To think the younger MN generation would be shocked at things we did decades ago...

[Allonthesametrain]

It was such a different time, before the days of hand gel, smartphones, ordering online, house cctv, awareness etc.

This is from a background of a good home with values, DF worked hard, DM did everything for us 3 DC and also worked early before we got up and during school hours when we of that age.

Things we would do...

All 3 have a bath together every night when young, also go into after bath DF or DM.

Most clothes were hand me downs/passed on from friends and neighbours and anything new was for a special occasion.

If we wanted anything special we had to wait until Christmas or birthdays and were delighted and grateful

Lucky to have a house phone, it was in the hall way so no privacy and a shout how long are you going to be on there if you rang out

Bedrooms were sparse, we put colour on our walls with posters we got from magazines

Fun time meeting your friends, on foot or bikes, roller boots, usually at the school you've been at all day because it was known and had no big fences around it.

We collected tapes, later CDs, which we listened to over again and had to rewind, also recorded from friends on a double deck

Recorded our favourite songs from the radio, had to pause before next one to not include the DJ's blitherings

Young teens, oldest looking member of group bought a couple of 2L cheapest cider, we all drank from

Pubs, rarely enough loo roll, we never thought to bring our own, wipe by hand or drip dry

Need a wee, you went anywhere

You walked to meet your friends then walked/staggered back, split up on way to walk on your own as girls

You didn't dare argue with a teacher, even when it was unfair as a good student

If you went to university it was a shared bathroom and kitchen between 12, one tine fridge, old pans. Then when you moved out to house share the furniture was from the 1940s, mattresses had springs sticking out, slugs were a normal practice to put outside.

You qualify, get your own first flat, most basic furnished, the slug relatives are there, you still have to go to the laundrette as no washing machine. Single glazing, you put your own film up to help.

This was if lucky, friends from less privileged areas and backgrounds were left to roam, hungry, sniffed glue, caused chaos, were always dirty, same clothes every day. When 'naughty' they were beaten by their parents and disrespected, often hit by teachers.

Things have progressed so much but there are still many living this life within their homes.

So, with the observation of MN posts about things like should I be upset about DC not being offered his favourite food at lunch time just seems so trivial compared to the reality of us as older parents.

Are younger parents picking arguments about what could be deemed as insignificant just because they can now on SM?

Yeah, I know, I will seem as a dinosaur, but Im not. Basic values need to come from home, which we as gen X experienced growing up. When you're a young child and all you know is instant gratification from screens then this is their norm, then going forward their DC. Not saying all parents do this, of course not, but sadly many do.

My point? Oh yes, growing up in harsher times, which wasn't ideal at all but it was what it was and now we appreciate the positives of now, but without knowing what it was like before is it difficult to appreciate and not succumb to a lazier way of parenting?

Loving all the reminiscing. Some things are better now and others way worse. I was born mid 60s and recognise a lot from @Allonthesametrain's post.

We were quite well off but even so, far fewer luxuries. Has anyone mentioned that awful hard loo paper that was completely non absorbent?

We used to wander for miles too, and parents never seemed to wonder where we were. Phone calls after 6pm only.

Very few outings as a family. We made our own fun with siblings and the other kids in our road. In and out of each other's houses.

A week camping once a year. Dad at work all day, mum busy with housework. She had one of those top loading washing machines. Then she went out to do a party plan thing in the evenings. Pippa dee?

Times were tougher in many ways but I think today's family have a lot of different pressures.

I can't quite believe the comments on here! 1/3 just being snide and sarcastic, 1/3 moaning about how awful life was in the 70s and how life is so much better now and 1/3 sneering because they, apparently were never poor enough to share baths.
Sounds exactly like my childhood and my kid who is now nearly 17 is desperately jealous that kids were allowed freedom in those days instead of being babied constantly.
As he said only yesterday it's demeaning that I'm not considered old enough to go to the dentist on my own but apparently I can join the army, take puberty blockers and if labour have their way, vote!

That would be because op put the boot into people who came along after her

Oh you lot are so right about many things, I was a child of the 1950s and a teenager in the 1960s and a young adult in the 1970s. Born in 1949.

1950s
Rationing until 1954
No central heating - we had lovely coal fires which we cleaned out every morning, got it laid out ready to be relit in the evening.
No double glazing - Ice would actually be thick on the inside of the windows in winter, but we had hot water bottles and lovely thick blankets.
No fridges/freezers - Most houses had a built in Larder at the coldest part of the house where we would store fresh food (none of this chemical additive shit back then)
No gas fires - we had a coal cellar, which was filled fortnightly by a delivery coalman.
No washing machines - We had a Dolly Tub and a Posser (look it up)
Oh, and nappies were washed and reused over and over again.
No Supermarkets - We had Butchers, Greengrocers, Sweet Shops, and Corner Shops. Everything served fresh.
No teabags, and fresh milk was delivered daily to our doorsteps.
Very few TVs around.
Shops closed Sunday all day and half days Wednesdays.
Very few cars we could actually play out on roads and just move when the occasional vehicle came.
Okay no phones, but as kids we had the freedom to roam everywhere, as kids we would walk 4 miles there and 4 miles back to the swimming pool for the day on our own with a packed lunch in the morning, and not return until teatime. We were 8 years old when this was allowed.
Yes my parents probably had it hard, but we kids loved it.

1960s
What can I say about the swinging 60s as a teenager. Great fashion, saw the Beatles live, Still no mobile phones or Computers everything had to be learned and studied from books with a lot of our time spent in local Libraries. No such thing as "Googling", but that was okay we didn't know anything different then.
We actually socialised face to face without having our heads glued to a mobile phone.

1970s
As a young Adult getting employment was easy, there was always work if you wanted it. There was job security, with paid holidays, overtime at time and a half, and a company pension scheme. The downside was probably the low wages and the discriminatory wages between women and men who were doing the same job. Yes there were strikes and quite a few power cuts because of them, candles were a necessity in the 70s.

I obviously have good and bad experiences of the ensuing decades, and in many ways things are much better now, but also the opposite applies.
We got Computers then we got Social Media with all the good and bad that comes with that. The bad being Scams, Trolls, and our children's safety being endangered. Food additives, Plastic (even in bloody teabags) pollution, global warming, etc., the list goes on.

So on the whole and I stress solely in my case, I had a great childhood, a fantastic time more or less as a teenager, and as an adult and now an OAP both good and bad experiences. I find the people who walk about with their head and eyes glued to their mobile phones very sad individuals, but that is me.

Thank you for listening.

My daughter's tuck shop at primary school in 2023 offered...
Plain crackers
Plain digestive biscuits
A spoonful of raisins
A square of cheese

@Katemax82 good grief

I was born in 79 and that all applies to me too. No phone til I was about 12 and then I wasn't allowed to use it... 😂 We did have a car, very old rust buckets really. Shared bathwater, mind you, I didn't have an indoor bathroom til age 6, it was a tin bath in the kitchen til then, and an outside loo. My mum always bleached her dishcloths for reuse and still does! 😅

Do you not think this is a generational thing though, each thinking the new generation is softer then the previous one. i.e I am a baby boomer, (only just) but my family told me I needed to toughen up as I had it easy in comparison to them living through WW2, that generation were told how bad WW1 was etc.

Its just the circle of life.

But the one thing that was better about previous generations was that we got to make our mistakes in private, no-one filmed and preserved it for eternity or exchanged messages or documents that were so easily left for others to see. Total strangers didn't get to dissect and comment about your life. Not everything is better.

@Helpmetochange
We were quite well off but even so, far fewer luxuries. Has anyone mentioned that awful hard loo paper that was completely non absorbent?

Izal?

Yes! In the green packet. Terrible stuff

Most nights DD has a bath first, then DS uses the water and then I add a bit of hot to it and have a bath a couple of hours later before I go to bed. Is that such a weird thing to do? Seems like saving water to me.

It did make me laugh...

How old do you think the younger generation on here are? I was born 1995 and the majority of your list applied to my childhood. Damn even the 12 to a kitchen at university was bang on my 2013 experience and my sister had a slug infestation in her student digs. Less parents beat their kids that’s true enough… but the rest of it was the case for many millenials and some older Gen Z.

Absolutely this. Of course we remember life before smartphones - we didn't even have wireless internet at university and I'm not yet 40. Things like izal toilet paper were still around when I was little - I distinctly remember it in our village hall. Everyone I know still baths their children together too.

Why can't he go to the dentist on his own My DS was allowed to ( they didn't bat an eyelid) from 16 and he's only 22 now do hardly a life time ago

Yes I agree each generation will always say the next has it easier and this has changed in means of concerns.

However I do realise my gen have had it easier than our parents and same for them, with regard to actual basic living comforts.

We absolutely have become 'softer' because we're more protected by law and have to take accountability for our actions. This is of course positive and an evolution of forward thinking and why we do roll our eyes as something we experienced as minor is more questionable.

As always, some try it take to the extreme, to be offended at the slightest thing and vocalise it, share on SM and can ruin others' lives with hate speech.

Wow. Fascinating stuff - thank you!

As PPs have mentioned though, the mysogyny was just awful back then.

I came from a comfortable background. When I’d just turned 18, in the early 80s, I had two men on different occasions in just one month force themselves on me. Today that would be called rape, but I just chalked it up to experience. Many friends and acquaintances went though similar.

A couple of years later my best friend at the time said that her stepfather businessman needed a secretary if I was interested. I turned up for the interview and he cut straight to the chase, saying that if I would have sex with him once a week he’d take me to Paris once a month and buy me jewellery.

I was speechless and politely left. I never told her and recently, almost 40 years later, she posted photos of their wedding anniversary on Instagram.

There were so many other instances that would take paragraphs to document - we were literally objects.

That may be your experience and of course I'm not doubting that it happened, but it wasn't mine and I never experienced anything like that, nor did any of my friends. None of the men I worked for would have dreamt of saying anything like that, they were all decent.

Doesn't surprise me at all, sadly. Glad times have changed from that point of view.