Which year would you choose to be born in?

[missingasock]

Discussing this last night with friends.
I was however born in the 80s but concluded I think I’d like to have been born in the 40s because it did seem more achievable to have a good standard of life but as friends pointed out, no internet, no mobile phones and healthcare was less advanced which I can relate to as I lost my Grandad to a condition which would be managed with medication today but I think no social media is debatable if good or bad.
Another point someone made was that people were a lot more polite and respectful to each other but then again people were a lot less formal and accepting than we are now so again we all chose a different era.

I think dating is a lot harder today and I worry for my daughter and possibly gaining employment is harder as my parents will say, you could walk down the high street asking for work and have a job at the end which it isn’t as simple as that now but I don’t think it’s bad that employers have a more thorough understanding of who they are taking on especially as we can trace backgrounds now.

My son is in his 20s and I admire his age groups laid back attitude towards life, they don’t judge anyone and are more accepting of people for who they are, my grandparents were very much keeping up appearances and I would hate that, before that you had strict classes of people so we’ve come a long way in that respect.

I think it much depends on who you are to what era would have suited you.
Interested to know when you would have liked to have been born?

I was born 1981 and I think being born 10-20 years earlier would have been just right!

Born 1972 so turned 18 in 1990. A great decade for many reasons, and just the right age to enjoy it.

Later than I was so I wouldn't have been so isolated growing up alternative and bi in a village. The internet would've helped me. And it is less rough online than it was in the early 2000s when it was more acceptable to bully etc. So, maybe 2000.

Born in -78, had a great childhood throughout the 80s and was old enough to appreciate Kurt Cobain before he died. Loved the whole grunge era actually. I'm happy to have properly experienced an internet free world all the way until my late teens and also having been a part of its introduction and developement later on.

Edited to add, I think I was born the perfect year for me.

Born in 1969 & think it was the best time!

I was born in 81. I would like to have been born ten years earlier so I could properly appreciate the 80s music and fashion!

I am born mid 70s and would pick that again.
Grew up with 80s music
Freedom to play
Partied in the nineties
No uni fees (they paid me to go)
Technology coming in just as reaching adulthood

Born 1972 and would pick that again as it was great growing up in the 80s and the 90s was a great decade to be in my 20s, start working, partying, fashion, music and everything else. The 90s is my favourite decade ever!!

In the 40s you would have been brought up with rationing, and possibly no central heating or inside toilet. I think 60s or 70s would be better.

Although, if you have brown skin then it’s probably better to be born now than any other decade.

When I did, early 70s! Perfect.

I’d have liked to have been born in about 1950 and have grown up in the ‘never had it so good’ era. Then a teen through the 1960s with the best music ever and early 20s in the early 1970s with the fashion etc.

As it was I was a kid in the 1970s which was great but I remember spending most of the 80s wishing it was the 60s until I discovered The Smiths and went to college.

I can appreciate now looking back, being the generation raised without social media or phones and all the freedom that came with that and am thankful for it.

I was born in the early 60s and wouldn't change the era I've been lucky enough to live in for anything.

Born in 71. Ideal and wouldn't swap it for the world. Carefree independent childhood. An 80s teen, free university and on the housing ladder early 90s. All the clichés about genX are correct we had the best of both worlds. I would not want to be young today for anything.

Born in the 60s and was in my mid teens during the new romantic era. Perfect.
The final items weren't removed from food rationing until the mid 1950s so I wouldn't like to have been born then.

I was born in 74. Teens & 20s in late 80s and 90s. Great time to be young, great music, great pub and club scene, . Life seemed affordable even though didn’t have much. And it felt like a very hopeful time. Perfect time to be born for me.

I think I'd still pick 1975.

I was born in 81 and it was the perfect time.
The 90s and 2000s offered all the best bits for a teenager/20s...
My teenager wishes she was born then too 😊.

1900 so that I could spend my twenties in the 1920’s (my favourite period in history), I just hope I’d have money or it would be pretty terrible.

Great thread.

I feel I would have liked to have been born around 1957 (20 years earlier than I was years actually born); but I wouldn't choose to now be 20 years older and nearer to... well, you know.

It's a shame you can't do a pick 'n' mix, as a lot would have been better, but a lot would have been much worse. I'm privileged enough to be white, so earlier institutionally racist attitudes wouldn't have affected me personally; but I am disabled with serious health conditions, so even though the NHS was already in existence, I don't know if I would have wanted to turn back the clock to the medical and social attitudes to disability of two decades previous, nor of course to reverse 20 years of scientific progress in research and availability of newer treatments.

Good question, id say 1980

Born in 1981 but obsessed with the 80s as a cultural event, so probably 71. I’d love to have been a Duranie, or danced through the second summer of love (preferably in Ibiza!).

I might also have paid off my mortgage by now

1954 was a great year to be born…. by age 16, the swinging 60s had finally caught up with us in 1970. Ordinary stable lower middle background, northern. State school was single sex grammar school education (akin to private education paid for my own children) Saturday job from age 16 and in all school holidays. University via full maintenance grant, no fees. By our late teens we had access to contraception and felt unjudged by our peers in our choices. No cameras or social media. Healthcare good and available. Men expected to commit to marriage and most of us were married by our mid 20s. Mortgages available on one salary. During 1980s and the Thatcher decade we had begun businesses. Social mobility certainly available to my cohort. Foreign Travel picking up through the 1970s and we took full advantage of that for the next 40 years visiting many places which are now looking a bit dangerous or over developed. I was aware of the opportunities available to us. Marvelled at the generation into which I had been born and at least appreciated the chances and grasped the opportunities. There was also very hard work and quite a lot of risk involved. Women also treated differently but I did not find this difficult to deal with and circumvent. I have never thought about it until I saw the question, but now you ask me, the year into which I was born was the perfect one for me. Now 71 I love my life now but often wish I could go back and do it all again.

I was born in 73 and I wouldn't choose to be born any other time tbh. I lived through the 80s and 90s and remember them really well and I got to grow up without mobile phones and SM, which I think was such a blessing as no one really has any photos of my many shameful episodes 😂

I think sometime in the 50s, the right age to enjoy the late 60s and the 70s, raising kids in the 80s/90s when life was simpler.