People Remember These 40 Things Being Their Reality When They Were Kids But Children These Days Wouldn’t Understand Them
Every new generation of people experiences life differently. That depends on what economical, political and cultural environment they grew up surrounded by. They are also heavily impacted by the technology that is available and how it makes their lives easier and less complicated as time goes by.
Those who were born earlier witness the change in the generations, in the global trends and technology development and observe how younger people than them don’t experience the world in the same way they did.
This does not necessarily mean that the way today’s kids are growing up is wrong, but it’s still interesting to explore what things lose their relevance over time and how they immediately expose your age. Redditors went down memory lane when LastPoopOnTheLeft asked them “Without revealing your age, What is something from your childhood that ‘Kids These Days’ wouldn't understand?”
Let us know if anything in this list was part of your childhood and if you ever had to explain it to a younger person who had no idea what it was!
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How much time we spent playing outside, but not in organized sports. Pickup kickball in the street where you yell “CAR!” to break up the game briefly for a car driving through. Coming home covered in dirt after disappearing for five hours. We all made fun of how we were called by our parents. We would explore and poke around. Dig up worms, chase butterflies, freak out over finding a dead baby bird, skin our knees at least twice a summer and entertain ourselves for hours.
There wasn't even text message, phones had a cord on it that you could wrap around your house ten times, and if the TV wouldn't focus you had to either move these things called bunny ears or smack the TV lol
When I was a kid, we had a rotary phone ... and couldn't use it because even local calls cost money back then.
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That "Car!" in the post made me laugh! I also spent alot of time reading under a shady tree.
We would disappear off on bicycles for hours on end and would often be several miles away from home.
For HOURS! No devices, TV, bluetooth, etc. Just us, the outdoors and our imagination...
We didn't have street lights so we had to go in when Mrs. Lee called out for her cats to come inside.
Load More Replies... We made gocarts and played street hockey. Yes we yelled "CAR!" and got out of the way. No big deal for drivers back then like with some today. But then they didn't speed through neighborhoods and didn't need a sign to tell them not to. It was safer back then. You didn't have to be home if you're out after dinner until the streetlights came on. If the weather was nice we weren't "allowed" in the house except for the bathroom, and lunch.
I think the "older folks" are making more of a commentary on how we were generally more free to do so. No one knew where we were. No cell phone to contact us, no gps "find my friends" kind of stuff to locate us. We just went and did whatever tf and our parents didn't start to worry until the television would play that "its 10pm, do you know where your children are?" thing. Now my nephew has to be dropped off and picked up from school by a parent. Kids that walk to and from school alone are considered abandoned. It was just kind of assumed that we wouldn't die if we were unsupervised. Granted there were not so great aspects to being raised as a "free range" (lol) kid as well - being a latch key kid definitely sucked sometimes - but overall it was worth it. I really wish kids could have that kind of freedom now. I feel like everyone keeps their kids under a microscope now and that just sounds suffocating.
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Drinking from the garden hose.... when the streetlights came on, you went home, OR ELSE....Everybody's mom was free to smack you upside the head, & often did....
Kickball! I still miss it and wish I could find other adults who would play a game in the street. The leagues are much too serious for me.
We had to come home when the streetlights went on. Mom would say "when the sun goes down, you come home, growing things don't flourish in the dark".
Ah, the feeling of coming home almost after dark and having your eyes dazzled by the lights inside.
Millions of children are lucky enough to still do this-including mine.🤷🏻♀️
True. I didn't want to start my own post, I just wanted to say that SOME kids still do all these things and don't have cell phones.
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We had the entire neighborhood looking out for us. Neighbors knew each other, and knew each other’s phone numbers, as well as normal habits, so knew when to get concerned. I can remember once crossing a busy street I wasn’t allowed to cross, thinking no one would ever know. But by the time I got home, my mother already knew. Because someone in the neighborhood had called—-on a landline, which was all they had back then—-and given her the heads up about where I was.
Absolutely. Obviously the things are different from place to place. Sad. But some kids are still getting to be that kind of children. :)
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car! game off...car honks and waves as we took our hockey nets of the street. Game On! lol
I feel sad for the kids todays. They don’t know what PLAY is. Not for Real. Or having a Group realasion. In REAL LIFE & NOT ON ONLINE! But it’s NOT THE KIDS FAULT!!!! WE have Failed as The Leaders for them! I’m from the 70’s & I see the Generation of Kids from the 90- ,They Crew up in time when smartphones & computers & the Online World took over. They where sadly growing Up in a World,that when U sat at the Dinner the Phone was with & Mommy & Daddy sat with there New Best friend ; Facebook 👍 So did They at the Playground,Birthdays… But worst when the Kids tried to talk to them,was sad or just wanted to Play or do somethingelse THAN Facebook !! I Can see this Generation is strugling hard today be really Good Parents. I talk with my son mid 20- about this often. It’s hard to Play,when haven’t played…. But U learn👏🙏🏻 There are so many Lonely Kids today ( 5 Yr - up )! There have never been this Problem before.
My mother used a cow bell to call us. Then there those little shits who'd yell "COMING" when someone else's mom called their kid to come home.
We knew all the neighborhood kids and would play outside all day. We found all kinds of things, like when we discovered a swamp behind all the houses. It was also like a desert.
We knew all the neighborhood kids and would place outside all day. We found all kinds of things, like when we discovered a swamp behind all the houses. It was also like a desert.
You got to stay out until it was dusk and explore the world around you!
My daughter took my son's girlfriend on a tour of their old stomping grounds yesterday. The kids built a bike trail with ramps in the easement between the two cities. It doesn't look used anymore, but the ramps are still there. My kids are only on their twenties, but I raised them the old fashioned way. Most of the kids in that neighborhood were raised like that.
im apart of the generation where that was starting to die out. i would be like this often, but then DS came out, and IPods, my time outside got less and less. if im completly honest, id probably be and extrovert if these things werent apart of my childhood
And even if you were playing miles away from home, ANY random mother had the power to tell you to behave or to go home because it was getting late — and you OBEYED!
My cousin had a myna bird that called "Maaaarty" in his mother's voice.
Best part for me was when all the kids in the neighbourhood would spontaneously play hide & seek. Good times!
Christ, in the 70s a great day out was finding a building site to run around in... chasing each other with a bit of dog s**t on a stick. It was a like an early laarping version of Fortnite but with better pings.
I get frustrated with my kid that he hasn't learned the skill of entertaining himself without electronics. But, to be fair, I'm pretty hooked to electronics too these days, so I'm not exactly modelling good behavior in that department.
89' millennial, I remember Gameboys were the gateway to avoiding real world fun and when N64 GoldenEye, etc came out it became significantly harder to find people who felt like leaving the house. That said GoldenEye rules.
I had a friend who's mom always made her go outside for much of the day lol. She would get yelled at if she went inside for anything. Recently, she confided her mom was an alcoholic. That answered a few questions. She would often have to go to my place for snacks and to use the washroom.
At least if you were as good at roller skating as I was...
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I was born in the late 2000s and still know exactly what you are talking about
Late 2000 is yet to happen sometime towards the end of the millennium, around 2998th but I know what you're saying :)
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There was also the unspoken downside to parental neglect. Rapes and molestation in the 70s and 80s were sky high and unreported.
C’mon dude, don’t act like this was only a thing in “the good old days”. Talk to any kid now and they’ll tell you the same.
I'm so tired of people saying this. Kids still play outside all day. My kids play until I literally ring a bell for them to come in. I watched my sister's kids for seven years and they spent all day outside running all over the neighborhood. Just because technology exists doesn't mean that's all kids do. Also, my generation also had electronics. We had a TV, and eventually a VCR and an Atari. I used those devices AND played outside.
Getting to be goofy and awkward and not have to worry about it ending up online for everyone to see.
Recording music from the radio
I used to hate when the DJ talked over your favorite song after you had waited HOURS to catch it on the radio so you could record it.
How we had to plan our TV watching around a printed schedule. No VHS, no dvr.
It’s not working, cuz it’s not on Ch3
Knocking on your friends door to see if they could come out and play.
My best friend lived in the house behind mine so I would climb our chain link fence instead of going around the block to go visit her. She did the same for me. We went over so often we had pushed the top of the fence down. My father finally decided one year to put a ladder over it for us.
Hitting that red strip of paper for your toy gun with a rock.
Organising to meet someone on a landline and actually having to turn up on time or they wouldn’t know where you are because you have no way of contacting them.
Wait....... did we say one or two? Maybe it's one and they could be a little late. They will be here. Any minute now. Let's just wait untill two, just to be sure. At two your friend came around a corner and said that they weren't sure if we said one or two. Some of my friends still don't have a phone and it still stresses me out
Calling the theater to listen to the prerecorded list of what movies were playing and at what time.
Calling a girl and her dad answers the phone. That s**t was rough, kids.
We had to walk up to the t.v. to turn it on or off, change the channel, or adjust the antenna when the picture became unclear.
The Wizard of Oz was on once a year, and if we missed it we had to wait another year to see it
It always seemed to be around Easter because I remember eating chocolate bunnies while watching it.
those sort of binoculars with cardboard discs with pictures. I used to have Dora the Explorer ones.
Playing the same level on a game over and over because there’s no Saves
Countless times of being on the verge of having an aneurysm, but you kept your cool because you knew if the controller got obliterated that was it for the rest of your childhood....
That Lite Brite was peak technology
NOT DA MAMA!
Re-watched that series recently! It's surprising how much of it I clearly remembered, and just how cheesy it really is too.
Walking to blockbuster and spending an hour trying to pick a movie everyone agrees on
Kids these days wouldn't understand why people who grew up with beanie babies won't buy NFTs
The sound on the phone when somebody was using the internet.
Waiting til nights and weekends to make FREE phone calls on your mom’s Nokia.
Waiting to call long distance on weekends because it was cheaper. No cell phones.
I've noticed a lot of younger people who have grown up with social media don't have a strong sense of privacy. Everything is filmed and turned into a tiktok or an insta story without asking if you consent to having your life shared like this.
Waiting for your friend to get home to call them. (Not having constant access)
Yeah, and my mom always saying "What do you possibly have to talk about, you've seen them all day at school and you're going to see them tomorrow, you can talk then." I'm now perplexed by what we actually had to say to each other for so long.
A computer with a black screen with orange or green font.
Blowing on Game cartridges to make them work.
Going on road trips as a kid where the only form of entertainment was some sort of game played amongst your siblings in the back seat involving the license plates of other passing cars. On our car trip to Disney/FL from central PA me and my brother had a competition on who could write down the most license plate numbers… we ended in the thousands but for the life of me I can’t remember who “won” 😂
We used to do "Slug Bug" (without the punching, thankfully; we'd just yell that out whenever we saw a VW Beetle drive past). That's gotten much harder now that the VW Beetle has been discontinued.
Picking up the telephone to call your friend and hearing people talking because it was a party line, meaning multiple households all had to share the same line and so you had to wait until it was available.
I recently had to explain what “changing the channel” meant to my small kid because he only knows streaming. We’ve already covered CDs, VCRs, and what it means to roll down a car window. It was a little rough (for me, not him). Edit: oh and we watched “Turning Red” and I got to explain what a flip phone is.
You needed a light accessory for your Gameboy because those suckers didn't have back lighting. And to trade Pokemon, you needed to use cables. CABLES.
Note: this post originally had 45 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Getting your photos developed (and you could only take 24, not thousands)
And each picture costs money, including blurry and too dark to see.
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Adjusting the rabbit ears too. The youngest had to stand and hold a certain position so the tv would stay clear!😂
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Oh lord don't remind me. Cramming 5 people in a dodge colt hatchback with no ac to drive 12 hours to see relatives in another state. I hated summer break from school sometimes knowing that trip was coming
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My 9yo and I were recently watching reruns of AFV. The announcer at the end read off the "mail your videos to [address]" and she looks at me and says, "How do you mail a video?" I've never felt so old in my life 🤦♀️
As you can tell by my many down memory lane posts, apparently I am ancient. Just bury me in a pyramid.
While reading to an 8 year old recently I had to explain what a handkerchief was.
India till the 90s was a closed market and so we did not have most brands from abroad in India. We have a few which had the monopoly. Chocolate was mostly Cadbury... If we got some fancy food item, it was either from some expensive duty free shop or if someone came from abroad
Awe, you're in India... I have very close, intimate even, relationship with some parts of India. Please, kiss the sky and touch any tree for me. Pretty please, it was my birthday yesterday (June 2nd). And thank you. ♥️
Load More Replies... ok I can out-retro all this ... using a compass and mapbook to navigate instead of a gps. Coding in assembly code. Saving apps onto audio cassettes. ABBA was on the radio. Yes I am fing old.
The year was 1976 - my school had a computer room ( large room FULL of tape processor to run ONE monitor) I was drawn to it like a moth to flame. I was told " Women will never be able to work computers, they are way to complicated". Not the first nor the last time I was underestimated.
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My husband just brought up ditto machines. I can remember how the purple ink smelled when fresh out of the machine. Also, I'll add overhead projectors.
It is interesting to see that a lot of this stuff matches with the kids who grew up in India too at the same time. In India, till the 90s, TVs came in late. So not everyone had TV or good quality ones. Black and whites ones at most. My house was one of the first in my society to get colour TV. Plus television channels were govt controlled... so just one or two channels which had shows okayed by govt. But they were good programmes. Plus we had some shows from abroad including cartoons. Sundays had kids from our society in my house to see them. We were roaming all over town like goons and our parents were relaxed.. i am sure parents these days are petrified if their kids even steps outside their homes. Going to theatres to watch movies was a big deal. We wore good clothes. Food meant a popcorn pack, samosas or potato wadas, ice cream (chocobar) and cold drinks. Cold drinks was just one or two brands. We did not have international brands in India till 90s.
I miss games on CDs (or DVDs?) added to yoghurt or juice multipacs. They were simple but soo lovely
Lol how most of these were new technology for me at some point in my life.
I'm old enough to remember getting up real early on Saturday morning, turning on the TV to warm up, then waiting for the Test Pattern to turn off, the station sign on, then all cartoons all Saturday morning till 1:00 in the afternoon. Then spending the rest of the day running around outside.
If you missed an episode of your favorite show you had to wait for the rerun.
OMG...my kids didn't know how to make a "Collect Call"! We (adults) had to explain that to them. They asked ALL of our friends about calling "collect" just to hear how we each would make the call..."You have a Collect Call from, 'TheMovieIsOverCanYouComePickUsUpWeWillBeWaitingOutFront' Do you accept?" 😆😂🤣 Great Times!
To be honest I think a lot of "childhood things kids don't understand" and "gen z" is because most of the time, kids don't post on tiktok. Mostly weird kids do. But because other people don't actually go outside or meet kids, all they see is tiktok. Most of gen z does a lot of these things.
Getting your photos developed (and you could only take 24, not thousands)
And each picture costs money, including blurry and too dark to see.
Load More Replies... Adjusting the rabbit ears too. The youngest had to stand and hold a certain position so the tv would stay clear!😂
Load More Replies... Oh lord don't remind me. Cramming 5 people in a dodge colt hatchback with no ac to drive 12 hours to see relatives in another state. I hated summer break from school sometimes knowing that trip was coming
Load More Replies... My 9yo and I were recently watching reruns of AFV. The announcer at the end read off the "mail your videos to [address]" and she looks at me and says, "How do you mail a video?" I've never felt so old in my life 🤦♀️
As you can tell by my many down memory lane posts, apparently I am ancient. Just bury me in a pyramid.
While reading to an 8 year old recently I had to explain what a handkerchief was.
India till the 90s was a closed market and so we did not have most brands from abroad in India. We have a few which had the monopoly. Chocolate was mostly Cadbury... If we got some fancy food item, it was either from some expensive duty free shop or if someone came from abroad
Awe, you're in India... I have very close, intimate even, relationship with some parts of India. Please, kiss the sky and touch any tree for me. Pretty please, it was my birthday yesterday (June 2nd). And thank you. ♥️
Load More Replies... ok I can out-retro all this ... using a compass and mapbook to navigate instead of a gps. Coding in assembly code. Saving apps onto audio cassettes. ABBA was on the radio. Yes I am fing old.
The year was 1976 - my school had a computer room ( large room FULL of tape processor to run ONE monitor) I was drawn to it like a moth to flame. I was told " Women will never be able to work computers, they are way to complicated". Not the first nor the last time I was underestimated.
Load More Replies... My husband just brought up ditto machines. I can remember how the purple ink smelled when fresh out of the machine. Also, I'll add overhead projectors.
It is interesting to see that a lot of this stuff matches with the kids who grew up in India too at the same time. In India, till the 90s, TVs came in late. So not everyone had TV or good quality ones. Black and whites ones at most. My house was one of the first in my society to get colour TV. Plus television channels were govt controlled... so just one or two channels which had shows okayed by govt. But they were good programmes. Plus we had some shows from abroad including cartoons. Sundays had kids from our society in my house to see them. We were roaming all over town like goons and our parents were relaxed.. i am sure parents these days are petrified if their kids even steps outside their homes. Going to theatres to watch movies was a big deal. We wore good clothes. Food meant a popcorn pack, samosas or potato wadas, ice cream (chocobar) and cold drinks. Cold drinks was just one or two brands. We did not have international brands in India till 90s.
I miss games on CDs (or DVDs?) added to yoghurt or juice multipacs. They were simple but soo lovely
Lol how most of these were new technology for me at some point in my life.
I'm old enough to remember getting up real early on Saturday morning, turning on the TV to warm up, then waiting for the Test Pattern to turn off, the station sign on, then all cartoons all Saturday morning till 1:00 in the afternoon. Then spending the rest of the day running around outside.
If you missed an episode of your favorite show you had to wait for the rerun.
OMG...my kids didn't know how to make a "Collect Call"! We (adults) had to explain that to them. They asked ALL of our friends about calling "collect" just to hear how we each would make the call..."You have a Collect Call from, 'TheMovieIsOverCanYouComePickUsUpWeWillBeWaitingOutFront' Do you accept?" 😆😂🤣 Great Times!
To be honest I think a lot of "childhood things kids don't understand" and "gen z" is because most of the time, kids don't post on tiktok. Mostly weird kids do. But because other people don't actually go outside or meet kids, all they see is tiktok. Most of gen z does a lot of these things.
