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 .

I meant contraception began to be freely available, obviously it existed before that.

There was a lot good in the 70s, but a lot awful too. I was a teen.

The bad.... the stigma of getting pregnant was horrendous, truly horrendous. My best friend got pregnant at 15 and my parents labelled her every name imaginable, despite having known her all my life. I was banned from seeing her. There was no way to make contact, no mobiles, telephone monitored, I had no choice but to drop the friendship.
Sounds pathetic now, but life was very different.
There was no sex education so anyone getting pregnant was literally looked down upon if you weren't married. That aspect was awful.

But I got myself to a Brook Clinic and got myself on the pill. You had to be 'intervviewed' with your boyfriend to get it!

I don't think that my childhood would be considered normal in any decade (at least I hope not!). But the one thing which really stands out for me is the lack of help for children with difficult home lives. Now there might be a suggestion that strange/bad behaviour was a result of a child's home circumstances, or abuse or neglect. Back then it was just that they were a bad kid.

I'm not going to spill the gory details of my childhood, but one of my problems was that my father beat me. One time (when I was about 7) he beat me with a slipper, so long and so hard that the back of my legs had huge, slipper-shaped bruises. I can't remember why he did it that time, but it was usually fairly minor. The next day I had PE and the teacher asked how I got my bruises. I said that my dad had hit me with his slipper. The teacher asked me why and I told her. She said "Well that serves you right" and no more was said or done about it. I like to think that things are different now.

Apart from the terrifying warnings everywhere (don't touch any strange packages, they may explode and kill you, prepare for a nuclear explosion, beware of EVERYTHING!) I remember a terrible feeling of isolation because it just wasn't done to talk about anything personal or sensitive. I was a very unhappy child because of something which could have been helped, if only there wasn't such terrible shame surrounding anything which didn't conform to the accepted norm.

DontDribbleontheCarpet

Totally get all that you're saying. It was always the child's fault. 'You must have done something'.
If things weren't right, a child was really isolated.

I absolutely agree with children fitting around their parents. I was born in 1969, and my parents were 40 and 45 when I was born. My father was a German PoW who'd been captured, and our house was very much "don't mention the war". I replaced a child who was killed in a car accident in 1967 - he was flung through the windscreen and the rest of the family were horribly injured - no seatbelts and no car seats. We didn't have a television until I was a teenager, and then it had a lock and key, with my father being the key holder. As well as "children should be seen and not heard" he would often say "I am the master of the house" and nobody was allowed to question him or argue with him.

Telephone calls could only be made after 6pm and were timed with an egg timer.

My sister married in 1981 at the age of 23. She used to read to me from Spare Rib and she refused to change her surname on marriage, despite my mother telling her constantly that it was a great honour to take a man's name 😀.

I was a teenager in the 70s and really echo everything said upthread, I left school at 16 and got a job, that was what was expected then, a few stayed on a did A levels but many got jobs, my DPs family allowance (child benefit) stopped and it was expected that you paid board once you were working. I used to go to pubs and nightclubs when I was 16 and can remember hitch hiking with my friend to get to places

Bullying in school was rife. It was seen as 'a bit of teasing' and you should 'toughen up' and not get upset.

Life was so small. All you had was 3 TV stations and the people around you. No other influences. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Life was so small. All you had was 3 TV stations and the people around you. No other influences. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Yes people complain about the corrupting influence of the Internet, but I think it's fantastic the sources of good information that are accessible to teens nowadays. Much better than relying on the Q & A page of Jackie magazine!

We never had a phone so I had to go to the call box and either ring my friends or they would ring the call box.

Born 1968
Agree that if you were in trouble as a child it was ALWAYS your fault.
Bruises, behavior obs the result of SA, was 'your fault'.
Lots of racist, sexist, homophobic 'humour'.
Also remember being cold and hungry a lot.
My parents worried about money and politics a lot.
Life felt very insecure.
No books - read my way through the school library then the public one

I remember it with fondness, probably because my dad and grandparents were still alive 😭 But the summers seemed longer and sunnier, we always got snow in the winter. Not so many tv programmes but always watched Why Don’t You, Pipkins, The Sullivans, Morecambe & Wise, Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, Paddington, Blue Peter, Angels.
Food was a lot less wide ranging than now. Had to eat what you were given (I think I hid cabbage under other food on my plate to fool my mum). Angel Delight, Dream Topping, Vesta Curry, saveloy and chips after swimming lesson was absolute treat. Coat on top of duvet to keep warm. Waiting for immersion tank to fill for a bath as we had no shower. As other people have said, we didn’t have as many material things as our DCs but we were happy and had more freedom I think. Nearly forgot dates at Christmas even though nobody liked them and shiny foil decorations which unfolded. I miss those days.

We had a phone but it was a party line. So you used to listen in to your neighbours and wait for them to finish their call !
And before that I remember you had to wait for an operator saying 'number please' and they'd connect you. Our phone number had just 3 digits.
God I'm old

Just started thinking of Saville, Benny Hill et al. Now I don’t feel so nostalgic.

DH was born 1972 and had a similar childhood to many of these mentioned - out a lot during the day, fitting around his parents' lives. He never ate with them, didn't do any extra-curriculuar activities, sat in the car while they went to the pub etc.

I don't know if there was a big change by the end of the decade, or my experiences were unusual but I was born late 70s (78) and my childhood was nothing like this! Nor were most of my friends, from what I could tell. My parents spent a lot of time with me and my brother and we were never sent out for the day, although we did play with other children in the street during the summer. We did lots of extra-curricular activities, days out as a family etc. My parents weren't very open with us about some things, but that's the major difference I remember along with not getting very involved with school-related things. Apart from that, and access to technology, I don't think my own kids' childhood today is that different to mine.

I remember playing out in the street a lot - there were hardly any cars around so the road was safer to play on.

We knew the night of the week it was because of what was for tea- mince, stew, sausages, fish. Tinned fruit salad and tinned cream or Angel delight for pudding. Arctic roll was a weekend treat.

Occasionally we got Cremola foam, a sickly sweet drink made from powder.

I walked to school myself from the age of 5. The lollipop man/ woman was there for crossing the busy roads.

People didn't take bullying seriously and "the belt" was still used as a punishment at school.

I remember feeling anxious and unsafe a lot of the time.

Imminent nuclear war. I remember films seemed to all end in ‘and they all died’ (which is a catchphrase in our house).

I'm sure we were tougher. There's a thread today about secondary school children believing in Father Christmas. I'd be horrified if any child of mine was so simple-minded!

@flapjackfairy

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 !

Me too!

I was born in '69 & am SO grateful for it. I think being a child in the '70's was brilliant.

There were 'hard times' but nothing compared to what grandparents/parents had been through and there was a real sense of community & being in it together.

Parents had bought a new house in a new sub division, as gad a lot of other young couples, so all us kids grew up together in each other's houses

Family nearby & always around.

Ignoring the dodgy fashion it was brilliant!!

I remember the terror of incipient nuclear war from when I was about 10 onwards. Horrible lurching horror feeling.

"I remember a brown corduroy sofa from Habitat"

We had one of those. It was incredibly easy to move around. I mentioned how light-weight it was to my dad recently & he said it was because the base was made from highly combustible polysteryne!

It's a wonder any of us are still here really.

As well as the nuclear threat, there was a constant terrorist threat due to the situation in Northern Ireland. My father was in the army so we were certainly more aware than we would have been, but it was always there, in the background.

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

I totally agree with this!

See it so much on here with the younger parents with their kids now thinking they can’t possibly expect children of HIGH SCHOOL age to boil a kettle or peel veggies or do a laundry! Ridiculous!

I was born early 70’s to parents who remembered rationing and were born into VERY poor circumstances.

The 70’s were a very happy time for me as it was before my dad descended into alcoholism and all the bad shit escalated at home.

We were very much “free rein”, walked to school from “junior school” age, out playing with friends running free after school, even walked to brownies myself in the spring and summer months.

Home by a certain time to help make dinner and lay the table etc ate dinner, if it was light out, back out again until in for supper and bedtime, in winter either be helpful or shooed away to our rooms to occupy ourselves or play together.

NO HOMEWORK then to speak of at primary age - when my Dd was at primary school the amount of utterly pointless homework was fucking stupid! We had to learn times tables and spelling and do some reading but we weren’t having to make pointless papier mache models constantly (which teach NOTHING of import if you’re not an artistic kid!) or “find x in your house and describe what it does” bollocks! Busy work for no good reason most of it! Yet we seemed to learn more!

VERY little children’s and family tv, no breakfast tv remember, we had radio on in the morning mostly local so parents knew what the traffic was like if they had a commute. Blue peter etc for maybe 90 mins after school and Saturday morning kids shows like tizwaz and swap shop. That was only 3 hours on a sat morning then boring world of sport would be on, nothing on a Sunday. “Family” shows like jim’ll fix it (shudder) or game for a laugh on a Saturday evening. Result being we watched a lot of adult programmes that were probably not totally appropriate! Like cop shoes and dodgy sitcoms! We only had a portable black and white TV set with dial tubing until 1983! So me or one of my siblings would be told to change the channel, then get shouted at if we turned the dial too far/not far enough and it was fuzzy “noo go back a bit! A bit more YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR NOW!” 😂

Meals were basic “meat and 2 veg” spaghetti bolognese was “exotic”!

We knew the night of the week it was because of what was for tea yep we had that! “If it’s sausages it must be Tuesday” 😂

Sunday’s were REALLY boring, up early for scrubbed faces and chapel, when little you could go in Sunday school but once school age you had to go and endure the adult service. Home and helping with Sunday dinner which took AGES, out to play for a bit then back in to eat Sunday “lunch” except it was about 3pm! Maybe out to play again but not for long as Sunday was bath night, as the eldest I was last in so after my siblings had been washed the water was lukewarm at best and manky! Hair vigorously brushed and plaited so tightly sis and I got headaches! Supper then bed.

@neonjumper I’m SO SORRY you and your family went through all that. Totally unacceptable in any era.

I do remember lots of travelling in the boots of estate cars unrestrained and the drivers going fast around corners so we’d slide about and we thought it was fun!

Both my parents heavy smokers - and they wondered why we all had asthma and regular asthma attacks!!

One advantage to rotary dial phones was that you knew all your friends' and family's phone numbers off by heart. I can still remember many of them to this day.

Omg yes! I can still remember my grans numbers and friends and our numbers (army brat we had several)...cannot bloody remember own mobile no I have now that I’ve had nearly a year!!

They're useful things for passwords/PINs. As you've remembered them for 50 years, you'll probably keep remembering them what a great idea!

having a whole bar of chocolate to yourself I never had a whole mars bar until I was 16! 3 way split until then, mum used to cut into 6 slices with a sharp knife and we’d get 2 each

One aspect that was scary for us was as army brats we had to be very wary of packages and I remember those neighbours/friends parents who were army too checking their cars (we didn’t have a car till mid 80’s) and even bomb scares at the base or at our schools (certain schools near bases were targeted for this) awful. Dad lost friends and colleagues and we had friends who lost their dads to bombings.

Bloody autocorrect DIAL TUNING that should say!

Oh God! We had that too!

And Angel Delight was the highlight of the week on a saturday for pudding ....