423Kviews
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
This post may include affiliate links.
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.
hunting and assault are verbs. they are just rifles
Load More Replies...
Our high school sponsored a target shooting competition, which was held at a farm owned by one of the teacher. Before going to the farm, we did a group photo of all the participating students holding their rifles in front of the main entrance of the school. The photo was published in our school yearbook.
Gun safety was a required course in my high school. It was taught by the driver's education teacher. I'm thankful for the class still today... And I'm still a pretty good shot.
Load More Replies... 
Not every school shooting has been from an "assault" rifle - there were not mass shootings of any kind back then but now ..... What has changed? The guns are not causing the 'recent' phenomena of mass shootings - something else is causing a significant behavioural change. I know the down votes are queuing up since I'm blaming people instead of guns but that won't change the truth.
My Husband Brought his rifle to school and put it in his locker so he could hunt going home. Not an issue.
I've posted this before but we we're doing trap shooting in PE in the 90's.
My classmates would lock their pickups because the high school was just a block from the junior high and the grade school another block farther down the street. We never did have a shooting at school or anywhere else.
Same. My SmallTown, NC high school came complete with the redneck/trucks with HUNTING gun racks set, too, but never once did any of us fear being murdered at school. Back then, if kids were disgruntled, they talked with the principal, the guidance counselors, or changed schools if all else failed. They didn't wander around with assault rifles.
In '77 my last class of the day as a senior in high school was shooting. We would hop on the bus and head out to the shooting range. I was allowed to bring my own gun to school to take to the range This was in Phoenix Arizona.
We didn't have to worry. It's not the guns- they are inanimate objects. Something changed in the culture or the mindset of people. People didn't take guns (or knives or hammers or whatever) into schools and decide to kill people. Now they do. Our culture just doesn't value life anymore.
I remember that there was a "farm" or "school" license for farm kids so they could drive to school before they were 16. They couldn't go anywhere else. Just school and home. And lots of kids in my high school had a rifle and a shotgun in their pickup trucks.
I was born and reared in Texas. I can remember a cousin of mine going to school one day with his .22 rifle for show and tell. It was loaded. He rode on the school bus to school that morning, had his 15 seconds of fame in front of his class room showing off his prized possession, his rifle, then road the school bus home after school that day. Had he tried that in this day and age he would have been shot dead before he even stepped one foot on the bus....
It was the same where I grew up. Lots of people forgot to take their guns out of the truck after getting back from the deer hunt (they were usually drunk), and nobody batted an eye. This was just after Columbine.
I had a great-uncle who took a rifle to school, this would have been in the 1920s. He had a fight with his girlfriend, and was planning to shoot her and himself. His shot at her missed, he reloaded and killed himself. If he had an assault rifle, more people very likely would have died.
Or if your uncle hadn’t acted like a psycho? Why can’t anyone get their simple little minds passed the gun itself. Your uncle was a psycho…that was the problem… not a gun with a made up name…
Load More Replies...
I had the same experience in 1970s Iowa. Guns were for critters and mail boxes! No one would have had any use for semi automatic, automatic weapons. If you needed that for critters you would have been laughed at as a pansy.
Yep! 1990s minors still brought their guns to school in full display!!! 🫣
There was actually an issue raised about that in our school in the early 70's, because a lot of the country boys would go hunting straight from school, but the area was starting to become more suburbanized (about 45 miles from DC). They decided you had to lock your truck (it was always a truck) if you had your guns in it at school.
Gun racks with hunting rifles were a common sight in pick up trucks until I was in my 30's.
Wow, people want to ignore what is wrong with our kids today or people? Guns are not "new" technology. Think, please the problem is deeper than a "type" of gun. A shotgun could do more damage in a classroom and those have been around a very long time.... Maybe the problem is society and their upbringing. Not wanting to start a thread,,,,, so just my opinion.
No, you HAVE to blame the gun. It’s never the person, always the object they used…it’s not these guns havnt been available for decades. But suddenly we have mass shootings all the time now… The knee jerk reaction here is really making me lose hope in this country. No critical thinking, just more gun control….idiots.
Load More Replies...
I went to school in Kentucky for a bit too! Some didn't even have drivers licenses but no one cared!
Oh, this was happening in not very rural Connecticut, too! My friends and I were into guns, built bombs, and blew the sh*t up of everything in the farm fields. It never crossed our minds to do this at school, to our other friends, to teachers we actually liked.
South GA, here. The same way here, and you also had to watch out for the spit from the guys that dipped.
We had rifles at school. They were part of ROTC and they were stored hanging in plain sight in the ROTC room with a chain ran through the triggers. The ammunition was stored in a separate storage place. We had live firing on the on-sight range for weapons training. Nobody was worried about the weapons being on campus.
Because we were raised to respect guns, every type, and to respect ourselves and others. We didn't carry them to impress anyone, or to increase our "street cred" and other bs reasons.
Load More Replies...
And that is how you get to the point where you have daily mass shootings.
Shut up, Caroline. Just stop sharing. You’re comment is literally the dumbest thing I’ve read on here….I bet you’re super annoying to spend any time around…does your spouse spend a lot of time in the garage? Ya, you’re an obnoxious idiot…
Load More Replies...
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.
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.
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.
