It started around age 35 and just gets stronger as the years go by

I don't look back to my childhood at all. I do live within 10 miles of where I grew up, though - I lived the other side of the country for much of my 20s and early 30s and was incredibly homesick, so I do know how you feel.

I have a lovely life now - my parents are still alive and I see them once or twice a week; I have two lovely primary school aged children; working part-time in a job I love; involved in a hobby/interest at a high level nationally; happy marriage - and I can see that these are the "good old days" I'll look back on with nostalgia one day. I love my parents, and I'm enjoying my children being young, and I think in 20 years I'll miss what I have now.

I've been getting a strong pull towards 1970s..I have 70s Spotify lists..I Google clothes I remember wearing, places I visited..I was 4-14..
My teens were late70s to 80s..a mixed bag of emotions on that, weirdly less of a pull. 90s a write off, hated them..PND and other issues.

Definitely. Even more so now that i'm mid 50s and my life didnt' turn out the way i thought it would. Sometimes it's agonizing and i have to force myself to stop ruminating.

Definitely. Think back constantly. Look back with fond memories but also painful memories. I think that I need to control the amount of time I look back as I think it does put a negative spin on looking forward. Another thing I do is only listen to music from way back when. I think this doesn’t help and I need to get more up to date and old music comes with memories and I need to make new happy memories.

Yes I do the same on the off chance I can look inside where we lived in the 60s. The wonderful Christmases etc. Sometimes I don’t like being the grown-up

just like todays bad photo is next years good one.

Yes, I feel this too sometimes, I tend to have phases of it where it's quite strong.

I work in a part of London now that I have very fond memories of visiting as a kid and teen with my mum. I love wandering the area at lunchtime sometimes and remembering how exciting it was to me back then.

I also repurchased some of my favourite old YA books, which are utterly trashy, but bring m a lot of happiness in remembering reading them as a tween. Sometimes I google 'Sugar Magazine' and similar publications and there are webpages and social media pages dedicated to them with photos of the magazine pages.

Has anyone else read 'the midnight library' by Tom Haig? Less about nostalgia per se and more about issues around regrets and 'what ifs'. I really liked it. The beginning is a bit dark though, I nearly gave up but am glad I didn't.

Yes, I thought that was a great book!

Life can be very tough at the moment with juggling work, children, ageing parents. I am also responsible for all house/garden maintenance and repairs which I find really anxiety inducing. I'm having a bit of a wobble at the moment after losing a parent and parent in law and with older child about to move on to secondary which is the first time I've felt like I don't want him to grow up so fast. On the other hand I know rationally I was often quite unhappy as a child/teenager and there are things in my life now that I would miss if I was living in a different time/place.

Has anyone else read 'the midnight library' by Tom Haig? Less about nostalgia per se and more about issues around regrets and 'what ifs'. I really liked it. The beginning is a bit dark though, I nearly gave up but am glad I didn't.

Absolutely. I think it's normal, we are middle aged. I've found myself buying comforting nostalgic things like ugly 1990s mugs 😅 a few t shirts, some retro music etc. it makes me feel carefree and warm. I need that.

And friends seem to reminisce more too, about playground fads and games, what we used to wear, etc. I like it, I also like getting things to show the kids from my childhood. Tamagotchi! Glitter bracelets! Pogs! Lol.

I reckon it's brought on by getting through the difficult years of our own kids and their early childhoods,then being able to relax and look back, rather than striving forwards as we were ten years ago maybe. I've got time now to pause and have a think.

Actually no. I can't bear thinking back as I have to remember what a mess it's all been. I'm trying to make the second half of my life a bit better.

I don’t really have this. I hated the uncertainty of what the future would bring when I was in my teens and twenties. There seemed to be so much pressure in knowing what to do with your life and setting it all up. What job to do and being employable etc. I’ve worked so hard at getting my career set up and having stability in terms of finances and relationships. I feel much more settled and comfortable with the present than I did before I knew what I would do and where I would be. I think it probably boils down to a lack of confidence as a young person, and maybe I should regret time I wasted being anxious about the future. But I think I’m an old soul and I look forward to getting older!

30 years ago I was doing my A levels. I had finally found my tribe at college after years of being bullied at school.I had a boyfriend who was a lovely lad and it was a fabulous hot summer. I'd love to go back to 1995 again as nothing was ever quite the same after everyone went their separate ways at 18. How can it actually have been 30 years?

I have an adult DC, teen DC, and two primary aged DC. Acutely aware of how fast they grow up.

Nostalgia is very normal. I remember in the 90s people saying how much better the 60s were and how unlucky kids today were to miss them. It's the yearning to be young and carefree. Age 21 i could have done anything or gone anywhere, age 38 I have kids, I need to be in catchment areas etc thr world is much less available in that sense. But my life is also kjch better now.... just more stressful!

Yes here!

I have a long term memory that never stops surprising me with what it remembers.

When I was in hospital all I kept being feed on one channel was Eastenders episodes from the early 90’s. I just looked up a scene I remember and that was like 92!

I said recently why was I fascinated with hospitals as a child, I had the fuzzy felt, was forever sticking wet tissue on my dolls so it dried like a cast! Tormented my brother and friends into playing doctors and nurses casualty style over mum and dads! Less keen as an adult, the hca was like as a child you are fearless and proceeded to tell my about a lad one time on the children’s ward who got their bed raised so high up when let loose with the control they couldn’t believe it.

I’m afraid I don’t reminisce like that at all.

Im mid 50s now. Childhood feels like a dream. I was living overseas then. When I see photos, it feels like a foreign place, not home. It’s so different.
I have fond memories of my 20s. I had a really great time. But yes. Just that. No longing or sadness. Just the awareness it was great.
After that? Tbh I’ve had health issue after health issue since dc1 was born. I’ve been in survival mode most of the time, if not all. So no, if I look back, I see hardship and struggle. Not fluffy memories.

Which brings me to the fact you’re really lucky and privileged. And maybe also looking back at things with rose tinted glasses tbh.

I'm in my 60s and constantly think back to the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s. There's nothing wrong with my life now but things just seemed better then. It's probably worse now that my parents have gone and I don't really have any family, it's nice to think about how good life used to be. I'm happy enough but there doesn't seem to be anything to look forward to so I look back instead.

I much prefer being mid-40s to being mid-20s. Yes I had fewer responsibilities but far less happiness and calm and stability along with it. I don't have any hankering for the past.

Yes. It really kicked in after the death of my parents and a bout of serious illness for me. I think it translates literally to "painful homecoming". It hurts sometimes.

I often google my childhood home to see if it’s for sale. I feel like, if I could buy it, I’d get my childhood life back. But the fact is that the neighbours are gone, the shops aren’t what they were, and the Important people aren’t alive any more.

This is me. I am incredibly nostalgic for the 90s and very early 00’s and get quite upset sometimes that life has moved on so much.
Life was stretched out before me but I felt like I’d always be young (growing up seemed to be something that happened to other people- like I’d been born to always be a child/teen) and I had friends, freedom and no financial responsibilities. The world was exciting- technology was emerging but hadn’t taken over, so the things we had enhanced life but hadn’t turned us into zombies.
I wish I could go back to those times with the confidence I have today.

Every time “Forever Young” comes on the radio I start crying 😂

I’m late 30s and I think about my 20s a lot. Things like being carefree and travelling and even day drinking In the sun on a whim. I don’t think about it to the extent where it takes over my life but I do feel nostalgic. I’m pregnant with a small dc and it takes over your life so much being a parent I think it’s normal to reminisce over what life was like before. That said I love having a family and wouldn’t change it.

No,

I had a shit childhood/teenage years.

i do miss the feeling that things were getting better though.

there’s definitely a feeling at the moment that things are shit and not going to get better