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 the gang problem has only become rife since it became wrong to smack. Just saying..

Mods and Rockers?
Skins and Punks?

I was a child in the 70s, teenager in first half of the 80s. My parents were abusive. When I broke down and attempted suicide, the mental health team decided that I must be lying about the abuse. That's what it says in my medical notes from that time, that I am a lair and a troublemaker. Apparently these notes can't be removed and are generally viewed by other doctors as "records of fact." (Simply because they are medical records!)

Even if this didn't happen to you personally, you don't have to go far in the media to come across cases of "historical" abuse in which the abused person was not believed but, rather, was dismissed and ignored. Teachers did it, doctors did it, social services did it, the police did it.

When I hear people saying "It was an innocent time" (about any era) or "You only think that because you yourself were being properly looked after and respected."

Abuse still happens, it's sometimes still dismissed but generally speaking, professionals are better now at listening to children. Yes, there are problems today that were much less prevalent back in the 70s and 80s but here's one person who doesn't look back with nostalgia.

Looking further back, my grandmother was habitually beaten and raped by her own husband. Everyone knew what was happening, no-one did anything, the police took the view that this was something that had to be sorted out within the marriage. (As if it possibly could be!) As others have said, rape within marriage was legal in Britain right up to 1991!

People who see the past through rose-tinted spectacles are either very, very sheltered or in deep denial.

I have more money that my parents had and I am a homeowner which my (babyboomer) parents were not. Yes things are more fair for women and a many other things have much improved. Apart from the way many kids behave, that's much worse imo. I live on a council estate and the teens run riot, there have been robberies, bikes snatched from people, houses smashed up over minor rows between teens, stabbings and very obvious drug dealing. It absolutely was not like that when I was a teenager.

I was born in 1956 and brought up in the north east. I think some things WERE better/easier. We got grants to go to college or uni. It was relatively easy to get a Saturday job and then a job and there was more job security. Houses were much cheaper although it was not easy to get a mortgage and you had to save up for ages for quite a big deposit. Children and teenagers did have much more freedom and parents did not think of checking up on them because mobile phones weren't invented. We were warned about "stranger danger" but the general perception was that we were safe whereas parents now seem to see danger everywhere. We had the pill and sexual freedom. We didn't have the pressures of social media. Of course we had central heating/showers/vaccinations etc. I am talking about the 60s and 70s - not the olden days.

Because you have to be in desperate need now to get a council house and a bigger underclass now exists. Whereas normal working class people used to live in them.

Of course we had central heating/showers/vaccinations etc. I am talking about the 60s and 70s - not the olden days

All through the 80s we just had a couple if gas fires and I had a coal fire in my first home in 1996!

@Jayne35 we finally got central heating in 1984.

When I bought my first flat in 1987, the first things I did were install central heating & a shower.

And again in 1990 with my first house.

Sorry, that should have been to @motheroftwoboys

The first house I lived in with a shower was the one I bought in 1991 and the flat I rented for a couple of years before that was the first time I (not my parents) had central heating. There’s a fair bit of rose tint on this thread.

I don't know anyone who had central heating and showers in the 60s and 70s. People did used to have those rubber things you stuck on the end of taps to make a "shower".

@Alsohuman There also seems to be a fair number of people on MN who are way better off than the average. I can imagine their adult kids saying in 30 years time - it was normal for kids to have an en suite to their bedroom in 2020.

I think less choice made it better perhaps. Not being bombarded with a 24 hour news cycle, no mobile phones, not worrying about social media, only three channels on the TV, not so much stuff in the shops.

We had central heating put in in 1976

I am 60+, voted Remain, have never voted Tory after growing up under Thatcher. I do not look back on many things with nostalgia eg we had no fridge, no telephone, no TV until I was 6 and only B&W and 2 channels, no double glazing or central heating, having to light the coal fire when I got home from school, no computers or internet.
OTOH I did get tuition fees paid and a grant to go to uni, and I am not sure how I feel about social media - I think I'm glad I grew up without it.

I agree with this. Everyone accuses older voters of being Conservative.

Thatcher was just fucking horrendous, and her reign went on for me from 15 to 30 something? Not 100% sure. But years and years of grey misery unless you lived in the South East. All through my teen and young adulthood. Scarred me for life 😭

I am 60+, voted Remain, have never voted Tory after growing up under Thatcher. I do not look back on many things with nostalgia eg we had no fridge, no telephone, no TV until I was 6 and only B&W and 2 channels, no double glazing or central heating, having to light the coal fire when I got home from school, no computers or internet.
OTOH I did get tuition fees paid and a grant to go to uni, and I am not sure how I feel about social media - I think I'm glad I grew up without it.

Pretty much all of that. I had to do several loads of washing and drying yesterday. And suddenly remembered what washing involved for my mum when I was a kid. Who wouldn't be grateful for automatic washing machines and tumble dryers over a boiler, mangle and...well outside summer I don't honestly remember how on earth my mum got things dry. Especially bedding etc.

I don't know anyone who had central heating and showers in the 60s and 70s

I'm not sure if it counts as central heating but the house we lived in when I was a child had a central hot air heating system. I'm not sure what you even call them. It was a kind of central column that blew air through vents into the rooms. I loved it as a kid, remember sitting next to the vent wrapped in a towel after a bath, but it was electric and must have cost a fortune to run. My parents replaced it with gas central heating in the early 80s.

We certainly had central heating in the 60s, and it wasn't that new an idea. I remember that my school had it also, though it was pretty staggeringly ineffective. I suspect it was fuelled from a coal-powered boiler.

The whole 'well we had central heating/showers/double glazing/a phone/whatever in 19xx' thing is pointless. It's not like everyone suddenly had these things overnight. It took decades for things to filter through and for people to save up to be able to afford something, whatever its availability.

But the fact was that most/many people DIDN'T have these things in the 60s/70s.

Yes, but the perception that such things didn't exist in the 60s and 70s needs to be corrected.

Our school was built in the early 70s with oil fuelled central heating.

If it snowed on the east coast they had to close the school because the fuel couldn't get through.

I had way more days off school for snow on the other side of the country than because it was snowing at home

We also had a proper 25m swimming pool, dance studio, gym, massive games hall, common rooms for all year groups, top quality science and tech blocks, all in a bog standard non-denominational comprehensive.

My own children went to the same secondary and the council replaced the building in 2013, the new one doesn't have anything like as good facilities.

Nobody thinks these things did not exist in the 60s and 70s, but they were not the norm.

In the 80s and even the early 90s, I lived in rented accommodation (as a nurse and then as a student) that didn’t have central heating.

And whilst we did have central heating in the house I lived in from 1972 onwards, until I left in ‘83 to start nurse training, it was run off a coke fired boiler that went out overnight, and had to be raked out, relaid and lit every morning, before the house started to warm up - not that great in winter, in a house on the thousand foot contour.

@MaxPaddyandHarry - I do have an automatic washing machine as it happens, but really the old ones didn't take up that much extra time! I would far rather dry my laundry outside, and for a small family a dishwasher is not really a "necessary" item. The reason people like these time saving devices is because they lead such busy lives today, which brings me back to what I said in an earlier post - the time of my youth was much simpler and people weren't rushing from one thing to another (and I do try to live like that now).

@Elphame - loved your post. Well said!