If you could choose another era to have grown up in

[Stuckinthesuburbs]

When would you choose?

I was a 90’s teen, 80’s kid, in my twenties in the 00’s..seems the perfect combination and I’m grateful for it.

Watching ‘Are you there God, it’s me Margaret’ and thinking being a child/teen in the 70’s and 20 something in the 80’s would have been fun..or possibly the Grease era-50’s

Anyone…? Did Mn go down

I must be roughly the same age as you OP! However I have to say I think this idea of a halcyon time for growing up isn't that helpful.

Every time has its challenges and the notion that if only the timing was different our lives would be better isn't realistic.

Probably rather ignorant to the realities of life in the 50s but I would love to have been a child/in my teens back then. Just seemed such a positive time compared with 80s onwards.

I was similar OP. I’m glad I did not grow up on social media but equally, I have very few photos of me in my young years, it was only when I got to my early 30s did people in my circle start taking pics.
Photos aside, I’m not convinced any other era would have been better, 60s might have been fun? Certainly not any earlier when they spend a good swathe of the late 40s and 50s getting over the war and all that that entailed.
Definitely not now.

DM's neighbour was a nanny in central
London in the 60s. The little kid she was looking after knew Paul McCartney and she met him that way and got invited to parties. I think it must have been very cool to be a young person in Swinging 60s London. Having said all that, I don't wish I was around at that time. I think each era has its merits. I have a friend who is constantly harking back to her youth and how great everything was then and I find that annoying. Things change all the time and change is not necessarily bad.

The problem with any era is that you are then too old for the next era.

Did you watch any of the 'Back in time.....' series? The wife commented about how the swinging 60s passed her by whereas her daughters were loving it. She was still stuck being a housewife keeping everything going.

My parents both missed out on the teenage years. One through being at sea on the far side of the world, the other through growing up in a very rural area then effectively going into service.

To them both teenage rebellion was anathema. Respectability was everything. I had a 1950s childhood despite having been born in 1967.

Same age as you at a guess. I'm glad I grew up when I did. No social media growing up, music was good, there was so much variety, fashion was individual, computer games weren't as big, we had more freedom and more adventures. We were happy, we ate well as fast food was a treat not a regular thing (I see queues for the Drive Thru so often).

I think the only thing I would maybe change would to have been a teenager in the 80s.

I do love the 1940s style, the hair, the clothes, the furniture design..
So 1920s, maybe in USA...

I had so much fun as a kid in the 70s and as a teen/early 20s in the 80s. The freedom as a kid is a world away from what they have now. Whenever an old show is on tv, I get maudlin for the old days as they seemed simpler.

But there was also a lot of sexism that I didnt notice at the time or I turned a blind eye to.

I'd prefer to be a kid/teen around the millennium and before social media really took a hold. There was more opportunity for girls around that time and I could've taken a different path.

Between the world wars. But only if I was a 'bright young thing', beautiful, glamourous and rich AF. Like the Mitfords, minus the facism.

Being a kid in the 90s was quite nice. Obviously it wasn’t without issues but it was probably the last time in Britain that we were quite hopeful that things would continue to improve and keep getting better - rather than the widespread knowledge we have now of how shit everything is, and how fucked as a planet and species we really are.

I grew up in the exact times you are talking about, OP. Born in 1962. I would not change one minute of it for the world. I remember freedom, fun, laughs. I would call my early life, up to the age of about 30, in 1992 (coincidentally the year I met my now-ex husband) as carefree and full of opportunity and optimism. And late 70s / early 80s had the best music. And no social media.
It is ok now, just different. Life and work became so much more serious after about 1990! And now the world is burning up and going to shit as well.

Now off to look for 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret'...

I have to chuckle a little when I read of young 'uns who think the 40s and 50s would be fun, because they like the fashion and the music. Not fun. Not fun at all, specially for a girl/woman. I don't know where to start in terms of the awfulness.

"The Feminine Mystique" should be compulsory reading.

Exactly this.

Eras can be very different depending how rich you were. For example, the 1930s sound idyllic in the Swallows and Amazons/Famous Five books but they were all middle class children who went to boarding schools so clearly had plenty of money and therefore led comfortable lives. However if you were very
poor in an inner city life would have been very different. I’d like to experience the first but not the second!

I'm just glad I'm not a teen now. I had a great time as a teen in the early 00s (not sure if I've got my rose specs on but I really can't remember anything that bad about it for me personally).

I'd start with periods. No one born since the 80s can imagine how horrendous sanitary protection was even in the 60s and 70s. No wonder it was referred to as 'the curse'. Combine that with the woollen stockings and suspenders which were part of my Grammar school uniform in the 60s, no thanks. Edit: there is an example in the Science Museum of all places - this was my life https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8671443/1-sanitary-belt unfortunately I can't find a link to show how they were worn.

On that note, yes Grammar school gave me a great education but my younger sister failed her 11+ and went to Secondary Modern. She had a terrible time and has resented me, although I had done nothing wrong, ever since.