To think that many older people look at the past through rose tinted glasses

[Mammylamb]

I’m on a lot of local chat groups on Facebook, many of which are really interesting.

But every week or so, there will be a post lamenting the good old days when supposedly everything was great and people were just better, men were men, kids were well behaved and women looked after the home(although they had less money)

Every time I see these posts I just get intensely irritated; kids and young people today are not worse behaved than in the past (many young folk seem to have better manners than older people). And the old days were not perfect, child abuse and domestic violence were rife. Men were legally able to rape their wife.

Aibu to get irritated by this

And no one had sex before marriage or teen pregnancy...

Except I know both my Nana (in her 80’s) and her MIL both were pregnant when they got Married at 18 and 16.
My great grand mother told her Daughter in law on her wedding day to not worry about being pregnant as she was the same way when she got married.

My great grand mother (maternal) was also given a hysterectomy by a very sympathetic DR as birth control (she had 9 children in 11 years)
Good old days of no birth control.

There are lots of things I would describe as being better now (dishwashers, microwave ovens, tumble dryers, employment rights, equality laws etc).

There are also things I think were better in "the olden days" such as children playing outside, walking to school, playing fields, a sense of community, being able to quit a job and start a new one the following week and less traffic and yes, 80s music.

There are always good and bad in everything. They were good old days to many people but equally there are good things in present times too. Basically, everyone is right.

My Grandma used to get cross about this. She said that the Second World War was a terrible time but everyone went on about how brilliant it was.

My take on it is, the past was better for people because they were younger. I'm just shy of 50 and the 80s and 90s were good.

I loved the 90s, especially college, university and generally getting pissed all the time.

My parents on the other hand hated the the 90s. Mortgage rate through the roof, recession. Whilst they both had good jobs and earned good money, it was hard.

They are loving the 2000s. Retired for years, mortgage free in a nice house, bloody good income that they will never lose. They can do what they want.

So for me the past was better, but me and my wife are now in the position they were in in the 90s, expensive teens, mortgage, busy jobs, etc.

All things being equal we'll be in my parents position in the future.

I think once you start reminiscing off “the good ol days”, you’re officially an old foggy.
I’m a member of a genealogy site of another Mediterranean country that was ravaged after WW2, people post pictures from life in the postwar years were people in their 20’s/30’s look like 60 year olds, wearing literally rags while eating some mouldy bread and a raw onion for dinner and you’d still hear some old idiot lamenting on the “good ol days” of living simply.

Many of this “Things were better then” opinions are from privileged straight white men and some, preferably white wealthier, women.
You won’t hear a gay man of 50 or 60 saying this. What was good about being persecuted and prosecuted for loving someone of the same sex as you? Anyone heard of Alan Turing? The man saved millions of lives and all we did was chemically castrate him and kill him.
Have you heard an old lady that was beaten and raped by her husband saying about the good old days? About being raped straight after having a child by her husband and hospital staff not being able to do anything?
I can go on and on. I think the world is getting better (as humans) but we are seeing only the bad now.
Environmentally, on the other hand, we fucked this earth up and yes, it was better 30-50 years ago.

Everybody's experience is different. I hate it when people talk about the old days when everyone knew each other and helped each other out. Where I lived all the neighbours were referred to as Mrs X, Mrs Y. No first names at all, and the nearest we got to helping people out was me having to go in and feed next door's cat when she was away

55 year old here.
The ‘good old days’ were fab.......sometimes.
Then we had 1981. The interest rate for mortgages was something like 18%. My poor parents worked 2 jobs 7 days a week. It killed my father.

I don't see anything wrong with recognising the good from the past, or even just the possibility of living differently that we can absorb from looking at other times and other cultures.

The annoying thing is when people forget about the good thing in the present and the bad things in the past.

You can learn from the idea that kids can play outside/ not be glued to screens from the age of 2/ walk to school independently, etc --- without becoming a racist with no innocculations and crappy dentistry.

The summers in our teenage years in the 1970s were fantastic. The music we enjoyed was brilliant. As young teenagers we had all the early 70s bands to enjoy.

I loved the 70s, best times of my life. Not everything was good years ago, but not everything is good today. We certainly lived a more simple life, which I miss a lot now. I think people were more connected to their community, they had time for sport and leisure at the weekend as people weren't working the stupid hours many have to now. I would go back in time if I could and I'm glad I was a teenager in the 70s rather than now. Having said that, I don't live in the UK so things may have been a little different.

People who are not that old do it too, in their late 30s and 40s, blethering on about teenage boys being mugged by other teenage boys, on social media. While I realise it is pretty upsetting if it happens to them and can be very serious indeed, it was extremely common when I was a teenager and they go on about it as if it is this new and terrible thing.

@DeeZastris I agree I hanker after the 90s and pre-mobile, pre-internet days. I do (sort of) realise I'm being unrealistic but I remember those days so fondly and I find so much about today's world difficult to cope with and overwhelming, especially with very small children.

I think many people refer to the good old days from the perspective of remembering their own youth.

I don’t think life has ever been safer, particularly for women, than it is now. The mass media might lead people to believe otherwise but the things that didn’t get reported years ago would beggar belief now.

If I am honest, I find it is young adults who are more likely to think the past was rose tinted

Indeed. I'm mid-sixties and I find it a common observation by young people nowadays how much easier and better my life has been than theirs. How it was easy for me to get a job, buy a house, get a doctor's appointment. All our parents and in-laws were falling over each other to offer us free childcare (heh, I wish). No wonder we oldies get confused.

Environmentally, on the other hand, we fucked this earth up and yes, it was better 30-50 years ago

It was hardly better in the 1950s when people died because of the smog.

The past was better because you were young and that's it.

The 70s weren't that great with power cuts, food shortages, high interest rates, IRA bombings. Agree some of the music was good though.
Things we take for granted now such as automatic washing machines, fridge freezers, dishwashers, tumble dryers are all things we didn't have in the 70s. And the internet - what a difference that makes. Instead of going to the library and hoping they'll have a book on the thing I want to know I can Google it and find out straight away.

I think life was much quieter. If you imagine only having a phone in the house which was considered expensive to use so only the occasional phone call made. And not many had phones.
Not everyone had cars, so a quiet walk or cycle to work or to the bus stop. People knew each other and the extended families. Felt safe if out and about. Before everyone had cars you only saw local people.

There was the Light programme, which became Radio 2/4, so one channel with music and news.

The lack of noise was a good thing, and not having to listen to someone else's choice of music in shops or near someone with cheap earphones.

Life expectancy was lower! LImited choice in food, clothes, jobs, travel.

I was born at the start of the 60s and grew up in London .Looking back of course I remember all the good times! Long hot summers at the lido and icy winters building Snowmen ,playing "out" ,something my children have never really done .However we now live by the South Coast and they have had endless days out to the beach,and trips abroad and so on.I would not want to change my childhood though ,and feel that so much now is good .We have a much less judgmental society and people are generally more accepting of Colour ,sexuality and the like .Watching "Call the Midwife" shows a lot of the hypocrisy of that time when Men were calling the shots and women did not have access to proper advice on contraception ,Where women doing the same jobs got paid less and it was unusual and somewhat surprising if men did "help" with any "womens work" around the house .

agree I hanker after the 90s and pre-mobile, pre-internet days

I don't, even though I was in my late teens and it was a fun time, it was a horrible time financially for lots of people including my parents after the recession.

The late 90s to 2001 were an incredibly optimistic time (though even then the first dot com bubble burst and house prices started to spiral and certainly not everyone felt wealthy and optimistic).

Hmmm. I don't think the past is rose tinted only because of youth.

We had much less 'stuff' up to about the year 2000. My great aunts, my grandmothers and all her friends, my parents and even me up to the year 2000. Our houses and lives were radically different imo.

Everything from underwear/clothes to consumer goods, much less choice/much less availability.

We are an environmental disaster because of 'choice' - we don't need to make so many things. We don't need to buy so many things.

It's not just old people - indeed, it's often people who actually lived through it who are much more realistic about it. There are ludicrous number of young people, particularly amongst the Mail reading sector of the population, who whitter on about the halcyon days of the 60s and 70s who have no idea what they're talking about.

@1Morewineplease
I'm in my 50s too and agree with most of your post except that about polio, TB etc. We did have vaccinations back in the 60s! In fact there's more TB now than then. I was shocked to hear BCGs are not given to everybody but only to at risk groups (at least they were for a while.)

I never understand the perception that children were so much safer playing outside in the "good old days". Those were the days when the likes of Hindley and Brady were operating. How safe were children around them?

As a child you enjoy simpler times without really being aware of adult stresses.

People are nostalgic about running around outside & mums not working, they don't remember/wouldn't have been aware of the worry of job loss on one income with far less generous benefits, struggles to pay bills etc

If we lived now as we did 50/60 years ago, the planet would be habitable for a bit longer than is likely now! We were happy with a lot less stuff and roads weren’t littered with parked cars, you could actually play in them! Most commutes were 15 minutes cos you worked where you lived.

It’s a good thing that people are living longer but it’s also caused lots of problems in terms of UK debt, and what’s the point of living an extra 5/10 years with dementia?

Social media and rampant consumerism are not good things in our age I would say, but I still feel justifiably like one of the luckiest people who have ever lived. Most people in the UK have very easy and full lives compared to others in the world and others who have lived before us.

Hinckley and Brady? You make it sound like it was rampant which it wasn’t. There will always be horrors like that and statistically cars are much more dangerous