What has changed in the world since your childhood?

[christofirst]

I remember “Buster Brown” shoes, and the commercials that would come out in August just in time for back to school

I remember those commercials too, with the jingle: “Here’s Buster Brown, he lives in a shoe. Here’s his dog Tige, he lives in one too.”

 

[christofirst]

I think my grandfather’s generation likely saw the most significant changes. He was born in 1895 in rural Michigan, in the horse and buggy days. He was around for the first airplane flight in 1903, and the first mass-produced car in 1908. Most of his brothers left the farm and went to work in Detroit then, the shift from agrarian to urban life. He experienced the first radio broadcasts in the 1920s, and television became common in the early 1950s. He was alive for the first manned space flights, and the lunar landing, and by the time he died in 1985, the computer age and early internet had already begun.

 

[BlackFriar]

I recall playing outside on the road, kicking the rugby ball over the crossing powerlines to increase my try conversion skills.
Sat mornings being sent to the dairy to buy cigarettes and a hot fresh loaf of bread delivered that morning…getting told off for picking off pieces from the crack in the centre as I walked home unable to resist the smell.
The half pint bottle of milk we had to compulsory drink first thing arriving at school.
Scraping off the frost over the silver foil cap in winter, horrible taste in summer as the crates were dumped in the sun. Who knows what a half pint bottle even looks like now.
Doctors would come to your house if you rang up.
Nervous reactions and yells when the telegraph man walked up the footpath.
The old radiogram record player with its cupboard full of strange black records and cardboard covers that looked like they came from another planet and music/singing that sounded even stranger. The oak cabinetry smelled wonderful. Good fun playing 45s at 33 and 33s at 45. There was even a 75 setting on the dial but no records to match. The records werent soft vinyl, something more like bakelite but black.
My older sister one day coming home with a 5 transistor radio that didnt need to be plugged into the wall or warm up. It seemed unnatural.
Bought lunches at school on Mondays and sometimes Fridays. The ladies would come in and bake the best tasting pies, doughnuts and apple tarts.2 shillings for the lot. Fridays 2 big fish and chips for the same amount.
Weekends roaming the streets parks and single row street shops. Scrounging empty soft drink bottles from rubbish bins to get refund money from the “dairy” (corner store) and buy 2 scoop icecreams and aniseed wheels, or maybe a sherbet pack with a licorice straw. Big bottles were best, 4pence. Almost enough for that icecream.
Backdoors usually left unlocked, dad walked to work wearing a hat looking like Clark Gable with moustache.
TV repairman came to the house to fix it. I still remember at age 6 dad bringing home this big box with grainy black and white pictures. We only had tv from the early 1960s. Impossible to tune most of the time. Always on the roof adjusting and yelling down to someone in the lounge.
A family of three flying geese in porcelain on the hallway wall, mums side cabinet of anceint silver cutlery, colorful statuettes and dont touch crystal. Her dressing table and stool in the bedroom with three adjustable mirrors which, when she was not there, could be turned in to face each other and give a glimpse of infinity.
Hiding in dads wadrobe full of the smell of cigar boxes, dozens of ties snaking down from a funny rack on the back of the door and silk dressing gowns with strange and colorful curly Arabic motifs like big tadpoles.

 

[Greenfields]

Children were allowed to be children for a lot longer ,if circumstances permitted
I’m 48 now.For some years in the 70’s/80’s we didn’t have a tv .My mother read novels to us and listening to stories on record was great for the imagination

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Charles’ Chips
Best of the West series of Playsets
A TV series called “Sunshine” about a widower hippie musician raising his daughter with the help of his band mates
When there were red M&Ms, then they stopped making them then they started again
When Mikey from the Life cereal commercials died from eating pop rocks and soda (this was later debunked)
People were quiet in libraries
No hospital visitors under the age of 13
Gino’s fast food chain
Having a beanie that came with my Catholic school uniform that buttoned onto the waistband of the jumper so it was handy for when we went to Mass

 

[Inisfallen]

Unlikely now this would happen. Parents need to be so much more protective in a world known to be less safe.

I’m not so sure about this.

When I was a kid, in the 60s and 70s, we played outside all the time. Until dinner time, at least, and in the summer sometimes after dinner. Without any adult supervision. We walked and biked all over the city (New York). I rode the subway by myself or with friends starting at about 12, maybe a year earlier.

And the thing is, New York is a lot safer now than it was then. A lot. And yet these days parents will barely let their kids out the door alone until they’re teenagers.

And now I’m the parent of two small children (very small – three years and ten months, and almost one year). And I’m determined not to be a helicopter parent.

 

[Trishie]

And I’m determined not to be a helicopter parent.

An excelent aim!
But not quite the same as exercising judgement regarding genuine possible dangers.
A helicopter parent controls or tries to control everything, and thereby can cause harm to the development of a child.
Good judgement doesn’t expose children to unnecessary dangers. The key is judgement, in allowing the children freedoms that enable them to develop independence and judgement of their own,
but not subjecting them to gratuitous danger.

God bless you and your little ones

 

[RealMenPraytheRosary]

I was born in 1990 and we lived pretty much outside, in the town I lived, there was no cable, so we had antennas on our houses and had only 3 channels, today technology has advanced so much in the 27 years that I’ve been alive it’s crazy and it’s destorying our interactions and our communication with other humans, now I’m not saying it’s all bad but when you go to a coffee shop and see 20 people there and no one is talking to each other, it’s kinda sad to see them so far into their cell phones, what can we do about this .

 

[Trishie]

I’m delighted that AAT , DarkLight, and RealMenPraytheRosary have posted on this thread.
So much has happened in the periods of your lives also, even in the 18 years of our youngest poster on this thread, AAT.

You may not be able to look so far back as some other posters, but much has changed culturally, technology, in communication, in conservation awareness, in science, and in medicine during your lives so far, and your perceptions are valuable, not only because they are part of your lives, but also because you will go into a future that some others on the thread won’t be here to see,

 

[AAT]

Wow

Reading your post just now… This discussion just turned a little less ‘casual’ for me

I’m sure you all will see us from heaven though

 

[Trishie]

I’m sure you all will see us from heaven though

That would be a privilege! :hugs:
If God permits, may He grant that our prayers for you all from heaven will bear much good fruit in your lives!

 

[Lea101]

Only 19 here.

I guessed I live in that awkward stage where bulky TVs and phones got sleeker, ‘gameboys’ had no color, and so on. I remember using VHS tapes to record That’s So Raven and Lizzie Mcguire

When I was 13, we were really unpleasant to look at, we wore ugly frumpy clothes and took weird bathroom pictures for Facebook and cried over Miley Cyrus. Now 13 year olds look like 19 year old models with skimpy clothing taking good quality pictures on Instagram. And I still look horrid looking. No fair!

I do love social media though. I am horribly introverted and that helped me to keep friendships does have its cons though.

 

[AAT]

I do love social media though. I am horribly introverted and that helped me to keep friendships does have its cons though

I’m in the same boat as you are. It does help out alot especially in my age where people are leaving to different parts of the world to further their education.

cried over Miley Cyrus

While it wasn’t miley cyrus I cried for, I remember crying over HSM 2! musical films like camp rock were pretty popular around the last decade

 

[starlady]

I am 26, so also a younger poster. As others have mentioned, social media has exploded, whether we like it or not. I first got Facebook when in 2007 as a high school freshman, and my, how it has changed! I have a 14 year old brother who loves technology…the iPad and such. It is kind of strange to see how much his childhood is different compared to mine (he came a little later…he is the youngest and I am the oldest, and there are 11 years between us. 7 years between my two youngest brothers).

Phone technology has changed very rapidly as well. Smartphones were only just becoming widespread when I was a junior/senior in high school. When I was in school, it was the Motorola Razr that was all the rage (in my rural area). And then the phones that have a mini keyboard that slides out. Now so very few people have those types of phones.

Travel was easier. When my family went to Canada in 2000, we only needed birth certificates to leave and return to the US. When I visited Mexico at age 15, I only needed a state ID card. It was in 2007, when I went back to Mexico at age 16, that I needed a passport.
Also, airports changed (as did a lot following 9/11). My husband and I have been watching old episodes of “7th Heaven,” and I marvel at seeing the characters go up to airport gates without a ticket (like one episode where one character follows his ex-girlfriend to the gate to try to convince her not to leave). Can’t do that anymore.

 

[Avila123]

I remember the tin bath my mother filled with buckets of water and I was put in the middle between my two older brothers. We had a coal fire and a paraffin heater in the kitchen. I shared a bedroom with my brothers. Only rich people had televisions and cars, so we had neither. I remember the family receiving a Saint Nicholas package on 6 December from my Opa and Oma. Mother had a delft blue ornament, each of us had a chocolate shaped into the first letter of our Christian name. We had fizzy lemonade on a Sunday when there was money in the house. Life was simple, we were allowed to be children and grow up at our own pace and we had lots of fun playing monopoly, marbles, cluedo and inventing our own games.

 

[JimG]

Also, airports changed (as did a lot following 9/11). My husband and I have been watching old episodes of “7th Heaven,” and I marvel at seeing the characters go up to airport gates without a ticket (like one episode where one character follows his ex-girlfriend to the gate to try to convince her not to leave). Can’t do that anymore.

Yes, air travel has certainly changed. My very first commercial flight was when I was trying to get home on leave from a military base. I was late. But the flight was also late. I ran into O’Hare airport and ran up to the counter. The lady pointed down a hallway and said, “It’s that way! “RUN!” I ran. Got to the gate, was practically pushed on board and the door closed behind me. No security lines. And whenever I took a flight from LAX to KC the planes were half full, had plenty of leg room, served a full course meal, and free drinks—in coach.

 

[Trishie]

When I was 13, we were really unpleasant to look at, we wore ugly frumpy clothes

I remember that fashion Lea, it was a little puzzling to us oldies!
The fashion was called 'Grunge" in Australia. I don’t know if the name was universal…
but I don’t believe you look horrid. One day you’ll look back at old photos of young you, and you might wonder, “how didn’t I see my freshness and the beauty of youth, and see how special I really was?” If I could meet you, and you said to me that you ‘look horrid’ I would genuinely be able to tell you all that’s lovely about you (accent on "genuinely! )

I was thinking about the introversion you mention. I was very shy and introverted still at your age. I’m trying to figure how much that interaction on social media might hinder you, any young person, from forming friendships. Life will still happen, studying with other people, and working with others, all that will happen for you young ones as it did for us oldies.

In my parents’ time there were dances, country dances, ballroom dancing, but mostly what were then modern vigorous dances and many couples were linked up through dances. and these spilled into my own time. There was a huge dancing hall called Cloudland in my city. Young people attended in droves. The other great linkup in my parents time was the war. That you don’t want.
In my sons’ youth there were night clubs, a different kind of atmosphere.

Camaraderie at work and at university gradually brought light into my ultra-shyness and brought out the natural spirit…which is also available to you young ones. It became more important to put others at ease, to brighten their spirits, rather than to worry about feeling shy and unworthy. That same progression is as possible for your generation as for mine. A danger in social media is where it prevents you from pursuing three-dimensional warm-blooded friends and activities, and of suffering emotional harm resulting from others’ photo-shopped lives or abuse.

However, social media does mean that you can remain in contact with real friends from school, other areas also where earlier generations might have lost track of each other, so that’s a positive aspect of the social media so much a part of lives today.

Thanks for bringing those thoughts to mind Lea.
And God bless you, Love.

 

[joeybaggz]

Grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. Some changes

Cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence
Life saving surgical procedures taken for granted now were unheard of then.
Drunk Driving is no longer taken lightly
Gas was 25 cents a gallon
Automobiles are far safer and can last far more that 100,000 miles
Contact lenses
Minimum charge of around $500.00 for a visit to the emergence room. Our family doctor charged $4.00 for a house call.
Professional football was a secondary sport, rarely broadcast on television.
Baseball was the national pasttime and games took about an hour and a half to play.
No one had ever heard of Barney Fife, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Harry Potter or Hawkeye Pierce
Pregnancy before marriage was a scandal and girls who found themselves in such a state were suddenly not around and said to be “visiting relatives”.
Doctors were used in cigarette ads and commercials
Movies cost 25 cents in the theaters and a bucket of popcorn cost fifteen cents
There were no such things a pet cemeteries (at least in my neighborhood)
Photographs were taken on film, developed at the local pharmacy, and pictures took several days to develop and came on special photographic paper.
And on and on and on…

 

[Trishie]

Also, airports changed (as did a lot following 9/11). My husband and I have been watching old episodes of “7th Heaven,” and I marvel at seeing the characters go up to airport gates without a ticket (like one episode where one character follows his ex-girlfriend to the gate to try to convince her not to leave). Can’t do that anymore.

That was a rapid change
It’s a vivid memory, leaving from the airport at Phoenix, then LAX, the shock of passing soldiers bearing guns, a fact only softened by their friendly “Good morning Ma’am” as I passed. Already there was a tangible change for greater security and atmosphere between my arrival eight weeks earlier to spend time with my son and his American wife. It was a radical change from the relaxed arrival.
I will never forget the shock of Americans, a pained loss of trust and safety, a bewildered loss of innocence; but also the defiant patriotism, families defiantly displaying the American flag in their front gardens.The loss of trust evident now in airport and plane security is now a permanent part of our world.

You young ones are cheated of the kind of innocence and trust that previously existed and which we older ones took for granted…

 

[F_Marturana]

I remember going to pick family up at the airport, and there would be a section of seats with little TV sets attached. you’d put in a coin to watch tv fora few minutes.

I always wanted to sit in that section, but I was never allowed to.