What Was Wrong with the 70s????

[Menofsteel]

I wasn’t born until 1980 but my husband is a 60s child. He’s showed me public information films from the 70s and just introduced me to the original Survivors. I saw the remake with Julie Graham? Why is everything from the 70s so much creepier?!? I’m starting to believe we are a bit softer nowadays .

It was a very weird time in terms of where we were at with social development and with technology.

I have a feeling you'll enjoy looking at Scarfolk Council...which is a webpage and social media account documenting the public information adverts of a fictional town which never progressed beyond the 70s. scarfolk.blogspot.com/

Having grown up in the 70s myself, I love it.

Brilliant, I’ll look at it!

Wow, a brief look is scary!

The Children Of The Stones.

Terrifying for a kids' drama series

Even just the opening sequence and theme tune...

I was a child in the 70s and I do think we were tougher than today's children on the whole. We had winters of power cuts down to strikes and I remember my mum having to queue for bread as there was a shortage of basic foodstuffs at one time but we got used to candles , having your mothers coat on top of the bed for warmth and no tv in the evenings. Not that there was much for kids anyway , just watch with mother at dinnertime and an hour or 2 at teatime.
We were mostly outdoors, wandering the country or the streets doing stuff that would scare me to death now esp if my own kids were doing it ! And of course most traumatizing of all we had to endure platform shoes, bell bottom flares that got caught in your bicycle chain and shaggy hair cuts and tank tops ! So even the fashion itself was dangerous !
But they were great days and happy times for me on the whole and j have fond memories of that era !

I think we were the last generation of children to grow up without much attention or health and safety advice. Children really were seen as a nuisance, it was very common for kids to be out all day with no supervision, no one judged people's parents for it, in fact most of my friends' mum's pretty much threw them out of the house in the morning so they could get on with their housework.

I seem to remember drinking nothing but squash as people had no idea about the danger of sugar, tooth decay etc. Dinner was something with mince or covered in breadcrumbs, no mention of 5 a day fruit and vegetables. I do remember being hungry a lot, not due to neglect but because we were roaming around outside far away from home and my parents had this "no snacks between meals" thing that a lot of people had.

Our parents grew up in the war with rationing so food was never frivolous, didn't really have treats or after school clubs, didn't get ferried around in cars there was a lot of walking about and standing at bus stops. My parents weren't poor either, it was just the way things were then - a no frills childhood.

I find it hard to watch TV from the 70s now as we know what was really going on. BBC Centre has been turned into luxury flats and I think it must be creepy living there.

OP I think you are being reasonable to think it was a bit tougher. I grew up then and feel I had a much better one than most people.

As for what was wrong, there are plenty of things I could mention. Talk of tv reminds me that Jimmy Savile was on a prime time show, for example.

We know now but in those days the general public loved saville

Always been Creepy tho.

Anyone remember Charlie says ads
Scarred me witless.

Yes to being hungry and out all day
Kids at school with just a crisp sandwich or jam was pretty standard.

I remember the smell of Sunday dinner cooking being torture and hanging around carving to get scraps of meat. No wonder obesity was rare.

I always think the 70s had an unusual amount of particularly weird and awful serial killers/crimes.
I was recently reading a thing on Reddit about how "they" reckon it was all to do with the lead in petrol. It built up enough after the war to the point where it affected brain development in the cohorts that hit adulthood in the 70s, thus creating more creepy killy people than usual. As the dangers of lead became clearer, they stopped using it and levels of killy people dropped.

I was born in the early 70's and as a pp said we were the last of the "free range" generation. It felt like the world was for adults only & kids just had to fit in.
Very different to the child centric world of today.

As for what was wrong, there are plenty of things I could mention. Talk of tv reminds me that Jimmy Savile was on a prime time show, for example

Meanwhile the media was whipping up hysteria about people like The Sex Pistols being the downfall of civilised society. As far as I know John Lydon has led a fairly blameless life (dodgy politics aside), has been married for 41 years and cares for his wife who now has dementia. National Treasures like Savile, Rolf Harris and all their mates, on the other hand, well ...

We definitely had to take more responsibilty for our own lives - parents didn't get involved in our spats with other kids. Parents weren't always at the school complaining about detentions, school lunches, homework etc. Didn't have many toys, didn't have snacks every 5 minutes. Very little in the way of clubs or entertainment especially aimed at kids. It sounds grim but it really wasn't at all - we had lots of freedom, imagination and learned very young how to deal with the stuff that the world throws at you. And all our mates were in exactly the same boat.

It seems funny now but in the 70s we were only 30 years after WW2, an awful lot of our parents grew up during the war or during rationing. We really were expected to amuse ourselves, a lot of us walked to school and back even at 5 or 6, you mostly had to eat what you were given, and weren’t routinely consulted on family decisions. We were very active, which was a good thing, but kids with emotional or learning difficulties were just left to struggle. We were tougher I think but not always in a good way.

I grew up in the 70ties and yes, we were more independent, responsible for ourselves at an earlier age, more self reliant (+ I was/am not in the UK).

I think the less you expect of a child / youngster the less they can and are willing to do.

You played out most of the time.

You were always slightly hungry because you ran about all over the place and never had snacks.

You were always a little bit cold. But you didn't mind as you were so busy running about.

Everyone's mum was at home doing stuff in the house.

You had to fit in with the grown ups. Nowadays I think oh it's boring for my kids to drag around b and q on a Saturday. That's not a 70s mindset

I was born in 72. The 70s were odd, I find that often film and TV from the 50s and 60s aren’t nearly as hard to watch or as remote feeling as those from the 70s, despite being older. Scarfolk sums the period up perfectly, if you can find a public information film called “The Finishing Line” on Youtube (it had been removed last time I looked for it) it’s pretty much indistinguishable from the Scarfolk parody.

There’s a good thread running on this in chat “ was my childhood unusual” - it’s been discussed on there about 50s 60s 70s childhoods compare to now- have a look

Definitely a more “adult oriented” time. I fitted in with what my parents were doing, very different to the “mum’s taxi” role I have today ferrying my daughter to her clubs etc. No question of putting the tv on during the day - there wasn’t anything on anyway - and the “children’s telly” couple of hours before the news was all there was. Food was generally rather meat-and-two-veg until spaghetti bolognese arrived around 1978 (in our house) and I never had a chilli until I went to university! People didn’t generally go out to eat, they “had their tea” then went out to be entertained..
I’d definitely agree that kids with different or special needs were not treated well in school though. I can remember a child in my class being relentlessly hounded by the teachers - I’m sure he must have been on the autistic spectrum - and they even built a little “cave” round him with chairs on the table covered with black paper to make him focus - even back then I knew it made me feel uncomfortable!!
I think things definitely changed in the 80’s and 90’s...maybe less parents haunted by the austerity of wartime and things generally moving on.

I find the 70s fascinating. I was born in the 80s, was it really different? I certainly felt like kids and adults were separate, we were expected to make our own fun generally. It was rare to go out for family meals & if you did it was like a Pizza hut.

I recognise a lot of what's here but don't feel the neglect a lot if posters felt. I don't remember being hungry or feeling thrown out the house. My parents were a lot older than my friends parents, mine had been in the war, not grown up in it. I was sort of allowed to do whatever I wanted but I was always a stubborn bugger who'd have done it anyway.
I remember dad watching The Rockford Giles and mum and I watching Rich man poor man. I hated it, but she left me to cry on the couch whilst she watched it. I must have been a pain in the arse.

@Bumpsadaisie

You played out most of the time.

You were always slightly hungry because you ran about all over the place and never had snacks.

You were always a little bit cold. But you didn't mind as you were so busy running about.

Everyone's mum was at home doing stuff in the house.

You had to fit in with the grown ups. Nowadays I think oh it's boring for my kids to drag around b and q on a Saturday. That's not a 70s mindset

This sums it up exactly. At weekends we generally went to visit one of my many elderly relatives. A long journey in the (seatbeltless) back of a rattily car with your parents smoking in the front. They’d open the window so the smoke would go out, except that actually just caused it to channel in to the back on the air current, if it was cold you froze, if it was hot and you were wearing shorts your legs stuck to the plastic seat. No entertainment except maybe a comic to read. At the relatives house there was nothing to do, no you can’t have the TV on, and even if you could there would be nothing but football and a black and white film from the 1930s on. If you got too wriggly you’d be sent to “play” outside. If you were lucky you’d get a glass of over diluted room temperature squash and a biscuit. Then back in the car for the journey home.

Files

I remember a lot of public service announcements that nowadays seem scaremongering and ridiculous. Early 70s would have been information on what to do in a nuclear attack - make a den under a door, or in your bath 🤷🏻‍♀️How to cross the road -.
As others have said, we were left to get on with it. If we wanted to go somewhere, it was walk, or later , bus.
But mum cooked twice a day so we all had hot lunch and tea.😁

I also grew up in the 70s and don’t recognise it as a creepy decade. We had more freedom, but my parents patented pretty much as I parent my children today.

in those days the general public loved Savile

No we didn't. We thought he was a fucking creep. There was simply very little choice on TV so sometimes we ended up watching programmes presented by him by default.