Does everyone just think the decade they were teenagers was the best?

[Daisychainsandglitter]

Sat here with DH after having a few drinks watching top of the pops which I'm sure I probably watched as a child.
I was born in 84 and I look back at the 1990s/early 00's with such nostalgia. Sometimes I just long to go back to those care free days listening to great music (mainly rock and indie in my case). I hear of ppl born in different decades saying the same about the decade they came into their late teens and early twenties being the best. Am I right in saying the 90s were the best or was there a better decade to be alive?

I was 17 during the Summer of Love and think I was so lucky, it really was a magical time to be young.

I was a teen in the 80s. We had the music, the clothes, so many different tribes to belong to. We had MTV and contraception (Ireland!). Expectations were so much lower then, but there was also an optimism and a sort of innocent bravado that I think teens nowadays don't have.

I hate it when people say their generation was the best but I do think being a teen in the 90s was much more fun than it is now and I'm a bit sad for my kids. I was born in 1978.

Teen in the mid 70s on. Wonderful times, so much freedom. Calling 16 from the local phone box (you'd have to be a certain age to understand that), everyone had a Saturday job and saved hard to buy clothes for a night out. My parents ran the village pub so there was a constant stream of people to talk to/party with. So much bloody fun.

Very different now.

Late 70s/ early 80s - definitely the best time to be a teenager. Glastonbury was a tiny affair but amazing, the music was wonderful - I feel so grateful that those were my teenage years.

I was a teenager in the 1970s. I had a Saturday job and good friends. The summer of 1976 was just a brilliant time to be a teenager. I had a ball. In the upper 6th at school everyone had big 18th birthday parties. I have never partied so much since.

Most people I know of my generation absolutely loved being a teenager in the 90s. I spent most weekends clubbing and am still really into dance music in my 40s - embarrasses my kids

I loved 90s music, fashion and the fact we weren't all just on our phones constantly!!

@Ginfordinner

I was a teenager in the 1970s. I had a Saturday job and good friends. The summer of 1976 was just a brilliant time to be a teenager. I had a ball. In the upper 6th at school everyone had big 18th birthday parties. I have never partied so much since.

Yes, so much partying. I'd go straight to work after partying all night. Things were very uncomplicated back then, and best of all there was no ridiculous consumer pressure.

Do you find that you feel nostalgic for music of that era that you didn't particularly like at the time but do now?

I was belting out Teenage Kicks earlier on this evening , and get excited when I hear any punk music. During the late 1970s I spent a lot of time dancing to disco music, often out nightclubbing 2 or 3 times a week.

Now I feel tired at the thought of it. Fun times.

@unmarkedbythat I think that 'peakedin1997' should be my next username

Of course we all think the time when we were grow up and experiencing life for the first time was the best, that’s how it has always been.

I genuinely do think, however, that the period between the mid 60s and the early 2000s was a better time to be young than times before or since. Long enough after the war for the worst of rationing & national service to be consigned to memory, and for young women to have their own money, independence & access to contraception but before the toxic, harmful cesspit of social media emerged.

I have so much nostalgia for the 90s! I was a teenager in the early 00s but don't feel much about that era. The 90s was the best, I wish I could have a time machine and stay in that decade!

@unmarkedbythat

I think life peaked in 1997.

Can relate.

I was actually a teen in the 80s but the 90s were better musically and fashion-wise and politically

And photos! 24 Max Spielman, use them carefully

We had MTV and contraception

^^

Hi everyone

No. I was a teen in the 80s and it wasn't a nice decade. The 90s were so much more pleasant, with a better, less materialistic zeitgeist, better values and priorities, better music/films/literature/theatre (in my humble opinion.)

90s were amazing!

The 90s were the best. I can’t bring myself to believe they started 30 years ago.

I was a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s and for me it was a great time being a teen. Compared to my own teenagers now my teens were less complex almost innocent.

We had teen magazines, the brat pack, films, cinema, video shops, cassettes and walkmans/tape recorders, boy bands like Bros, NKOTB and Wet, Wet, Wet, phonecards, pagers and shopping on a Saturday in a physical shop.

Most of us were content with that, where as my teens would think that is boring and would be horrified at the thought that they had to walk to the video shop, pay money to rent a video, walk home, insert video into video recorder.

I would hate to be a teenager now too much pressure to be perfect in everything and have a perfect life all documented on social media.

My teen shows me some of the comments that some of her peers post about other girls they see as not being up to scratch in their eyes and the bullying is nasty.

When I was a teen, as wrong as bullying is/was you could escape it and feel safe after school or at the weekend at home. Today's teens cannot do that.

No, the 90s were wicked. My 18-year-old is pretty cool and switched on, and feels gutted he was born 20 years too late.

I’m with PP. Life peaked in 97 😃

90s were lots of fun. Free raves, no need to dress up, lots of fun drugs, labour getting in, criminal justice bill protests, lots of great music.

Not one bit. Margaret Thatcher's first term with the mass unemployment and closure of traditional industries years before they should have died.

Everyone thinks the time they were a teen was the best, just like everyone thinks their childhood was the best. Because it was fun and carefree. Everything was brand new including you. You weren't as tired and jaded as you are now.

The people who are only in their 20s and early 30s, give it ten years. You will be seeing your teenage years differently too with the passage of time and increasing responsibilities.

I absolutely hated my teenage years, the 90s, and much preferred my 20s, the 00s.

I was a teen from mid 90s to early 00s. But the best age was between 15-25.

Zero responsibilities, lots of growing up and freedom, my money was my own (no kids!) and the vast amount of free time I had was spent with friends, family and now DH.

Then I had DC and it throws life into sharp perspective. My fabulous DC take most of my money, and time, and I get grey hairs in exchange!

I do feel a nostalgia for when they were tiny, I needed eyes in the back of my head though !