People Share 47 Photos Of Their Parents Being Absolute Icons When They Were Young

You may have never considered this before, but your parents were probably cool when they were younger. Yes, before they had diapers to change and children to carpool, they might have been partying hard and enjoying their youth. Just think about the sorts of activities you were getting into at the age of 20. Do you really think that Mom and Dad didn’t try them all first?

In this particular TikTok trend, it seems like most of the users participating are very young adults, or even teenagers. So they have more access to photos of their mothers and fathers from when they were young than any generation ever has before. As technology has rapidly advanced over the last few decades, it has become easier than ever to snap photos. And now, kids will never have to wonder about what their parents were like in their youth. They can just pull up their old Instagram photos!

Nowadays, the average person has nearly 2,800 photos in their phone’s camera roll. That’s a bit overwhelming! But because it’s become so easy for us to carry such a large amount of images around in our pockets, some people are actually reverting back to the old school way of looking at their memories: through a photo album.

Duncan & Stone Paper Co. notes that photo albums are having a resurgence because many of us are looking for a break from the digital world. We spend so many hours staring at screens every single day, we might as well have a way to look at our memories without using a computer or phone.  

In that same vein, many people long for a return to tangibilty. It seems like everything is done digitally nowadays, from legal documents to photos to restaurant menus. We don’t even need to walk into stores when we can order everything we need online. But it’s refreshing to be able to hold your photos in your hands and see them without having to zoom in on a screen. Plus, you can print them out to whatever size you like and plaster them all over your walls or fill up an entire photo album if you so choose. 

Another benefit of having physical photo albums is that they’re more reliable than anything stored on a device. If you drop your phone in a lake or it gets stolen while you’re on vacation, there’s a huge risk that your entire camera roll will be toast. But if you print out your photos and have physical copies of all important images, you’ll never have to worry about relying on the cloud or some device that can easily be broken. 

Something that makes physical photo albums particularly beautiful is the fact that you can give them a personal touch. You choose which images to include, and you get to assemble them however you like. It’s likely that you’ll even feel a stronger emotional connection to the images when you slowly sift through them and decide on how to arrange them. These are memories that might be passed down for generations, so it’s a great idea to assemble them with love and care. Imagine that your future children and grandchildren will be flipping through the pages someday.

Parents tend to keep some secrets from their kids, just like most kids don’t reveal everything they’ve ever done to their parents either. But being open about your youth and sharing some of your most cherished memories with your kids might help them feel even closer to you. After all, we’ve all been an angsty teenager who believes that mom and dad couldn’t possibly understand what we’re going through. But the reality is that they’ve probably been in the exact same situation at some point. And they might even have photographic evidence to prove it! 

If you’re lucky enough to have parents who are still alive, don’t hesitate to ask them if they’ve got any photos from their youth lying around. Whether it’s a picture of them with their prom date or some photos from their college graduation, it’s always fascinating to see what our parents were up to before we came along. And these snippets into their past might make you realize that you have much more in common with Mom and Dad than you previously thought! 

Are you enjoying these photos of parents absolutely slaying in their youth, pandas? Keep upvoting the pics that you find most iconic, and let us know in the comments below if you have any photos of your own mother or father that deserve a spot on this list too. Then, if you’d like to check out another Bored Panda article featuring parents who were probably even cooler than their kids, look no further than right here!