonder about though, is exactly why so many of us feel this bittersweet longing for who we were then? Yes, there was the lack of responsibility, the freedom, and we’ve all probably suffered a few of life’s blows by now…but on the flip side many our lives will have become more stable. The thought of living without my DC, for example, makes me feel really sad. I remember the lack of security, the worry I wouldn’t meet the right man blah blah. So why do I crave going back there? Why do so many of us feel this way?

I’m the same age as you but don’t particularly miss the 90s. I used too actually but a lot has happened since then and the 90s don’t particularly stand out these days.

Well I wish I’d never read this thread as it made me go off and put Forever Young on YouTube. How can it possibly be 41 years ago 😱😱😱😱

how can I possibly be THIS OLD and remember every word, every moment of being teenage, every taste, every smell, every place everything was in my bedroom singing along to this, memorising every word with my best friend….

HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE THIS OLD AND REMEMBER it as if it were actually yesterday!

nostalgia just grips me in my heart and makes me cry. I wish I were young and full of energy too but also with the optimism of the future instead of this dystopian nightmare we’re living right now.

plus with the knowledge I don’t have 41 years ahead of me 😣😣😣

where did IT ALL GO? Where has all this time gone

I'm the same age. I do miss being young and having energy!
The actual 90s things I miss are the sense of optimism (Berlin wall had not long come down, climate change seemed solvable, the cost of living especially in the late 90s early 2000s was much cheaper than it had been, rent was really affordable, I got a grant! A grant! And noone had to pay fees at uni, no mobile phones...
I don't know if I'd go back in my current position as a mum of two teens. If they were both straight I'd be there in a heartbeat, but there was a lot more homophobia then, and a lot more sexism.