To having been born in the 1970s and see how much the world has changed?

[Deeperthantheocean]

Yes, so a '70s child so have lived through everything beyond the days of MN world, with advice and experiences of parents and grandparents.

I feel so fortunate to have embraced technology. I am in awe of how the world has been revolutionised it as mostly to the greater good of mankind in many ways.

Just from a personal perspective, I feel it's so sad that the school playgrounds we used to go to to play the sports with our friends are all now barricaded, the youth clubs we went to and had a 10p drink and 12p bag of crisps for a night our aged 13, also the innocent early 1980s school discos we did just dance and had fun with our dowdy outfits. My Mum made me a rara skirt from an old skirt to look more modern, amazing talent among so many others.

So, back to my title, oh boy the works has changed so much! My generation knows how much our parents' generation had it hard and those before then so much harder. Poverty was working to be able to work and buy food on rations, that was women also.

Now we do generally have to work as parents but please don't forget our Mums and grandmother's also did, but after looking after children. Unsociable hours, after hours, basically anytime husbands were home to listen out for anything.

I am not sure what the ask is on AIBU? but i was born in 1968 and I loved a lot of the things about the early '80s as a teenager including the crisps / pop / disco combo, the burgeoning interest in fashion (ra ra skirts, mini kilts, drainpipe jeans batwing jumpers, silky over the top blouses) the 80s music (duran, haircut, spandau, depeche, human league, japan, TFF, OMD) BUT the food was dreadful, the lack of understanding (racism, homophobia, sexism, and any SEN), the hitting by parents being normal, being bombed, being frightened of nuclear attack, the strikes, the poverty and quite difficult routes to get the info we all take constantly for granted now. We had some freedoms, but we also had plenty of restrictions too. You could at least buy a house I guess.

There’s so much I could say but it’s just going to be a bun fight which sums up the sadness of tech at present. It hasn’t always been this bad.

I’ve loved music since forever and love the contemporary stuff now, also love modern film and TV and usually prefer it.

I will say I’ve never heard of Snaps! Have I missed out? Going to guess they were corn maize type stuff?

@TheM55 TFF?

I love how much 80s inspired music we have at the moment.

I'm a 1971 vintage person- Polos were 4p (fruit or mint) and a packet if Walkers were 10p in 1980ish. Started smoking in 1984 - 12/13 and 10 B&H were 52p so I had lunch every other day at school- got 60p a day so fags one day lunch the next.
There were power cuts- we always had candles on saucers under the sink cupboard (1970's) but it seemed really normal and we just played cards or a board game. Yes there was poverty but not necessarily worse than now. Even if people were poor it was different than now.
My childhood was fine- I was not scarred in anyway- it was different standards and times. Family and friends/neighbours helped out more.
IRA in the 70's was a worry and nuclear war in the early 80's too- very much so.

:-)

:-)

This . I was a 60s baby and my childhood was so easy . No technology,meeting friends without cancelling,tv after 2 pm …simple and relaxing.

Yes, it was peaceful. Thats whats gone now. There is no rest from the media, from social media, from information, from data, whether thats at work or on yuor phone or one of the millions of screens we're bombarded with. Its getting impossible to go shopping without apps, unless you want to pay a premium. Parking, travel etc. Its all too connected. I miss the analogue age.

I'm a similar age to you and I don't think the world has changed faster specifically for people born in the 70's. I would say there was a similar state of progress over the last 100 years or so. My parent's (born in the 1940's) have seen at least as much change/progress as I have, and have also lived through everything up to the present day as well. I also disagree that they had it hard (at least no harder than younger generations). Boomers have done brilliantly well for the most part - decent educations, relatively cheap housing, final salary pensions, retirement from 50.

I do think that modern tech (mainly phones, but also the internet to some extent) are harming youngsters socially. Too many people stuck staring into a screen of far too much of their time, and it's like a portal into the world. Remember when we used to go out and meet people, like in pubs and clubs, or even just the staff kitchen at work? Sometimes people would even meet partners this way. Now it's all online dating, online gaming, online banking, online bloody everything. My daughter is borderline reclusive - two weeks into the school holidays and she's barely left her bedroom. Thankfully my boys aren't so bad - they're out every day on their bikes, scooters, playing football at the park with their friends.

As a1963 child I can honestly say my experience was so different.I was never hit ,smacked by my parents. Homophobia was a problem but my parents who were journalists had three guys staying at our house..to look after them! They were an amazing addition to our family! Great memories.

Sorry but yes I was innocent at that age, still was in teens, like most of my friends.

No, I wasn't from a privileged background, parents worked hard and were quite strict.

How did u get away with bumming about taking drugs and going missing from home and school at age 14 hun? Sorry this was your situation.

At age 15 parties, age 17 pubs and nightclubs. Felt that was young enough so yes youthclubs, doing sports, no shame at all. Becoming a blackbelt in karate, an admired swimmer in my club and studying hard to go on to a good career were gratifying. Don't feel like I missed out on clubbing at 14, did that a few years later and enjoyed being a child.

I did however start working at 15, did you?

Tears for Fears presumably
Everybody wants to rule the world still sounds good now

I think it might as well have been 100 years ago - daily life is incredibly different now because of technology. People who missed the tech boat for whatever reason are limited by that in so many ways.

Same.

Mum barging into the hall when we were on the phone (only allowed after 6) making throat slitting gestures and tapping her watch dramatically... She still worries about trunk calls before 6pm.

Gosh ! 10p drink and 12p crisps - that's in new money, some of us here can do that in old money :)

bag of chips after Brownies on a Fri evening - 6d.

Apologies, thread's point was do we all realise how lucky we are and appreciate how hard life was for our parents and grandparents?

Hence, ours have been made so much easier in so many ways with technology but also means you can never be a second away from being contacted.

So, good old days (not forthgoing with the abuse that went on) when it took so much longer to do everything, or now everything is so fast and everyone is in a hurry.

Have just been watching Life on Mars so got me thinking. Xx

Born in the early seventies so many familiar things on this thread!

Sometimes I watch things on you tube from the seventies. Like clips of the strikes and it looks like a different planet. The fashions, the industries (mining, shipping). I am astounded I was alive then.

I do feel quite lucky though when I was born. I got a free uni education, was able to buy a house etc. When I was a young girl dating etc I didn't have to worry about social media, phone cameras and people recording things and posting them online. No it was wait by the house phone for the guy to phone and arrange to meet up under the clock near the cinema.

Now I'm older though I do enjoy the ease with which I can view movies, documentaries from the comfort of my own house, order food, do my banking, download books to my kindle etc

I feel like I got to appreciate both worlds at a time that suited me.

I feel sad that the youngsters are missing out on the excitement of the weekend when you would go into town and loiter around the record stores, look at books in the bookstores, try on clothes and take for granted the shops had lots of stock and sizes. There would be a good buzz at the shops as the high street would be crowded and busy sort of like a social life that you did at the weekend. You went to places like The Pancake Place for lunch or Olivers where they did these amazing sandwiches and huge cakes (a massive treat in a time where I hardly ate any junk food).

I enjoyed watching Life on Mars because it really was like that. I remember my parents house having orange sofa, flowery brown wallpaper and swirly carpets. No microwaves or computers. Top loading washing machine and a stand alone cooker that took ages to do stuff. We used to heat milk on the cooker in a pot and my mum kept my dads dinner hot by putting it on a pot of boiling water. Our house must have been full of steam and condensation. Our house phone was mustard, sat on a 'telephone table' and you had to dial the number which took ages. No buttons on phones yet. All seems so retro now!

In think the difference in life experiences between someone born in the 70s (and earlier) is genuinely greater than those born later.

My BIL was born in the 70s. I was born only four years later in the 80s. Yet I had the internet as a teen, a laptop at university, a mobile phone at high school. He had none of those things. That slight difference in years has had a big impact on our experiences of technology.

Oh the fags were so cheap! The days u could leave the school premises, now most are locked and a short lunch break. We had a choice; a mate's house, van outside school, a local shop with microwaved msat pies or school dinners, all good but we could choose. X

i was born in the 1970’s. After marrying my Nan gave up work forever, my mother worked but that wasn’t the norm, a household could run on one income and council houses were in existence. While it’s great women have careers now it’s still not necessarily a choice for mothers and I suspect women work longer hours now for less financial security.

Mum barging into the hall when we were on the phone (only allowed after 6) making throat slitting gestures and tapping her watch dramatically..

^

😂

How a nice thought can be turned nasty .... I too remember back to happy times. Youth club crisps. I did have a very nice childhood, all the good bits, and very little of the bad bits that others have referred to. Shame op had been given such a hard time.

I remember youth clubs with crisps for 12p! And being served in pubs/clubs at 14. Also going off on my bike all day in the summer, maybe with a sandwich, an apple and a can of yellow label pop from Fine Fare. And smoking everywhere. A thick smog in all the pubs, many houses, the staff room at school... And the local summer scheme at the sports center where you turned up with 50p and a packed lunch and spent all day running around and swimming. I also remember Sundays being super boring and waiting around on corners for your friends wondering if they were coming at 10 like you’d all arranged 4 days ago at school! And going youth hosteling at 15 without any adults. And looking things up in dusty old encyclopedias that didn’t mention Pluto even though it was on school curriculum. Hardly any cars on the road so you could play tin can lurgy or practice skateboarding tricks on the smooth tarmac. And the call to my uncle in Australia that we made every Christmas Day - the only day we called because it was so expensive.

Definitely things I loved then and things I’m really grateful for now.

I was born in 1968, and prefer life now to the 1970s, though have a soft spot for the fashion and music.

My parents were born in the 1930s and their lives were unfathomably different. I think there is a bigger gap between their experience and mine, than between someone born in 1968 and 1998, notwithstanding the internet.

But no one born in the 70s in the developed world with average opportunities ‘missed the tech boat’. I was born in the early 70s, and my friends and acquaintance of the same age started word processing at university or in early jobs, were in our early 20s when the internet started being used by the general public, and, while we’re not digital natives, we’re certainly fluent, habituated users.

OP, I think you’re confused. I certainly don’t think it was a great time to grow up — women’s rights were still so withheld, the pay gap was enormous, the marriage bar still existed until 73,, marital rape was legal etc. In my own life, I saw a lot of poverty, child abuse, restriction of women, authoritarianism, unemployment.