To think the 70s/80s/90s were better?

[alienbaby]

Okay, so I was born in 1987 so missed the 70s. But I've always kind of fetishised this decade. It seems like it was a great time to be young. Same with the 80s and 90s. Freedom and opportunities but without the more rigid feel we have now.

It was 2006 when I went off and travelled and started living alone, and it was great because we had the internet of course, but it wasnt as pervasive. It meant there was still a kind of mystery about things, like you still had to engage and improvise whereas now you can just sort things out online ahead of time.

Am I just romanticising or do you think too that in a lot of ways the 70s/80s/90s were kind of a "sweet spot" where we had progress but not so much progress that we felt disconnected?

i was born in the 60's and i definitely think things were better in the 70's, 80's 90's/ I would say i fully accept that i am white so that may make a massive difference. But it just felt everyone was able to be themselves more instead of all being locked into the same work to pay bills on pointless crap mentality.

I think childhood and adolescence was absolutely 1000% better in those days. Playing out, less pressure at school, everyone had less so differences were not that noticeable, lots of public transport so you could get to places and non of this current hysteria about under 18's drinking so we were in clubs, pubs, and most importantly gigs at 14. No ridiculous school uniform rules so kids got to experiment with how they wanted to look - omg i could go on for hours.

In terms of progress vs sterile blandness yes i think it was definitely a sweet spot.

I was only small in the 70s but I definitely don't think it was better than now (or at least compared with 2019 to exclude COVID effects).

Healthcare is much better now - admittedly there are some problems getting access to it (in the UK) but once you have access you are far more likely to survive things like cancer and other illnesses too. Better pain relief for childbirth - my mum had to cope with gas and air, I could have an epidural. I always thank my lucky stars I live now with modern healthcare!

Less overt discrimination. Less doffing caps to authority. Less acceptance of sexual harassment.

The internet is a good thing - access to information is deromanticising. Yes there are downsides like misinformation and damage to libraries, but on the whole I think the internet has made a huge positive difference to our lives.

No

I think society was less aggressive but that was if you fitted the mould

My dad/family suffered racial aggression regularly it was acceptable and so was the good old jokes

My mum was highly stigmatised for being a single mum a judge questioned her morals in court after she had been held at knife point and a man (who has come to view our council flat in view to swapping with his) tried to rape her

Poverty that we see as living way below a standard acceptable in such a wealthy country should live was the norm for so many

Sexual harassment of women and girls was acceptable

Few could be gay and honest to everyone

Children had more freedom that was positive

I was born early 70's and I remember it as a really happy time. I had a happy childhood and played out with my friends on my bike. Later as a teen I went to parties, no mobile phones to worry about anyone filming you. I really think quite a lot was better back then.

I was born mid-70s so I don't remember that decade.

The 80s I remember as grey and downbeat. London was dirtier then than now and certainly not any safer. There seemed to be a general lack of optimism. I think in part than must have come from my parents. As they'd grown up just as the welfare state was being established, it must have been hard for them to watch the Conservatives take a blowtorch to it.

On the upside, I loved my primary school and (at least compared to my kids at school in NZ) we really learned a lot of things and enjoyed ourselves.

Smacking may have been rife, but I don't remember adults being unpleasant to me, in fact they were every bit as kind as I'd expect adults to be now, including the teachers.

There was a lot less glitz and sensationalism, much less razzmatazz, and I think people were more serious about that way thought about things than now. I really can't imagine that Boris Johnson would have got far in politics in the 80s.

Out of school clubs and societies were more accessible and were better attended.

I reckon people were less individualistic too, and lots of the beneficial changes in society since then have to be seen as part of that context.

The 90s were ace! Mostly because I remember the optimism, leastways in comparison with the 80s and the 00s.

I think your point about the value of being really seen by another is very good.

I went to school and started work in the 70s and don't remember that era particularly fondly. The UK seemed a grubby sort of place, there were strikes and power cuts, the difficulty in questioning 'authority', the class system, sexism, racism, homophobia, children must be seen and not heard. Schools career officers assuming girls would go and get a typing job and that was the extent of the ambition. I remember my mum being frowned on for being a divorcee, I remember having babies out of 'wedlock' was looked down upon and the mothers were stigmatised.

Though there's much wrong with society and the system today I feel people have much more of a voice, the positives of the internet are fabulous, access to different culture, countries, foods, music. Everything seems so much more colourful now. I do acknowledge I am speaking from a position of privilege compared to some though.

I was a child of the 70s. They definitely had some things going for them but the sexism was massive and utterly entrenched. Racism wasnt even recognized as a problem by most of the population (although I wouldnt say every black or brown person in the country was "fucked" )

I watched Smiley's People not long ago, and I thought it captured the vibe of the 80s I remembered pretty well.

Not better for everything but certainly much better than right now!

Definitely rose tinted glasses. If time travel existed and you could actually go back and live in the 70s or 80s for a while, you wouldn't be long wanting to come back.

Life was harder and attitudes were very different. I think people are underestimating the level of comfort we live in now.

I was born in the 60s, and I do have some nostalgia for the simpler and less materialistic life we had then, but I definitely wouldn't want to go back.

I can remember Asian and gay friends being beaten up or being afraid to walk home alone, lots of NF graffitti everywhere, discrimination in all sorts of ways. My mum used to send me to the corner shop and the man there would grab my bum as I left the shop - 'just being friendly love, can't you take a joke?' I was around 10 or 11 when he first did that.

Apart from the social attitudes and prejudices, there were other things, some of which we didn't know about at the time but would be hard to live without now: no internet or mobile phone, my mum couldn't drive, no central heating and no heating at all upstairs, no double glazing, no shower, boring food, no takeaways apart from fish and chips, tv didn't broadcast for part of the day and closed down around 11pm, only 3 tv channels and we had a black and white tv until I was around 8 or 9, no washing machine or dishwasher.

Some of the things I have now I'd happily live without - e.g. I don't care about having lots of new clothes or foreign holidays, but I do like having a warm home and instrant access to information.

In retrospect I think around the early 2000s were probably the best time. We'd got more social equality by then, but still thought climate change was solvable.

@Porcupineintherough

I was a child of the 70s. They definitely had some things going for them but the sexism was massive and utterly entrenched. Racism wasnt even recognized as a problem by most of the population (although I wouldnt say every black or brown person in the country was "fucked" )

The country didn’t even recognise systemic oppression, discrimination or abuse against us as a problem. But ‘you wouldn’t say we were fucked’ and you’ve an emoji to prove it. Okay, then.

I think it depends where you were. I know in this area the late 70s were not seen as safe for women due to Peter Sutcliffe.

@A580Hojas

I think on balance the internet is a bad thing for society. For all the plus points there are multiple minus points.

The trouble is people who were born since, say, 1995, cannot imagine life without it. They don't understand that life was slick and comfortable and modern (in the first world at least) pre the internet, they think of it as some sort of hopeless backwater.

I think you may be severely underestimating the economic benefits of the internet.

Outward racism was so common place it was even on the TV like

Friends parents were often told by patients that they didn’t want a whatever racist term they choose to use nurse/doctor to touch them

One of my earliest memories is my dad being spat on

It was so aggressive and so much part of everyday life many felt powerless to do anything about it after all the police certainly were not going to support them

Parts of London were still places that black and Asian people avoided still in the 90’s

I think either people were living in a bubble or have very selective memories

Sorry meant to use ‘ ‘ not * that highlights

I'm 62, born 1959, so I grew up in the 70s. We had blackout in the early 70s, to do with the coalminers' strikes. Street lights and everything went off early evenings, so we had to be home before it got too dark.

We had a lot of freedom, though. (I say we as my husband and friends were from that era) Used to walk everywhere (my parents never had a car). No mobile 'phones, computers, etc. I babysat at the age of 14, to get a bit of pocket money. I also did a Saturday job, had to get a work permit to do so because of my age and the hours.

The fashion - glittery, brightly coloured clothes, flares, hot pants, platform shoes, then later Crombie coats, Levi Stay Press trousers (I had them all). Feather cut hairstyles, Dial A Disc, where we used to go to the 'phone box and dial 16 to hear the latest Top Ten tune. Slade, T.Rex, Roxy Music, it was great. Furniture at home was mainly brown! Curtains were orange/brown floral things, like the carpets but not matching! Loved being a teenager in those days.

[quote alienbaby]@Lincslady53
This really intrigued me: Most beds had sheets and blankets
Are you saying that was uncomfortable? I've only ever had a duvet. But when I stayed with my gran it was tight sheets, a blanket, and this amazing thing that was thin but extremely heavy and surprisingly warm, maybe it's what you'd call an "eiderdown"? Like a very heavy quilted sheet that would really weigh your lower body down[/quote]
I moved into my first flat, with friends in London when I was 18. When I say friends, I didn't really know them that well, but the only way we could afford the rent was to have 7 people in a 3 bed flat, sharing rooms. They were work colleagues, 4 I haven't seen since we moved out, 1 became our best man, and the other I married. M and S were advertising these new Continental Quilts, which we all bought to replace the nylon sheets provided by the landlord. They were a revelation. You could make you bed in seconds, instead of straightening sheets and blankets. How my mum managed to make 7 beds with sheets and blankets every day (she had 5 kids) I will never know. Sheets and blankets are ok when someone else is doing the bedmaking.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

As for the 80s... I never knew how much the Miners Strikes affected my family until recently, it wasn't talked about. But apparently it was a massive contributing factor in my grandmother dying in her 50s, as the wife and mother of miners. (She died before I was born, and my father was living in London)

Coal mining was a brutal industry. The workers suffered all sorts of lung diseases, one known as 'Black Lung'. The average life expectancy for someone starting work in the mines at the age if 15, was under 60. The miners pension fund had massive reserves due to the miners paying in and not living long to claim their pension. Heath and safety gets derided today, but my brother died at the age of 65 through working with asbestos in the 70s.

Definitely rose tinted glasses. If time travel existed and you could actually go back and live in the 70s or 80s for a while, you wouldn't be long wanting to come back.

I would go back in a heartbeat.

Life was harder and attitudes were very different. I think people are underestimating the level of comfort we live in now.

I can't think of any major difference in my level of comfort betweeen now and then, and some things in my life were much easier then.

@TheCreamCaker - we are twins, I was also bon in 1959! I agree that being a teenager in those days was so much fun.

I can't think of any major difference in my level of comfort betweeen now and then.

I think this actually proves the point about rose tinted glasses, if you honestly can't think of any major improvements to quality of life in the last 40-50 years.

Re:sheets and blankets before there were continental quilts.

The main difficulty was making your bed everyday. You needed to pull all the covers right back, or even off to straighten and smooth the bottom sheet ( with hospital corners if you knew how). Then you would pull up and straighten and smooth each layer, one by one: the top sheet, then about three blankets, and finally an eiderdown. These were pretty, light quilts. You would then fold the top sheet back over the blanket layer to make a smooth, soft line over the blankets, and put the plumped pillow on top. Then there might well be a bedspread on top of it all. (In the USA there were dyed to match under-bedspreads of seersucker as well.) The blankets could be if sumptuous would with satin edging along two sides.

Some people used to insist that the blankets were stripped back and the bed and bedroom aired before remaking it.

Most children were expected to know how to make their own beds after the age of about 8. It really did take a lot more time.

The weight of all that bedding was quite cosy. I believe nowadays some autistic people benefit from weighted blankets. I wouldn’t go back to this in preference to quilts though.

I was a teenager in the 90s. I honestly think we had so much more fun.