To think the 90s were happier?

[hoven]

I grew up in the 90s and when I think about growing up I felt a lot let anxious and things felt just more relaxed.

Fast forward to now I'm a parent and feel so stressed and think back to the things I used to do as a child such as going to events (with mum) and shopping centres etc fill me with dread and worry.

Is the because I'm a parent now or were things easier and less scary in the 90s?

I live in London and grew up in London

Yeah, but they were still there, unknown, untreated and causing shit everywhere to everyone. Just because you don't see the juggernaut that spatchcocks you on the road doesn't mean it wasn't there

I thought mental health amongst young people has got worse.

Young people have been screwed over in recent decades whereas the 90s was very youth driven.

YABU @hoven You saw the decade (1990s,) through rose-coloured-glasses as you were a child with no worries, or commitments, or responsibilities. I was a mother in the 1990s with 2 young children, a fairly high mortgage, some debts, and a stressful job. Wasn't the best decade for me at all.

My best time was the between the mid 1970s to the mid to late 1980s. Once I had a mortgage, and was a 'homeowner' with a big mortgage, and responsible for all the repairs and maintenance, life was not to fun and frivolous then! Was a struggle for some 20 years - til the mortgage was paid off and the kids left home.

Most people will see the decade that they spent their childhood and teen years in, as the best one for them. The 1990s was not 'happier' for many people.

My experience was that, far from infantilising them, parents were so ignorant about mental health - their own and their kids' - they ended up happily traumatising them and justifying justifying with "kids are so pampered and infantilised these days, there was so much more resilience in the 60s and 70s".

Exactly like you.

I remember plots on TV programmes about characters taking antidepressants and being roundly criticised for it. One plot centred on a woman stealing her husband's medicine and being hailed a heroine when he had a breakdown, for exposing his weakness and laziness. Loads of articles about how bashing up your kids was great parenting too, because resilience and infantilisation today.

It's like some weird blindness that affects every generation once it reaches middle age. Has anyone got that Socrates quote about the yoof of today yet?

My 90's were shit. Oh the music was great, and the freedom not too bad. But there was neglect, there was abuse(in various forms), no one gave a shit, there was so much misogyny and sexism it even spilled into childhood, and i was always girling "wrong".

I'm less anxious and stressed and more confident and "free" now.

I still think there's loads of misogyny & sexism nowadays.

Here it is.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannise their teachers."

Sorry, Socrates! But I expect you were going down the long slide like free bloody birds when you were young too...

I'm going to watch Back to the Future tonight. I love how it shows up your parents' claim that they were so much better than you at your age.

I think I personally didnt have a lovely happy 90s but definitely feel it was more optimistic and there was less of a rich/poor divide. Benefits and free education seemed to be handed out like sweeties. It was nice not have zuckerbergs big eye on everything you did (it aint just social media). I feel privileged to have lived in a pre internet era these days. 2008 crash really seemed to bollocks it all.

I felt really sorry for teens & young adults during covid. The ones who would normally have been doing exams & starting uni.

The news was often boring (thinking of the 60s) it was all political -what this or that politician said.
No real knowledge of the rest of the world.
Certainly no live tv.
Much is the internet which made the change AND it’s going to get much more violent now crowds can rent a mob of thousands with one phone message.

I didn't realise how poor we were when I was growing up. My parents were young parents working their way up from minimum wage jobs. I knew we had less than some friends but there wasn't the same disparity you see between kids these days.

I turned 20 in 1990. My overwhelming memory is of people, real people I knew, losing their homes on an almost weekly basis, such was the financial crisis at the time.

So no, I don't think it was a happy time for many.

I preferred a low tech society I was much more peaceful back then. The pace life is at and the rate technology is moving is too fast and no consideration is being given to the social or ethical impacts of it all, or they are but they're simply not caring.

I miss privacy.

I was a teen / young adult in the 90s. Now I have three teens. As far as I can tell (obviously I don't know what's going on inside their heads) they seem happier than I was. I was quite shy and got teased at school, they seem more confident than I was.

Yes definitely better. No internet and social media. Less unrest across the world. Global warming wasn't too much of a thing.

Overall, less stress in my opinion.

Obviously things weren't perfect but they were definitely less bleak.

I turned 20 in 1990. My overwhelming memory is of people, real people I knew, losing their homes on an almost weekly basis, such was the financial crisis at the time.

Can I ask where you lived?

I think about 350k homes were repossessed in the first half of the 90s so it's unusual for someone to have it impact someone they knew on a weekly basis.

I turned twenty in 1990. I genuinely think there was much better social mobility. We bought our first home with a 4k deposit and an affordable mortgage on a joint income of thirty grand in 1994. South Manchester three bed terrace. Not possible now for youngsters doing similar jobs

There seemed to be lots of optimism. The whole Cool Britannia. Cheap flights to Europe, huge change in Europe.

Mind you we did do a lot of ecstasy. So maybe that helped

South East. I can name 4 people I went to school with and 3 I worked with, plus all the friends of friends.

Also I was working in property lending.

It actually helped me out because when I came to buy the market was awash with repossessions. The house I bought eventually cost me c. 60% of the mortgage that had been on it, I still feel sad for those people.

I had a lot of fun in the 1990s. Drugs were cheap and easy to find, nobody asked for ID in pubs, lots of good parties.... Outside of that I genuinely wanted to die and think I would have succeeded if it weren't for all the great parties and people!

Being a depressed, suicidal, undiagnosed autistic self-harming girl/woman back then was awful. Teachers and nurses were so nasty about me being 'attention seeking' and a 'time waster', always being called a 'silly little girl'. All I wanted was for it all to be over, I just wasn't brave enough to go through with it.

This

You're right. I meant the 90s. Parts of the 80s were very good and parts very bad.

100% agree.

it's simply because you were young and carefree with no responsibilities. I feel exactly the same about the late 80s & 90s when I were a child. since having kids myself in the 2000s things have never been the same for me the responsibility of parenthood changes us so much.