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30 Facts From The ’70s And ’80s That Seem Unbelievable Now, Shared In This Online Thread
Kids in the '70s and '80s had a different experience when growing up. No wonder your auntie Betsie never misses a chance to tell the same old story of her 10-year-old self walking 5 km to school in freezing winter. “These days kids, they don’t know!” she mumbles.
But she must be right. This illuminating thread shared by Dan Wuori, the senior director of early learning at The Hunt Institute, shed light on what kids in the past experienced in their daily lives and most of it is simply hard to imagine.
“My high school had a smoking area. For the kids,” Wuori tweeted before asking everyone to share “What’s something you experienced as a kid that would blow your children’s minds?” Below we selected some of the most interesting posts that reveal just how much times have changed.
Image credits: DanWuori
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The newspapers started reporting things that had been considered taboo before, including suicide, cancer and, more relevantly in this instance, pederasty. There's no evidence that there are more attacks on children today relative to the past, but our awareness of them is much, much higher. Consequently parents are more fearful of leaving children unsupervised.
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Talk about free range: This was typical. There really wasn't this constant helicoptering over kids, and if you knew a kid with that kind of parent, you felt sorry for them. I used to grab my bike and $5 on a Saturday and take the ferry from Washington State to Victoria, BC, and be gone all day. Alone. At age 12. No one thought that was weird. It was great.
That's amazing. But please understand that "this constant helicoptering over kids" is due to many, many things. I don't like to let my 12 yo kid ride her bike all around because there's so much traffic and people drive like maniacs. We do ride together and I teach her safe riding on the street, but the roads I biked on as a child have waaaaaay more traffic now.
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I remember eating a pack of candy cigarettes after a tough day of school.
Remember the Grape one in there. Some of them had more dust on them than others and you could get 2 puffs out of them.
Load More Replies... I was free range when I lived with my nana. Spent days down the brook with a net catching nothing. Didn't matter.
Didn't matter, didn't care, got wet, got muddy, we survived. had fun. made friends.
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I posted this under something else on here but the fact we had the "it's 10pm, do you know where your children are?" thing that came on TV gives the younger generation a pretty good idea of just how free range we all were lol
Ah the days of being a free range kid. Though I was a little too free range and mom would drive around the neighborhood sometimes looking for me since I wasn't where I said I'd be. In fairness to mom, I was way too young to be walking and biking as far as I went.
Back then parents want and let you play outside. Now parents want you to be outside more but don't let you outside
My children are free range here in Bangalore, India. We have given them the liberty to go out and play to their heart's content, with friends until it's 7.30 pm, then they come back home wash up, study for a bit and relax before dinner. The world is wicked and so we keep an eye without intruding. This is to ensure they are safe and our of trouble.
At our house you had to be home for lunch. Mom babysat the neighbor kids and we all went off and played until lunch while mom was getting all the housework done and after lunch, get this.... We all played. Mom, kids, the other neighbor moms and kids. Limbo in the driveway. Critter races (because mom said that morning for us all to catch a critter that day). So we would have a turtle, a walking stick, a praying mantis and a crawdad all in the same race. . We went outside and we had a lot of fun.
I grew up like this too, and have a lot of good memories. But there is a huge difference now, that began in the 80's-the number of kids around. By the time I had children, both parents had to work and we had much smaller families than our parents did, and this trend has accelerated. As children, we were surrounded by other kids, both siblings and neighbors. If a perv flashed you, you fell out of a tree, or some one bullied you, there were always other kids around to back you up. That is not the case now. Most kids are at day care or sports or some other activity. There was safety in numbers. So I try not to be too critical of parents now. I would definitely think twice about sending my child out into an empty neighborhood.
Pretty much every kid I know (including myself) who grew up in the 70's & 80's experienced a guy showing them his d*ck or trying to get them to get into their car!!! Lol
Same. We played in barna and stables, in woods went swimming in wild pools. Yet most of us survived.
Free range kid. I like that, Karen. You summed up my childhood in three words.
One day we're going to be made fun of for our childhoods the same way we made fun of the snow walk miles away to school childhoods of lore 😆
I lived the 70's and 80's yet I don't recall every being outside the house much. I also moved so much I never had friends like in the movies or tv shows from that time.
I was watching Jaws, the 1975 version and there is a scene where the mayor is smoking in the hospital! I still have trouble getting over that one and I fully remember that time period in which you could do that! I still watch some old movies and think to myself" omg! they're using a public pay phone"!
My son has had an 10 PM curfew since he was 15 years old. He has had an 11 PM curfew since he was 17 years old. He turns 18 soon, but because I have trusted him, he isn't likely to do anything stupid. I still raise my kids this way.
Hell ya, we were!!! & we didn't hurt anyone, rob anyone, or KILL anyone!!!!
Just yesterday a grandpa at my park left his 2 grandkids to Gasp! Play at the park, while he ran home and did something. Someone called the police on him. He got a ticket. He wasn't gone long. I'm like- you can't even let your kid play in the park now?! Is that illegal?! I grew up in the 80's. We went everywhere. No one was kidnapped or hit by a car.
Locks. We were just beginning to lock our doors, in my town. In many smaller towns, people still did not. Before the '70s, we only locked the house to go on vacation. We didn't even lock our cars, but were just starting to understand that we should.
Oh yeah I remember this. My parents sometimes even locked us out if we came in late.
In my small town HS, PE was a walk down to the creek where some would light up.
yes. me too. The things my friends and I used to do would probably get us (or the parents) arrested today. But it was wonderful.
I lived near Disneyland in the 70s. The lucky kids had parents who would give them a day pass and food money and get dropped off at the front gate to be picked up six hours later.
My high school had a "married" home room so that married couples could share a locker and a home room. This was 1968 in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb. It wasn't so much that the girls were pregnant, kids just got married that early.
I looovvveeddd candy cigarettes!!! The puff of powdered smoke that came out but only the 1st "puff". Sometimes, you could get a 2nd puff of smoke if you didn't use it all up in the 1st puff
I grew up in Mexico. The nighttime was the best time to go outside and play with friends. Sometimes it was really late, even after my parents had gone to bed.
Popeye candy cigarettes and little packs of cinnamon toothpicks....that was my childhood and I wouldn't trade it for anything....
Trawling through the library index first to find the right encyclopedia / reference publication then building your footnotes / bibliography to support your submission. Roughly 30 minutes for per reference...
Childhood memories are something most of us cherish throughout our lives. Prof. Krystine Batcho, a scholar in science of nostalgia and licensed psychologist, has developed a tool to measure our emotions towards the past using the Nostalgia Inventory Test. The tool shows how strongly and how often people feel nostalgic.
In a previous in-depth interview with Prof. Batcho, Bored Panda asked the professor about the role our childhood memories play in our lives. According to the professor, childhood memories can influence our adult lives in a number of ways. “They can contribute to our overall sense of happiness in life.”
This was "normal" in the UK in the 80s and 90s. Uniform was a skirt for the girls. In winter they simply wore woolly tights, which was also part of the uniform and had to be a certain colour. Boys wore trousers and it was only if it was really hot we could wear shorts and very occasionally it would be declared a "no tie" day.
Moreover, Batcho argues that social experiences we had when little are crucial to our development and adult lives. “Positive childhood social events, such as family get-togethers during the holidays or parties to celebrate birthdays or achievements, help establish good self-esteem and healthy social skills in adulthood,” she told us.
Prof. Batcho’s life-long research suggested that “positive childhood memories are associated with more adaptive coping skills in adulthood.” For example, people with happier memories of childhood were less likely to turn to counterproductive ways of dealing with stressful situations, such as substance abuse or escapist behavior.
The amount of times I would burn my hands on the monkey bars from the hot Aussie sun 😤 the blisters! But my god was it fun!!!
That means that healthy coping is not something we’re born with, but rather “it is learned during childhood by role modeling trusted adults, and memories of how respected adults coped with adversity,” the professor explained.
If you deeply cherish your childhood memories and carry them throughout your life, you’re not the only one, Batcho argues. The professor explained that this phenomenon is called “rosy retrospection,” and it refers to a tendency to remember the past as better than it really was.
Ha. There was one bus stop in the entire village. Apart from the one and only school bus, the remainder of the bus service flipped between one an hour to two busses a week! I walked to primary school, including on my own from about aged 7 or 8, and cycled to secondary school which was 3 miles away in the nearest town. This is probably why I have such little patience with the Chelsea tractors (SUVs) doing the "school run".
“There might be an evolutionary reason for it, because a favorable focus on the past helps most people remain healthy and happy despite the practical and emotional challenges of adult life,” prof. Batcho explained. Having said that, it’s also important to note that memory retrieval and the way we feel about them is directly influenced by a person’s current mood and state of mind. It turns out that when we are sad or depressed, we are more likely to remember negative events in our past and remember past experiences less favorably.
The one I remember was mostly a toy: molded plastic seat, one inch plastic strap with a buckle, and a plastic steering wheel with a squeeky horn button.
Probably because they were hunting rifles, used for hunting and not assault rifles, used for God knows what.
Well at least the nurse tried to calm her down, though a newborn should not be near smoking!
We had Nitty Nora the head explorer. You were treated then and there. The shame of going back to class was dreadful.
Note: this post originally had 41 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Bigotry, racism, homophobia, and bullying were acceptable then. Really glad things changed.
Things are much better but i am afraid that we are going backwards.
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My seventh grade school field trip was to a state prison. When we entered the prison, the prisoners on the upper floors threw lit toilet paper at us. We ate lunch in the cafeteria with the prisoners with very little supervision, and we got a tour of death row. John Wayne Gacy was there.
I would love that tour as an adult! Probably a bit frightening for younger folk, though
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Our school bus driver kept a leather belt hanging on a hook beside his seat as a warning not to misbehave. We knew he would gladly use it on a student.
Ours was always tipsy or stoned. Made for some interesting bus rides...
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I sat in a smoking seat once on a flight to Mexico. With all the 2nd hand smoke haze hanging there in the section it was like you were smoking, you didn’t need to actually light up.
Load More Replies... I don't know why people are downvoting peoples' experiences. Telling an experience does not entail endorsing it. If you keep downvoting people they get banned from BP. Please think before you downvote. You should downvote if someone ADVOCATES something horrible like child assault, racism, etc. Not if they say they were a victim of it. Sheesh.
Milk being delivered to houses via a delivery van with teen boys hanging off the back, driving down our street to bring you fresh milk in glass bottles. I’d stand outside and listen for the cow horn and grab the milk from one of the lads and bring it up to the house :)
did you have those weird tokens to pay for the bottles?
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My only weird memory from the 80's is addressing the kindergarten staff as "comrade" - that's because the communist regime had not collapsed yet (that was in 1990).
That's cool, you'll be interested to know in South Africa our politicians (except the whites) still call each other comrade.
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In the 80's I could take a note to the liquor store and buy cigarettes for my mom.
Some things are much better. Some things are much much worse.
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The gym teacher was on cafeteria supervision duty & didn't like one kid tipping back on his chair. He warned him once. Next time he kicked the chair right out from under him. This would be mid seventies.
When my mom was 16 she had to take a permission slip to Girl Scout camp from her mom saying it was ok for her to smoke.
When I was little, everyone sent to the nurse at school for a big plastic spoonful of Pepto Bismal. Bug bite? Pesto. Headache? Pesto. Broken arm? Yep, you guessed it,Pepto!!
We always joked that our school nurse asked everyone if they were pregnant.
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A couple of these were still happening in the 90's... or even early 2000's if you lived in the middle of nowhere
That was a different time. In today's reactions, the teacher wasn't fired. Shockingly. In the mid-80s, she was probably written up. I should ask the girl - we occasionally see each other.
My mum had one of the early ATM cards, although they weren't called that at the time. It was plastic, with punched holes in it, £10 printed on it and that was what you got out of the machine. The machine ate your card and the bank sent it back to you in the post. True story
In grade 4 we had a great teacher (for once). He had a small farm and all kinds of animals and pets. End of year he was actually allowed to have us for an overnight stay at his house. Now, there was (as far as I knew or knowto this day) nothing nefarious in his invitation, just a treat. EXCEPT, it was only the BOYS allowed, because having us girls there too would have been unseemly. I mean, wt heck?
I was born in 1980. One thing I know from my mom was that in the 70's, a lot of school bus drivers were high school kids! We didn't have smoking in my high school, but our church camp still allowed it up until my senior year ('99). I don't know if smoking age is a state law issue, but it used to be 16 (though you had to be 18 to buy them). Parents would have to sign a permission slip and campers would get a bracelet. Half the kids either forged the permission slip or they'd trade the bracelets around. When they moved the age to 18, my camp cut it out because less than 1/4 of the kids would qualify.
We had a smoking area at my high school too. It was called "the hole" and the school security guard (before there were resource officers in schools) would hang out out there with us to make sure there was peace. There always was. We were just smoking cigarettes, talking, and playing hacky sack.
Ha. Ours was called "the pit" and it was exactly the same.
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I was born in '93 and some of these still aply to me! Like we had smoking area for my countrys version of high school (ages 16-18 so technically the older ones were adults) and when I was a child we only had 4 channels in TV too. Did the 70's and 80's come to Finland in the '90s? :D
Parental living like they didn't have children. Adults doing whatever they want. No wonder people want a return to those days. Nothing weird about hitting a kid on thei a*s with a wooden paddle.
My science teacher smoked 19 cigarettes inside the classroom during a 100 minutes class.
My science teacher would leave the room whenever my class frustrated her. Always returned reeking of cigarettes.
Load More Replies... Several of us had wednesday afternoons off in HS. We would all being our rifles to on the bus and leave them in our lockers. One of us had a car and we would take off at noon to a gravel pit for an afternoon of target shooting. Only comment I ever got was one teacher asked to see what type of rifle I had.
Bigotry, racism, homophobia, and bullying were acceptable then. Really glad things changed.
Things are much better but i am afraid that we are going backwards.
Load More Replies... My seventh grade school field trip was to a state prison. When we entered the prison, the prisoners on the upper floors threw lit toilet paper at us. We ate lunch in the cafeteria with the prisoners with very little supervision, and we got a tour of death row. John Wayne Gacy was there.
I would love that tour as an adult! Probably a bit frightening for younger folk, though
Load More Replies... Our school bus driver kept a leather belt hanging on a hook beside his seat as a warning not to misbehave. We knew he would gladly use it on a student.
Ours was always tipsy or stoned. Made for some interesting bus rides...
Load More Replies... I sat in a smoking seat once on a flight to Mexico. With all the 2nd hand smoke haze hanging there in the section it was like you were smoking, you didn’t need to actually light up.
Load More Replies... I don't know why people are downvoting peoples' experiences. Telling an experience does not entail endorsing it. If you keep downvoting people they get banned from BP. Please think before you downvote. You should downvote if someone ADVOCATES something horrible like child assault, racism, etc. Not if they say they were a victim of it. Sheesh.
Milk being delivered to houses via a delivery van with teen boys hanging off the back, driving down our street to bring you fresh milk in glass bottles. I’d stand outside and listen for the cow horn and grab the milk from one of the lads and bring it up to the house :)
did you have those weird tokens to pay for the bottles?
Load More Replies... My only weird memory from the 80's is addressing the kindergarten staff as "comrade" - that's because the communist regime had not collapsed yet (that was in 1990).
That's cool, you'll be interested to know in South Africa our politicians (except the whites) still call each other comrade.
Load More Replies... In the 80's I could take a note to the liquor store and buy cigarettes for my mom.
Some things are much better. Some things are much much worse.
Load More Replies... The gym teacher was on cafeteria supervision duty & didn't like one kid tipping back on his chair. He warned him once. Next time he kicked the chair right out from under him. This would be mid seventies.
When my mom was 16 she had to take a permission slip to Girl Scout camp from her mom saying it was ok for her to smoke.
When I was little, everyone sent to the nurse at school for a big plastic spoonful of Pepto Bismal. Bug bite? Pesto. Headache? Pesto. Broken arm? Yep, you guessed it,Pepto!!
We always joked that our school nurse asked everyone if they were pregnant.
Load More Replies... A couple of these were still happening in the 90's... or even early 2000's if you lived in the middle of nowhere
That was a different time. In today's reactions, the teacher wasn't fired. Shockingly. In the mid-80s, she was probably written up. I should ask the girl - we occasionally see each other.
My mum had one of the early ATM cards, although they weren't called that at the time. It was plastic, with punched holes in it, £10 printed on it and that was what you got out of the machine. The machine ate your card and the bank sent it back to you in the post. True story
In grade 4 we had a great teacher (for once). He had a small farm and all kinds of animals and pets. End of year he was actually allowed to have us for an overnight stay at his house. Now, there was (as far as I knew or knowto this day) nothing nefarious in his invitation, just a treat. EXCEPT, it was only the BOYS allowed, because having us girls there too would have been unseemly. I mean, wt heck?
I was born in 1980. One thing I know from my mom was that in the 70's, a lot of school bus drivers were high school kids! We didn't have smoking in my high school, but our church camp still allowed it up until my senior year ('99). I don't know if smoking age is a state law issue, but it used to be 16 (though you had to be 18 to buy them). Parents would have to sign a permission slip and campers would get a bracelet. Half the kids either forged the permission slip or they'd trade the bracelets around. When they moved the age to 18, my camp cut it out because less than 1/4 of the kids would qualify.
We had a smoking area at my high school too. It was called "the hole" and the school security guard (before there were resource officers in schools) would hang out out there with us to make sure there was peace. There always was. We were just smoking cigarettes, talking, and playing hacky sack.
Ha. Ours was called "the pit" and it was exactly the same.
Load More Replies... I was born in '93 and some of these still aply to me! Like we had smoking area for my countrys version of high school (ages 16-18 so technically the older ones were adults) and when I was a child we only had 4 channels in TV too. Did the 70's and 80's come to Finland in the '90s? :D
Parental living like they didn't have children. Adults doing whatever they want. No wonder people want a return to those days. Nothing weird about hitting a kid on thei a*s with a wooden paddle.
My science teacher smoked 19 cigarettes inside the classroom during a 100 minutes class.
My science teacher would leave the room whenever my class frustrated her. Always returned reeking of cigarettes.
Load More Replies... Several of us had wednesday afternoons off in HS. We would all being our rifles to on the bus and leave them in our lockers. One of us had a car and we would take off at noon to a gravel pit for an afternoon of target shooting. Only comment I ever got was one teacher asked to see what type of rifle I had.
