What has changed in the world since your childhood?

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No cable, or digital TV. No VCRs or DVRs. No cell phones. Telephones weren’t called landlines and were rotary dial. No Internet. No email. You had to write letters and send them through the mail. Reples took 2 or 3 days to receive instead of minutes (email). Stamps were 1-5 cents. When they went up to 8-10 cents, we felt the world was ending.

Milk was delivered to the door (tasted fresher too). There was no meal delivery unless a neighbor cooked and brought extras to you. You made your own cakes from scratch instead of from a box or getting it from the bakery (if it was a special occasion). TV dinners eaten on a TV tray in front of the TV were the norm. Banquet and Swanson were the big names.
 
Did people used to can their own food very often ?Growing up we froze and bottled surplus vegetables and fruit ,but I don’t think canning was common in Australia,apart from the factory sort.
 
Greenfields said:
Did people used to can their own food very often ?Growing up we froze and bottled surplus vegetables and fruit ,but I don’t think canning was common in Australia,apart from the factory sort.
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In the US, the term canning includes putting stuff in those Kerr jars.

In my post I was referring to store bought metal cans of veggies since we lived in desert country and didn’t grow any food.
 
Mama made her own beef jerky from venison that the uncles brought in.
 
Lots of things have changed. Kids did not have their own everything they wanted and had to share rooms. There was one phone in the house - a dial phone that only went as far as the cord did. We had a “party” line which meant sharing with some neighbor so the phone might be in use when you wanted to call someone. If you wanted to call long distance you had to go through an operator. No one had answering machines. Of course, no cell phones. Most households only had one tv and it was black and white. Movies were cheap and there was a double feature with cartoons in between. No one had air conditioning. People sat on their porches in the summer if the house was too hot - this also served as a built-in “neighborhood watch”. Portable hair dryers were bonnet type things attached to a hose. To curl your hair you had to sleep in rollers overnight if you wanted it to look good the next morning. Kids could play outside and even go to the park on their own - no such thing as play dates. Families seldom ate out and everyone ate at the same time. There was no internet and no computers so if you needed to research information to write a paper for a class you had to go to the library, check the card catalog, go to the book sections and either check out the book(s) or stay in the library and write down all the information you could find. Pantyhose didn’t exist - you had to either wear nylon stockings with a garter belt or make some sort of elastic band to roll the nylons up your leg. There were no zip codes. It was possible to buy a house on one person’s salary. Church bells rang in the neighborhood and no one complained. Milk was delivered in glass bottles. The ice cream man drove through the neighborhood in the summer. The car had no seat belts. People used covers on their furniture either to keep it clean or because it was worn out and they wanted it to look better. Most of the teachers in the Catholic School were nuns and we had classes of up to 50 children in a class (now teachers scream if they have 25).
 
I can relate to everything you said. It’s amazing how much change can occur in a lifetime. I had forgotten about there not being zip codes. Also, telephone numbers used to start with two letters.

We were on a party line with several neighbors. Eventually everyone switched to a private line, but one of the neighbors never switched. They had that party line and its lower rate until the kids all moved out and the husband and wife both died. I think it must have been the last party line in existence although by then they were the only party using it.
 
50 kids in a class, and they actually ended up knowing more than kids today.
sorry kids today
 
We’ve always had bullies, and I certainly encountered more than a few growing up, but they usually needed to be able to back up their meanness by being bigger and stronger. Now with the anonymity of the internet, anyone can express their animosity as rudely or as insensitively as they please ☹️. It seems like people take pride in being insensitive now.
 
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My grandparents had those too.

My mom still keeps the living room off-limits to any of us, her adult kids, for lounging or eating in there, in case company ever comes over. The room is like one of those displays in a museum, the kind with the velvet rope you can only look at.
 
Yes, definitely.

Cars had them too, and I remember sitting on a hot car seat in the summer! :roll_eyes: 😱
 
We’d sit on our damp towels coming home from the pool so we didn’t burn the back of our legs on the vinyl.

OTOH, that fake stitching was great for marking the dividing line between you and annoying siblings…
 
Power steering My first car didn’t have it, but I had super-strong arms, LOL
 
I grew up during the early 70’s in Florida. We were allowed to roam. I went fishing with my brothers all the time in the summer with no supervision. Swam a lot very young with no supervision. We had a pool with no safety alarm or fence. Somehow we survived 😀
 
Materialism.Variety of ,well,everything !🙂
I think that’s why I like shopping at Aldis ,because it’s very straight forward.
Bam,bam,bam groceries into the basket,select what you need and get out of there quick .The other supermarkets are like a magical fairy land where I go into a dreamlike state overwhelmed with enticing packaging and almost forget why I went there …
 
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