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Boomers and Gen Xers share things they grew up with that they wish young people could experience

"The satisfaction that comes with slamming down a landline phone receiver."

Photo by Muhammed Aktürk/Pexels

Kids used to wander and play unsupervised outside for hours.

Those of us who grew up in the age before the internet have memories that today's young people will likely never have. Boomer and Gen X childhoods were simpler in many ways, not having access to endless entertainment or the pitfalls of the online world to contend with on a daily basis.

The internet has arguably made human life better in many ways, but it has also fundamentally changed what growing up looks like. Where the older generations had a handful of TV shows at set times on limited channels, younger folks can binge watch streaming shows and YouTube channels 24/7. Boomers used manual typewriters while millennials had laptops. Gen X carried Walkmans while Gen Z carries smartphones.

And that's just technology. The world has changed in other ways, too, including greater safety awareness that's changed the way people parent and kids having less access to untouched nature. Change isn't inherently good or bad, but there are definitely some nostalgic elements of boomer and Gen X upbringings that those older generations wish today's young people could enjoy.

Here are some top answers to the question, "What is something you grew up with that you wish younger generations to experience?" from people born before 1980 on Reddit.

Being unreachable

"The freedom to be unreachable and unaware of what everyone on earth is doing at any given time, meaning ... life pre-iphone and pre-social media."

"Pre CELL phone. Pre pager. (I mean, I know early cell phones were around but virtually no one had them pre-1993 and certainly no one expected or even considered them except high paid business folk)."

"Yes, I came here to say anonymity but being unreachable was so nice."

"I remember leaving my phone home and not thinking anything of it. Now it’s not even ‘optional’. Phone is firmly a part of the ‘keys, wallet’ checklist before leaving the house."

"Yes, having people be able to reach out to you 24/7 is not a good thing."

Unrestricted, unsupervised outside exploration

"Running wild outside in the country for entire day without even considering anything that could go wrong."

"We used to just run around the woods by my friends house, and had tree forts and rode bikes around to the neighborhood kids houses. No concept of time outside of sunset. I think that might get lost in the shuffle more today."

"This would be mine as well. Hop on your bike with a friend or two and head out. Maybe to the creek or the woods or the dime store downtown. Just an amazing aimless wandering with no fear of being accosted by anyone. A quick ten cent phone call home to let mom know where you were. Just be home for dinner. Our era had the best childhood ever."

"This is true. I would wander for miles. But the thing is, looking back I can now see more than a handful of incidents that I was very lucky to escape by the skin of my teeth. I’m talking about hitchhiking or telling my parents I was sleeping over someone’s house, them telling their parents they were sleeping at mine and then staying out all night. Stuff like that. It was fun- good times but when I think of MY kid or grandkids doing the same thing I want to throw up."

The joy of wonder without answers

"Wonder. Sometimes we would just wonder about something. Watching a movie with friends. Someone says 'I wonder if William Holden is still alive?' Everybody would shrug and say 'I don’t know' and you go on with your lives."

"Something humbling and wonderful about not knowing. Now with so much knowledge literally in our hands, we have this anxious 'need to know' everything. And everyone has become a Tik Tok expert."

"Or allowing mysterious, wondrous stuff exist without explanations that are instantly available to remove the sense of awe about how odd, crazy, wonderful, talented, insane, or whatever our world can be."

"The world was more of a mystery back then. That has both its upsides and downsides, but I can't help but feel that some of the wonder has dissipated."

The gift of boredom

"Boredom. Boredom breeds creativity. Boredom has been removed from their lives."

"The skills you gain from the experience of being bored, every now and then. Principally, how you can develop that inner voice, which has been my friend on many occasions and saved my bacon many more. If you always rely on external sources for information or support you’ll surely get stuck when things go wrong or you have to make a decision quickly."

"Boredom leads to reading plus learning to play instruments."

"While I’m happy my kids made friends online the desperation of boredom and creating your own things was really important for me."

"Boredom. The number of times I whined to my parents I was bored and their answer was just 'then go find something to do' led to all kinds of fun."

The freedom to make mistakes

"Being able to make a mistake without it going viral online."

"Experiencing awkward coming of age scenarios without being documented in a server farm somewhere with world wide access."

"I'm sorry kids don't have the chance to make mistakes and correct them without it being memorialized online to follow them forever."

"Being able to break things and make mistakes... the cost is way too high now."

Tactile pleasures

"The satisfaction that comes with slamming down a landline phone receiver."

"Encyclopedias."

"Paper maps. I’d love to see someone in this day and age successfully use (and fold back to its original form) a paper map."

"Reading a book instead of playing video games (most useless invention possible). I'm actually old enough to remember no TV in the house and no radio either (my parents read newspapers and magazines instead for their news but it's a much slower feed and more local)."

"The thrill of buying a vinyl album. I know you can still do that, but it just doesn't seem the same. Back in the '60s and '70s they were absolute TREASURES."

"Sleeping on sheets that had been dried out on a clothesline in spring. The scent on those sheets was intoxicating."

Travel feeling more adventurous

"Going on a road trip with your friends to somewhere you've never been, navigating your way there with a road atlas, and then exploring it without consulting any online reviews or suggestions from Google Maps."

"Experience world travel the way it used to be. There was a time when traveling to another country was a big deal and it was adventurous.

Now, we can buy a last minute ticket on a flash sale, read about the destination on the way to the airport, watch Hollywood movies on the plane, rent a car from a familiar brand, stay at a known hotel chain, eat familiar food and use your GPS to guide you around while you chat in real time with your friends.

Travel is still fun but the magic and romance are mostly gone. That feeling of being far away and completely submerged in a strange culture almost doesn't exist anymore. It's too easy and homogenized now."

"So true. Even back in the early 2000s I remember being on a bus in South America with an American 19 year old who was really captivated by the idea that I travelled in the 1970s "before email." You had to wait two weeks to receive any kind of letter at the General Delivery post office of whatever country you were in. There was so much freedom in that, and a real submersion into the local culture, an ability to let go of your cultural touchstones and become someone new."

"The old way of traveling meant there was a lot of serendipity happening. You’d head to some town you knew nothing about and get chatting with someone on the bus who would then invite you to stay at their house. They would feed you and show you around, help you navigate whatever you needed to head on your way. A lovely way to meet people and learn about nearby treasures to see that you knew nothing about. Now , everything can be researched and plotted out beforehand. I still travel in an unplanned way, with no agenda, no lodgings figured out, but when I mention it, other people shudder and say their anxiety wouldn’t allow it. Did we not have anxiety in the old days? Yes, we did, but it was all part of taking risks in life."

There's a lot that's better, easier, faster and more convenient about life in the 21st century, but there really was something special about growing up in the pre-internet days, wasn't there?


This article originally appeared 3 months ago

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Pop Culture

People share totally normal things from the 90s/00s that are now considered 'luxuries'

Remember when you owned the software you purchased? Those were the days.

Canva

Really should have appreciated some of these things.

Bob Dylan sang that the times are a-changin' back in the late 70s, and since then, they haven't ever stopped a-changin'. And yes, change has been a constant for all of humanity's existence, but things certainly seem to be progressing a whole heck of a lot faster, don't they?

Before ya know it, those once fashion-forward pants you purchased are now retro, you don't understand any of the slang the kids are spouting, and you're doing your taxes, grocery planning and work meetings all from your phone. You know, that device that once only…gasp…called people.

It certainly feels like more than simply growing older, too. Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, to the point where human beings are finally having a hard time keeping up. Combine that with uncertain economic times, and it's no wonder that some folks are left reminiscing about how, in some (not all or even most, but some) ways, the good old days really were good.

Take for instance this interesting question posed by u/zombiem00se over on Ask Reddit. They asked: "What was normal 20 to 30 years ago but is considered a luxury now?"

Oh yeah. Get ready for either some bittersweet nostalgia, or to shake your head at just how much you're probably paying for something that was once bought for pennies. Have fun!

1. "New furniture made out of real wood."

– u/Juls7243

2. "Owning the software you purchased."

– u/FinnofLocke

3. "Paying no more than 30% of your income in rent."

– u/newsaggregateftw

u/DaughterEarth added: "I lived in poverty housing and this was how they determined our rent. It was 30% of mom's income, regardless of how much she was making. That was 20 years ago, not sure what starving kids do today."

4. "Concert ticket prices."

– u/Quality_Street_1

via GIPHY

u/CathedralEngine added: "17 years ago I spent $30 to see an internationally touring band play a concert, and I thought that was way too high. Now I’m spending minimum $20 to see local bands. Just on admission."

5. "Household products that don't break within the first few years of use. My grandma had the same fridge from 1993 before deciding to switch to a newer, bigger one two years ago. My mom's wedding cookware is still going strong 25 years later, but whenever she needs new pans, they start flaking Teflon into the food within a few months."

– u/parangolecomuna

6. "Not being expected to be reachable 24/7."

– u/Siukslinis_acc

7. "Being able to afford going out every Friday after work."

– u/M-the-music-guy

via GIPHY

8. "Farmer's markets. You used to be able to go down and get fruit and vegetables cheaper than the grocery store. Now it seems like they charge 3x more than stores do."

– u/jrhawk42

9. "Single income families buying a home."

– u/THESSIS

u/Mashy6012 read everyone's mind by adding: "Buying a home in general"

10. "Good quality fabric in clothing. I have clothes from the 90s (and 80s from my mother) that still hold up today. These days, I'm lucky if my shirt isn't saggy and misshapen within a year."

– u/TheMadLaboratorian

via GIPHY

11. "Items not requiring a subscription each month."

—u/few29er

12. "Legroom on an airplane."

—u/anachronistika

13. "Free driver’s education classes taught in all high schools."

—u/Working-Finger3500

14 . "Family vacations. I remember going on road trips regularly as a kid and even flying once or twice. Now that I have kids, I cannot afford a weeklong trip to the Badlands, Grand Canyon, Disney/Universal Studios, etc. The best I can do is a day trip to the Wisconsin Dells maybe once a year."

– u/M5606

via GIPHY

14. "Apartments. I could get a one-bedroom apartment in Wisconsin back in 1997 for under $500. Now that same apartment is at least $2,000."

– u/Icy-Supermarket-6932

15. "Affordable healthcare."

– u/RNGezzus

16. "People making friends with one another purely because they enjoy their companionship and not because of networking."

– u/butthenhor

17. "Calling a company and getting a person on the other end of the phone.

– u/AnnieAcely199

via GIPHY

18. "Drinking water from the tap without filters and softeners."

– u/Kuzkuladaemon

19. "Being able to dance and have a good time without having the risk that it will end up being recorded and put on social media."

– u/allbright1111

via GIPHY

This article originally appeared on 6.5.23

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Pop Culture

Adults who lived through the 80s share what pop culture gets wrong about the time period

"Pop culture acts like the '80s were just a sea of nothing but neon for 10 years."

Representative Image from Canva

Okay, but everyone DID have big hair. Right?

Judging by Gen Z’s Y2K-inspired fashion trends, you’d think the 2000s were nothing but people walking around the mall in pleated miniskirts and bucket hats. We can mostly chalk this up to the depiction of the era in movies like “Clueless” and “13 Going on 30.” Anyone born before the 90s can tell you that life was definitely not like that. But hey, sometimes fantasy is more fun.

Same goes for other time periods as well. For those of us without a degree in history, much of how we picture other eras is influenced by pop culture. Like how we think of Victorian women being obsessed with waist cinching thanks to almost every Hollywood movie showing a woman getting bound by an excruciating tight corset. Yep, that was previously debunked.


And sure, some movies and TV series, like “Mad Men” or “Schindler’s List,” make painstaking efforts to achieve historical accuracy. But often, they are works of fiction, and creative liberties are taken. And those liberties create the world for those who did not live in it.

That can even be said of the 80s, rife with Cold War threats and colorful leggings. Or…was it?

Recently, user Jerswar asked Reddit: "People who were adults in the 1980s: What does pop culture tend to leave out?"

Here are the raddest, gnarliest, most tubular response people gave.

1."The insane amounts of smoking inside. Especially in restaurants."

"When I worked in a restaurant, the smokers (backroom dishwashers/cooks) got more chances to sit around and take breaks to smoke. Then, when I got an office job, people had ashtrays at their desks. Often, the ashtrays were hand-made by a young relative in an elementary school class."

2." Anything we wore that wasn't neon. Pop culture acts like the '80s were just a sea of nothing but neon for 10 years."

via GIPHY

“And as if every girl and woman was dressed up in tulle tutus with off-the-shoulder lace shirts and a giant bow tied atop our heads.Not all of us were lucky enough to have our parents buy us new outfits like that. My wardrobe was full of old hand-me-downs. No neon, lace or tulle in the bunch."

"I graduated high school in 1984, and never dressed like Madonna or wore neon anything. We were poor, so it was crappy jeans that never got soft and T-shirts until I got a job. Even after that, I wore cords and overalls and sweaters from Chess King."

3. "How much decor from the '70s and '60s were still in houses and offices throughout the decade."

"This is something that I thought 'Stranger Things' REALLY got right. All the kids' houses look like they were built and decorated in the 1960s–'70s, which is how it really was. Nobody was living in fancy candy-colored Memphis-style apartments except California yuppies."

4. "I was born in the early '80s. I've been totally blind since birth. In the '80s, accessibility was virtually non-existent.That new Nintendo that the kids had? Good luck. Scholastic Book Club? Not in braille or audio. Everything is in print. Nothing to see here for me or mine. Then computers finally got accessible and Windows came out and they had to start all over again. I wouldn't want to go back to the '80s. I now have my phone that I can use to access the world, read what is on my grocery labels, have pictures described to me, and basically know what's going on in the world. In the '80s, so much went by without any context, and that was in the formative years of my childhood."

nintendo, 80s nintendo, braille

We've come a long way when it comes to accessibility.

Representative Image from Canva

5. "Reading everything — literally everything — I could get my hands on. Cereal boxes, newspapers, magazines. Luckily, my library was a bike ride away but carrying those back on my bike was fun."

"OMG, you are so right. That reminds me of things I hadn't thought about in ages.I used to feel so very bored that I'd read anything that had text on it, from cans of food to cereal boxes to whatever books (however insipid) I could lay my hands on. Even the obituary notices in the newspaper were worth a read. The internet really did away with the boredom, didn't it?!"

Speaking of reading…

6. "Trying to find something to read in the bathroom to pass the time. I remember shampoo bottles and the contents of my wallet were my go-to's when a magazine or book was unavailable." "Yes! Shampoo bottles for desperate moments of boredom."


7. "Might be my own bias but being a kid in the '80s there was a lot of casual bullying and conformism. Not that bullying and conformism ever went away, but the '90s was more about counter-culture a bit."

8. "I was a child in the '80s, but something that I don't think I've ever seen in modern pop culture retellings of '80s life, which I recall witnessing, is this: people think of the weird, wacky, fun colors and hair, etc., of the 1980s — like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Boy George styles. BUT for many people and mainstream communities, that was considered a 'weird' or 'rock and roll character' kind of presentation. People would often openly stare, laugh at, or disparage people who looked openly unique. It took a lot of courage to go out styled like that. It was acceptable to have a more 'subtle' take on the fun color trends."

via GIPHY

"I believe the best real-time representation/evidence of this is in Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' music video, there’s a scene where she sits down in a diner with her boyfriend and his friends. She pulls off her cap to reveal her new hairstyle - half-shaved and dyed bright colors. Her boyfriend's friends start hysterically laughing, the boyfriend is quietly embarrassed, and she runs out of the diner in tears."

9. "TV was just adult shows for most of the week, especially during summer break. Just soap operas and other boring things." "Staying home sick from school and all there was to watch were game shows and soap operas until the Gilligan's Island reruns came on."

10. "The sheer sense of doom and pervasive low-key terror of nuclear war. The Soviets' nuclear arsenal pointing at us, and their nihilistic posturing in some ways remind me of the climate change dread we now have. Living with an existential threat is not something new."

"This is so completely underestimated or misunderstood. All through high school, I was convinced that the world would just end one day, and I'd have to figure out how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world afterwards. Yeah, we thought that people would survive an all-out nuclear war."

11. "The homophobia."

"It was casual, rampant, and virtually unquestioned. If you were gay or lesbian, and not living in a major city like New York or San Francisco, you were probably in the closet, at least to everyone but some close friends and (maybe) family. If you were trans, forget about it. Enjoy your life of dysphoria and misery. You don't really see that depicted so much in pop culture now."

"AIDS and '80s homophobia went hand in hand, and it's hard to overstate how much AIDS destroyed the gay community and how the dominant culture thought that was a good thing."

12. "Being a latchkey kid it was no frequent communication with your parents. I can't tell you how many times I stayed out all night as an 18-year-old and no one but who I was with knew where I was or what I was doing. My parents didn't know what I was doing all day as a 12–17-year-old, either! You only called your parents at work only if it was an emergency."

"Yes. It's almost like a 'parents didn't care' attitude that would be ascribed to that behavior now (but that wasn't right). Ma needed to work and that she didn't get home until 7 p.m. was just a reality. Oftentimes, she was gone when I got up and we had zero communication until she got home. I was just responsible for the whole shpiel of keeping myself alive."

13.The obsession people/media had about the '50s and '60s.”

via GIPHY

“Part of it was stuff like 'Back to the Future,' '50s-themed diners and baseball jackets being popular, then there was the 20th anniversary of things, like various Beatles albums. I think the boomers at that point were in positions of influence and were looking back on their teens and twenties with rose-tinted glasses, so the rest of us had to suffer these cultural echoes from the generation before."

14."Cruising. Before social media, we would drive up and down the street, see and be seen. Stop at different businesses, the cool kids hung out at the Walgreens parking lot, the jocks at the McDonald's. But it was a small town so we would stop at all of them during the evening. That was our social world along with keggers in the desert all through high school and for folks that stayed in town for years after high school.

"It was like a social network but with your car."

And lastly…

15. "What a mess it was to get cleaned up!”

via GIPHY

“That sparkle-blue eye shadow didn't come off easily and if it got in your eyes it was torture! That red lip gloss ran all over. And shampooing your hair three times to get out all the hairspray and the mousse. I loved the '80s and I had a marvelous time. But it was messy... but way worth it!"


This article originally appeared on 4.9.24

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Pop Culture

People are sharing the things we'll be nostalgic for in 50 years. Here are the best responses.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

via Pixabay

What will the future look like?

A Reddit user asked an innocent question about the future and it exposed a lot of the issues that people worry about today. It also highlighted the things we should appreciate while they are still around.

Klausbrusselssprouts asked the AskReddit forum, “In 50 years, what will people be nostalgic for?” and the responses went two ways. Some people mentioned the things they fear will get a lot worse in the future such as the role that technology plays in our lives and climate change.

Others saw the question as a way of appreciating the things we have now that may not survive over the next few decades.

As the old saying goes, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, so it’s hard to predict the things that we have today that people will feel nostalgic for in the future.

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, nobody would have ever guessed that people would feel nostalgic for everyday experiences such as going to Blockbuster video or the sound of an old dial-up modem.

But a lot of people get a warm, fuzzy feeling when they think about them today.

It’s safe to say that in 50 years, a lot of the real experiences we enjoy today will be replaced by digital technology. So take time to appreciate face-to-face interactions with other people, technology that isn’t implanted into your brain and attending events in person.

Here are 17 of the best responses to the question, “In 50 years, what will people be nostalgic for?”

1. 

"Owning something you don't pay a subscription for." — JohnnyNumbskull

Switchplayerclassic added:

"THIS is exactly what I hate rn about everything."

2. 


"Drinking water from the tap." — Credible cactus

3. 

"Grandparents will say to their grandkids, 'When I was your age, I had to get off the screen and actually GO to school.'" — Truck_Stop_Sushi

4. 

"Privacy. Even babies are overexposed today." — birdiewings

5. 

​"Being able to do basic maintenance on your car without needing a shop manual and a years salary worth of special tools." — kilroy-was-here-2543

6. 

"Keys. Even more specific vehicle keys." — UpMan

7. 

"Social media. Not because it’s good, but because whatever comes next will probably suck more." — RockoTDF

8. 

"The number of wild animals that exist and can be seen. They are already on the decline." — SpikedBubbles

9.

"Wired earbuds with an actual headphone jack. Not USB version 93 delta." — Rodeo6a

10. 

"The abundance and availability of power, water, and food." — wrath__

11. 

"Retail shopping. There will be these cutesy, extremely expensive retro shops selling things you'd find at the convenience store." — shay1990plus

12. 

"I'd say people will miss being uncontactable. Like back in the day, you could just go to your bedroom, and block the rest of the world away for a couple of hours. Now we've got video calls, phone calls, texts, emails. Urgh." — mr_wernderful

13.

"Having sex with someone who isn't a robot." — Clarenceworley480

14.

"Probably movie theaters." — rsvredditacct

15. 

​"Life before covid." — ButterflyGirlie

16. 


"Human made art and music without the use of AI. Or even just knowing it was made without the use of AI tools like DALL-E 2 or similar. Kind of like how before autotune you knew for certain a singer could sing that way." — ConfidentlyNuerotic

17. 

​"Democracy." — K3b1N

This article originally appeared 9.22.22

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