Were you brought up in the 1970s? Has it influenced you?

[Maninadirndl]

I saw a Channel 4 programme recently called "Never Did Me Any Harm" about a Dad who gets no respect from his kids who takes them all back in time to the 1970s. It struck parallels with my own life then, and has influenced me now.

When I am dressing my kids and one of them says "I don't want that pair of trousers" I go nuts when I remember how little colour coordination or fashion meant in those days. You put on a pair of pants and that was it. In summer a pair of shorts to play in and oif they got mud on another pair etc. No thought as to what designer label it was or whatever. Now we dress them quite nicely in fashionalble stuff but which comes from the spring and autumn kids flea markets which are put on by the local churches here in Bavaria. I blame the 80s era for the obssession with designer rubbish.

Elsewhere on MN I saw some debate about whether "good" parents did crafts all day with their kids. My parents were too tired to do anything like that with me, I just got on with doing stuff like model trains or farm or whatever. In summer I'd play in the trees or build dens. I remember a huge amount of freedom to roam in sometimes quite dangerous places looking back. We lived near the sea and there was a railway at the back of our garden. Sometimes kids died as a result of accidents in trees or hit by cars. Is life safer now? Or is it "too" safe? There seems to be a fixation with child perverts in Britain which you don't get in the rest of Europe.

TV was actually quite a good influence. Blue Peter was a good programme then as was "Why don't You?" in the summer holidays making you go out and do stuff for yourself. Now that there are millions of distractions like mobiles and computers how many kids can do anything for themselves?

But on the other hand was it that safe? I remember Bonfire Night being exciting but looking back pretty dangerous. We used to have our own family bonfire with the neighbours bringing along potatoes and treacle toffee. I have wonderful memories but around me there were stories of kids letting off bangers in school and getting badly burned.

So here I ask, was life better in the 70s or worse?

wasabi - I remember being allowed to walk to school age 7/8 (moved away from UK after that), and when I mentioned this to my mum the other day she laughed and told me I thought I did, but in reality she and the other mums from my street would take it in turns to walk discreetly behind us all the way to school!!!!

we don't have a lot of STUFF but still it's so much more than we had growing up.

we used to go on holiday with me and my sister lying on the suitcases and sleeping bags in the boot of the car waving to the lorry drivers. if there had been an accident i dread to think what would have happened to us.

we didn't get a telly until i was 5 and it was black and white, things were hand made or mended, we camped for holidays etc etc.

i hope this credit crunch takes the edge off people's desire to communicate through their THINGS tbh, it's a bore and always has been.

bring back the 70s.

I was free to roam and feel sorry my DD won't have that to the same degree. (Were my parents just not bothered about us playing near gluesniffers??)
CRAFTS!??? I spent more time with the other kids on the street than ANY of my family. The front door was open, or I had a key, to come and go and my parents just got on with their normal lives.
Fashion? ...well moving from black plimsolls to white trainers was a big deal for me.

I can't tell you whether it was safer in general. It was safe enough for me as I got here all in one piece. And I try to bring my DC up with a healthy disrespect for 'safety' by not fussing too much.

I think that if you pick and choose the bits you like from modern life children can have the most amazing time. Much better than our childhoods in so many ways. But you do have to lighten up a bit. Not get so wound up about every aspect of parenting. It's meant to be fun - at least for the children.

Great thread. Loved the Andrew Collins book. Brought back memories of Angel Delight, curly wurlies, Blankety Blank, Telly Addicts, Buck Rogers, Brady Bunch and Six Million Dollar Man - we watched a lot of tv! Such a difference to nowadays when there are so many different channels there can never be the same shared memories. Can anyone else remember the opening lyrics of the Six Million Dollar Man - "Steve Austin, a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster, doh doh doh doh....". What was the name of that quiz for families where the quizmaster was Robert Robinson? They'd always have brainy families where the parents and the kids would have thick glasses. There was always a question where you had to identify an object from a strange angle.

Growing up in the 1970s meant that I grew up with an abusive parent and my siblings. Today we would have undoubtedly been taken away from her. I don't know if that would have been for the best, but it makes nostalgia difficult.
We were allowed to roam because she didn't give a damn where we were. I was thinking about this the other day when three separate people told me off for letting DC walk without holding my hand. Apparently "anything could happen". I am not sure that it is that parents are too overprotective, but that children have few opportunities to be at all independent.

Message withdrawn

Extremelychoclatyetc. we did seem to fit in a lot of telly didn't we considering we were also out roaming the streets for 12 hours a day ?

Very true wasabi .

wasabipeanut - you can rage at me then because I don't use parenting books. It's a difference of approach - I don't want to be perfect just good enough and I think flexibility is the key, not rules. Not one of my DC has been the same in any stage of their childhood. I parent on the hoof.

But I had by and large very good parents who put DB and I first and did most things well. I (try to) model myself more or less on them as a parent. I wonder if those who feel they were well-parented are less likely to use books to guide them than those who feel short-changed by their parents.

See earlier comment about Radio Rentals telly, but no we didn't fit in a lot of telly watching. This is what makes me sad about today's kids and the amount they watch [grumpy old git emoticon].
My nephew had his first birthday recently and he got a Makka Pakka toy as it's his favourite TV character. How can you have a favourite TV character when you've been on this earth only twelve months? Favourite doll, book, toy car maybe, but TV character?? How much telly is he watching?

Wasabi - you just reminded me of one thing - smoking was so cool in the 70s - all real men did it didnt they? I can remember the horrendous fug of grey smoke after visits from people in our house which took fecking weeks to go away.

Chocolate: that was Ask the Family and weren't those families bloody awful? I also remember 6 million dollar man and I was envious of my mate who had an Action Man Steve Austin with the bionic eye in the back.

"Get aboard....get aboard with the Double Deckers"!

Anyone remember how shocked we all were when Carry on Camping was shown one Sunday evening? Think it was the first time I saw womens' breasts. Mind you since I became a Dad, not much has changed!!!!!

Ask the Family - that was it! Thanks manina. I too remember the shocked tones in which Carry on Camping was discussed at school. Also remember Crackajack, Magpie - and how they would show how much they had raised for some charity by walking what seemed miles along a corridor with the amount marked on the wall. Also remember David Cassidy, Bay City Rollers and The Osmonds. Not sure how I have been influenced by all of these - this has turned into a bit of a nostalgia fest for me.

I remember that the clothes were bordering on child abuse! and that kids played out all day, coming in when it got dark or we got hungry, so filthy that we were chucked straight into a bath. tv was nicer, and we weren't surrounded by sex and violence.

I do remember the freedom to wander about the neighbourhood. I try to give my own kids at least some of that freedom but the roads are a lot busier than they were then.

I also remember the power cuts with my mum, my brother and I all sat in the kitchen playing Monopoly by candle-light and with the gas hob on to keep us warm.

I also remember my dad leaving my brother and I in the back of his Ford Capri with a bottle of lemonade (anyone else remember those pointless paper straws that went soggy in seconds?) and a packet of crisps each. Meanwhile, he was having a few pints in the pub with his mates, and then smoking in the car with us in the back, and that was it for contact with him for another few weeks... Twunt.

I also still remember laughing when I heard he'd finally got done for drink-driving.

When I was a child in the 70s my mother used to go on and on at me about how I didn't do much and she was always out on her bike, captaining cricket matches blah blah blah. I grew up envious of the halcyon days of her youth in the 30s and 40s, and wishing I had not spent my childhood in the crumby, ugly, dirty 70s.

Now, I spend the whole time telling my children they don't do anything like the amount of activity I used to do as a child - as everyone else here has said, endlessly playing on my own or with friends in remote places, laughing at the flashers, going off without telling my mother where, walking a mile to school at the age of 5 with only my sister to make sure I was ok, etc etc etc. And I now look back to the 70s with affection and amusement.

Plus ca change.

This thread is great. I was born in the 70's and remember twin tub washing machine, playing out all day - untill tea time or bath time. Agree with the no pink thing, I wore lots of cords and dunagrees and was still a girly girl.

Birthday parties were very rare, and always at someones house, playing musical statues/sleeping elephants etc.

I have fond memories of street parties at my Grans house and I also remember power cuts, oh how I LOVED them. My friend LIndsay and I were sent to the local corner shop to buy candles one night in a power cut - it was pitch balck as all the street lights were out! My mum was the only one on our street with a gas hob and she used to boil water for everyone so they could make a brew!

Kids had 2 pairs of shoes only - a pair for school and some 'playing out shoes' which were usually our school plimsolls all though we called them sandshoes.

Happy days

I loved my cutout dolls from Twinkle!! Keep in an old shoebox. Kept me busy for hors apparently.

I remember Radio Rentals and the power cuts which were always quite exciting. We did our washing by hand as we didn't have a washing machine but we did have a spin dryer. We also had a calor gas heater as the central heating was electric so too expensive to use. We used to have tea as coffee was more expensive - expect if we went out somewhere and they were the same price we would always have coffee. My mum used to make stews with braising steak and pearl barley - I hated the pearl barley. She also used to make scones with mixed dried fruit and I'd always take out the peel. I remember the street party we had for the Queen's Jubilee.

I was born at the very end of the 60s so was primary age in the 70s. We lived backing onto a school and there was a field beyond that so we spent a fair bit of time roaming around there or at friend's houses as a lot of children lived locally. Mum did know pretty much where we were though.

I don't remember being in the car without a seatbelt, we had some weird red Britax car seat when we were little then went onto a sort of harness thing which was bolted to the chasis of the car.

My Mum parented by Dr Spock, her copy is gathering dust in my bedside table, I don't tend to use parenting books.

Remember the black outs and when we first got a colour TV. I was never allowed to watch Grange Hill.

Parties were at houses and we had long party dresses which I used to love. I do remember being a bit older though (still primary age) and having a swimming party at a place near us with party tea there and my brother having similar parties.

Christmas stockings were a small red felt stocking with cotton wool on the top for me and glitter for my brother with an obligatory tangerine in the toe and a fraction of the stuff mine get in theirs.

oh yes, power cuts and rubbish piled up in the streets

the 70s for me meant playing out alot,getting shot at by the gamekeeper (favorite game of ours ) sweets that cost 1/4 of a pence , hideous clothing in browns and orange ,pippa dolls and sunshine ,because it never ever rained in the 70s until you went on holiday

I was 7 in 1970, so I suppose that counts as having been (partly) brought up in the 70s. Very similar childhood to what my nephews are still having in Sweden. And for my dd, the main difference is that she has a disability that means she cannot roam the way I used to.

Dh otoh grew up in London in the 60s so was never allowed to ride a bike (too much traffic) and probably had less freedom than ds does now in a more middling sized town.