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.

My memory was that I was pretty well behaved on the whole. Possibly because I knew that if I wasn't, I'd get hit. That being said when my DCs were that age in the 2000s they were pretty well behaved without the threat of getting hit.

But that wasn't the point I was making. In the 70s there was so much necessary administration that could only be done by travelling to the relevant place and waiting in a queue. If you were lucky and you were prepared to wait weeks, you could do some of it by post.

I was born in the mid 70s and remember when Snaps crisps were 6p and 7p!

It was a weird decade. My mum was a very hands off parent! She had no idea where i was half the time.

I think the 90s was the best decade by miles. I'm sad my kids aren't having an Internet-free childhood. In some ways anyway.

I think a lot of this depends on personal experience too.

I was ridiculed for having the 'wrong' clothes in primary in the 90s. Mocked for having cheap trainers/wrong brand coat in high school in the 90s. No social media then.

Didn't need social media to knock my self esteem either- other kids were perfectly capable of doing that. Magazines and TV provided lots of opportunities to compare yourself and find yourself wanting.

Yes sm can be dangerous, but kids are well versed in how unrealistic it is than adults often realise.

Born in 1969 and grew up in a village in the Home Counties. We didn't get lots of new toys or clothes but parents could afford a big detached house. Houses cost more and food/toys/clothes cost less now I think.

I like a lot of current music: rock, punk, indie. I used to feel nostalgia for 80s music but I'm bored of it now, just as I was bored of 60s music when I was a teen. I do still cling to the punk and ska stuff from the 70s though.

The village primary school was great. Secondary school was awful. Teachers were on strike so we were kicked out every lunchtime to wander the streets. I don't know a single person from my school who went to university. Same at DH's school. My parents' only ambition for me was to go to secretarial college. I really envy my son's education experience compared to ours.

I am going to disagree.

I was born in 1970 and I had a lot issues that would be easier to address today: poor mental health (I am neurodivergent), bullying at school and abusive parents who thought it was fine to hit me in the face. My father was racist, misogynist and violent.

At least nowadays there is much more awareness of these issues and support for kids who are going through that.

If I had had the internet as a kid I could have sought and accessed support more easily.

The only think I miss when looking back is the music of the 90s! beyond that I am happy in the present.

That’s so fascinating and really puts into perspective how much progress has happened.

There was a lot more inequality and things have changed so much for the better in many ways.

Yes rose tinted glasses maybe, but life was simpler because most people didn't have much and made to. Xx

@Deeperthantheocean

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 was born in the 60s and my mother always worked, so don't know where you got the idea that mothers didn't go out to work? From what I remember of my school friends in the 60s and 70s, plenty of mothers went out to work. I think there's a bit of "rose tinted" glasses going on here maybe overestimating the number of mothers who were lucky enough not to have to work??

Yes, agree with most of that. I had a horrendous time at secondary school due to bullying which made me suicidal and turned me from a straight A* pupil at 11 years old into leaving school after failing all my O levels and CSEs. I truanted just to avoid being kicked and punched by the bullies, not to mention regular fag end burns on my arms! I know bullying is still a problem, but these days it seems to be more of a mental thing which (I know some will disagree) isn't as bad as being kicked and punched and burned on an almost daily basis!

Once I escaped that hell hole, I taught myself (and via evening classes) my O levels and A levels. It was hard because I had to borrow books from the library which wasn't easy as I was working full time in a crap job (due to no qualifications!) and couldn't afford to buy my own text books etc., so struggled with limited resources.

I'd have moved hell and Earth to have had access to the internet where I could do research, download free resources, view reference books, etc. It annoys me that we now have such brilliant resources at our fingertips yet choose to use them to watch brain numbing tik tok videos etc!

It was simpler in some ways but I personally found life then much harder than I do now. Not because my finances are better (they’re not particularly) but there’s far more access to support and advice than there was then (thanks to our double edged internet).

There are much stronger boundaries in place now against sexual harassment, verbal bullying, financial abuse etc. On one hand the internet is poison but on the other it can open doors to all sorts of positive things. If I had been able to access the internet then I’d probably have been able to find better career paths, get support for bullying at school and work etc and just generally learn about things I just couldn’t then (unless I waded through reference books in libraries).

I know people who look back very nostalgically at the 70s but to me it seemed as dingy and grim as you see on old film footage.

I was born at the end of the 50s and I loved the 70s. Would go back in a heartbeat.

Women in my family worked my Grandmother's Mum Aunties all had jobs.

I’m a bit older than you, born mid 60s and I get really fed up with this nostalgic view that leaves out so many things. A few examples: rape in marriage only finally made illegal in 70s, ditto women being able to get mortgages in their own names, endemic unchallenged sexism in most institutions from school onwards and many more things. Of course we face many and different challenges now but it wasn’t all sunshine and ginger beer.

Me too! Fabulous decade for me! My formative years, loved every second of it!

I was born in the late 60s. It was NI so it wasn't exactly the best of times. I remember bombs and shootings, and our neighbour checking his car each morning for car bombs. I also remember the emergency alerts on the TV telling keyholders to go back to their shops to check for incendiary devices and going to the shop with my mum to check for them. My parents split up when I was eight, single parenthood was highly stigmatised, people could be very unpleasant about it. I had a job from thirteen years old, and started going to nightclubs at fifteen, I remember a lot of sleazy older men trying to pick up young girls. I also remember a lot of boredom, especially Sunday, getting my first ZX Spectrum was extremely exciting! The 80s were good fun, the music was fantastic! I moved to London in the 90s, that was incredible fun, the rave scene was an absolute blast. But on balance I have a much better life now, it is fun to look back but its easy to have rose-tinted specs. I do think its amazing that my grandparents didn't have indoor plumbing until the 70s (and my grand mother had ten kids!), and now we have the internet and robot vacuum cleaners and AI. It makes me wish I could see what things will be like in another fifty years.

@Deeperthantheocean ,

‘There was a lot more inequality and things have changed so much for the better in many ways.’

I am not sure I agree with that. There was a lot more inequality based on sex and race, a lot less on wealth. I think there was far more social mobility then.

Covid was the worst time with some children isolated in large houses and gardens, with live in maids and bespoke lessons zoomed from private schools and others stuck in a couple of sweaty rooms with close to zero education and maybe abusive parents.

Also the 80s were a time of massive progress for women’s rights. When I went to Uni in the 80s my female friends all had total equality and all started at some of the best grad trainee programs in the country. And relationships tended to be based on equality and mutual respect. As you met fewer potential partners (nothing online) you focused on who you were with, not a smorgasbord of possibilities. And sex was more ‘normal’, no weird internet porn normalising weird fetishes.

We all idealise our youth (assuming it was decent) but I do think the internet has been damaging in many ways.

That’s a very different 70s to the one I had 😯

Wouldn’t that have been the 80s for you?

@BunnyLake
Yes that all happened in the 80s but the OP stated she was a 70s child and talked about 80s school discos so I suppose she's of an age with me.

Sounds like you had a colourful and varied time (not all good though 😯), unlike my rather dry, Catholic one 😁

Yes that was my teenage years. Bloody depressing.

Policewoman, The Onedin Line, proper Dr Who, The Professionals, The Persuaders, Captain Pugwash etc etc.

The world’s gone downhill ever since.

Mind Your Language, The Black and White Minstrel Show, Benny Hill, On The Buses, It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning etc telling racist "jokes" on prime-time TV, anything that even hinted at homosexuality being treated as a joke at best or an outrage at worst, people being horrified when there was a BLACK WOMAN reading the news!!??!...

It wasn't all Fawlty Towers and The Good Life.

Very, very true. There were some appalling attitudes then.

And, as PPs have said, strikes and powercuts.

My personal favourite crappy - but unimportant - thing was not being able to buy stamps except at the Post Office or in funny little machines attached to pillar boxes.

But I cling to the misty-eyed bits. Thank you for reminding me that liberalisation has worked wonders! 👍

I was a 70,s baby too and my parents had a much higher standard of living than I do .

People didn't seem to move their boyfriends in and stand back or join in while he killed the kids though.