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 was born in ‘73. I remember playing out a lot, building dens from mum’s clothes horse, riding my bike on the nearby culdesac where my friends lived, we played skipping, marbles, two- ball, Sindy and Barbie dolls, Tiny Tears and dolls prams. I coloured a lot. I watched children’s BBC programs every afternoon like Blue Peter, Grange Hill, Take Heart, etc.

I had a good childhood, but my own DD has done all of the above too being born in 2005. She had also done more than I did as we are more wealthy than my parents were and have taken her on foreign holidays, payed for swimming and music lessons and private tuition to help her pass her 11+. She has achieved better than me as in hindsight she has had more support and encouragement academically and she is much more confident than I am. It’s a shame though that she will be saddled with around 50,000 pounds of debt in order to get her degree!

The 70s and 80s seemed nice times to grow up in, but I don’t think they were all good - There was a lot of fear where I lived over the Yorkshire Ripper and I remember my mum and her friends being frightened to go out alone and children were not allowed to play out in the evenings or out of sight if adults. There was the miner’ strikes, power cuts, recessions and high unemployment. There was great fear of the IRA bombings, AIDS, nuclear war, and the UK was at war twice during my childhood with the Falkland’s war and the Gulf War.

Actually no. You're absolutely kidding yourselves if you think this is better now.
It's worse than ever. I take it you've heard of county lines, grooming gangs - Rotherham etc
Kids are not less naïve than they used to be and they are a lot more accessible now.

But would you want to be a teenager these days?

60s born here and was using computers in the late 79s/early 80s. I've embraced them.

I loved my youth time and enjoy life now but dear god I am glad I'm not a teenager now.

@Deeperthantheocean does your name come from a Space Brothers song?

1991, the case was R v R

Jeez a nice nostalgic thread ruined by talk of conjugals.

I remember life being harsher. You were expected just to get on with it. People seem so fragile and incapable now. I'm certainly more resilient from growing up then.

If you felt bored, you had to look for things to do and there was no helicopter parenting. I spent years just roaming around amusing myself. There was more freedom and you had to get creative with how you spent your time. Things were more casual and simpler.

Not intentionally lol...

Apart from the IRA and smoking, not much has changed!

I remember a friend of 14 having a 28 year old boyfriend. She was the envy of us all as he whisked her off to Paris one weekend, parents fully approving.

Those round tomato ball crisps I think were 8/10p at our tuck shop- one of my fondest memories! 😁

13p for a mars bar in 1979 in pur school tuck shop

60s baby here! Borderline late boomer/gen z.

It had a lot of sh*te too. No, my childhood wasn't happy. I was bought up on affluent neglect/abuse.

However, let's look at all the external stuff. Sexual abuse was unrecognised. Corrupt policing, womens aid only started in the 70s.

They weren't wonderful times. It's life as it was then. Just as today, there is good and bad, so there was then.

No, I wouldn't want to go back. My life only started to improve when I finally left the ex in 2000.

Just differences vaping and different terrorism. The world hasn't changed really. No point looking back with rose tinted spectacles

Ugh they were awful

I went to grammar school in 1969 the 11plus gave working class kids a chance to improve their lot. University grants enabled so many to access further education.
I signed up for a mortgage aged eighteen ( as a student nurse we were paid while training ) with my twenty year old fiance, unheard of now.
The only drugs I ever saw were at the hospital.
Happy days.

The 11 plus gave some kids a great start. For the rest of the population it inevitabely meant a second class education. I just missed out on the 11 plus by a couple of years, but know people who came into their own during their teens. They had been written off by the education system pretty much before they left primary school.

I'm a child of the 60s.yes life is very different. For me it's things like hung for murder, being illegal to be gay ,and poor girls having to give up their babies if they weren't married. Thankfully much better now. From a personal view playing out, walking to school.

I'm a late 70s baby. Home life wasn't great but one thing I will always be incredibly thankful for is that social media didn't exist when I was at school. I was bullied and life was hell but it would have been far, far worse with the Internet.

I do think the Internet has changed life for the worst, although there are of course benefits.

Exactly! ‘It’s not my experience, so you’re wrong!’ Probably all those drugs….

I agree as a child of the 70s. At 5 I was sent to school on group photos day in a much loathed hand me down t-shirt while some of my classmates wore the much coveted non compulsory uniform. It wasn’t a money issue. My mother just didn’t care about my appearance and I blamed myself. Most, pretty much all parents, including middle class parents were neglectful but today’s standards.

As for youth clubs at 13, no deffo not me. At this age I was starting to do bits and bobs with boys. By 14 I went to the local pub, mostly on special occasions eg NYE etc and did a bit of clubbing, especially on holiday. Down the Veronica’s in Tenerife at 14 getting free drinks all night from the bars, objecting to the midnight curfew my parents imposed and back home occasionally smoking cannabis. I bought my first packet of cigarettes on holiday at 14 and by 15 I was getting pissed down the pub once or twice a week.

I do have nostalgia for some of it. The freedom we had, which at times was actually quite dangerous. My 16 yo dd is so so sensible it’s unreal. I see some of the less sensible kids. A couple of boys a year older than dd and I feel quite protective of them as they get talked about like oddities when in fact their behaviour would have been run of the mill back then. One of them fancies my dd and turned up outside our house about a month ago trying to see her late at night but she was in bed and refused. According to dd’s friend they’d had quite a bit to drink. Idk if that was true but this to me is the sort of teenage behaviour much more normal in my era, not the sensible rigid rules of today mixed in with cancel culture.

Discos were in their heyday in the 70s so not surprising you went! I remember buying chocolate bars for 10c but everything was cheaper! There weren't any youth clubs where I grew up.
The playgrounds in my local parks are open and recently refurbished.
Sure there are things one looks back at fondly but there was also the energy crisis and war.
I do think people are aware of how previous generations had it - my mother was born in the 1920s and worked, as did all her older sisters (one a doctor and one a lawyer even).
Children don't have any responsibility or the drudgery of adulting - I'm sure my kids will be feeling the same about the 2010s as you do about the 70s when they are our age.

I completely agree with you here. Undiagnosed behaviour was just seen as naughty. Also, domestic violence, open racism and sexism, so many inequalities ignored 🙁. Society has moved forward for the better in most ways with protection laws. Xx

The world will go on without us. We are all insignificant really.

I'm just concerned that all this technology is leading up to revealing we've been living in a simulation!