How did we survive the 1970s and 1980s?
Posted by Michael_of_Derry@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 71 comments
I was born in 1972. From age 10 we used to go cycling on the road many miles away to lakes and rivers to fish. We mostly messed about and lit fires.
There were no mobile phones and I actually remember neighbours calling to our home to use the phone. For a while we were the only house that had one.
At 11 our school took us on a school trip to France. This involved an overnight ferry from Rosslare in Ireland. In our cabin we were bored so we went on deck and dared ourselves to climb over the railings and traverse the length of the boat. It was dark and raining.
The same year a bridge was being built over a river. It's over 100ft high in places. We used to go onto the site after school and abseil of the bridge holding onto a 6000 V electric cable.
I have kids aged 9-12. They barely leave the house themselves. When they do they have a mobile phone. I'd probably have a seizure if I thought they were doing stuff I was doing.
Have things gone too far the other way now?
kitzelbunks@reddit
I read that parents currently focus on physical safety, but being in your room with access to everything on the internet isn't exactly safe.
EvenSpoonier@reddit
Some of that is survivorship bias. Not everyone did survive.
It wasn't bodies-in-the-streets or anything. One of the reasons Bridge to Terabithia was so commonly banned in those days is that parents thought they could "protect" their children from the possibility of a friend dying. That seems laughable nowadays, but it demonstrates that child death was, even back then, rare enough that some parents believed this might actually be possible.
But some kids did die. Yes, Bridge to Terabithia couldn't have been challenged if child death wasn't relatively rare, but it was still common enough that someone thought it would be a good idea to write a children's book to help kids deal with the possibility. And not just one someone: an author, yes, but also an illustrator, staff at a publishing company, critics, awards committees, and a legion of educators. We probably can't really know just how many of our brothers and sisters are absent, but they do -did?- exist. That is worth remembering.
WVSluggo@reddit
We didn’t have all these apps to keep us in constant worry 24/7
CalmChestnut@reddit
In NY, Etan Patz didn't survive. In MA, Andy Puglisi didn't. And so forth. Let us appreciate being still here
SocialChangeNow@reddit
I know some didn't survive. Few. Very few. And in the immortal words of Thomas Sowell, 'but at what cost'?
I know that when it's your child, there's no cost too high, but I don't look at these things like that. I look at theme clinically, or as a field general might. Within that framework, how many "troop casualties" are we willing to accept in the name of a strong, self-reliant, and resilient civilization? Keep in mind, without a forward-in-time looking device, we still can't yet fully know the damage a couple generations of helicopter parenting will have on our society.
I truly fear the day when we need a few million hard men, because they just won't exist. And it's not if, but when we will; need them. Today it seems like most fighting age men are autistic introverts with 50 piercings and gender confusion who have never climbed a damned tree. We're in deep shit.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Stop listening to Andrew Tate and Alex Jones!
SocialChangeNow@reddit
I'll do that when you cancel your NAMBLA membership.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Why are you bringing up NAMBLA? Total non sequitor. Perhaps there’s some self projection on yourself
Invasive-farmer@reddit
Story of my childhood
Fun-Economy6800@reddit
This. The way I lived, and sounds like for many of our generation, should likely have not made it, many times over. Good question. Today's young people are not built the same? Or is it really just more dangerous out there in these times?
cutsonabias@reddit
Also born in ‘72. We used to sneak out and meet boys and drink wine coolers and Zima!
BitterOldDarth@reddit
And this is why we are all better prepared to survive today.
Informal-Chemical-79@reddit
The pendulum just swings way too far for my liking. We raised our kids old school but yes definitely had an eye on them much more than our parents did.
Fuddle@reddit
Also the internet, in the 70s things would happen and you didn’t hear about it. Today? A child can swallow a marble in a small New Zealand town in the morning , and it will be circulated to every corner of the world, leading newscasts and websites with the story and “9 things your child can swallow” by lunchtime.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I had to go to hospital for shoving a raisin up my nose.
Man-e-questions@reddit
Yeah we mostly all survived. The worst thing that happened to someone I know is in Jr High a kid rolled a 3 wheeler and got paralyzed from the neck down.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Thats shitty. I think it's just luck I wasn't killed doing some of the crazy stuff we did for a dare.
NegScenePts@reddit
I remember hanging out at the train tracks and finding an old train battery. They're HUGE, btw, and of course we had a great time using the positive cable to cut through the negative battery lug. Nothing like shorting out a 500lb train battery for an hour and laughing at the huge sparks...
SteveinTenn@reddit
I was born in 72. I know several people who didn’t survive.
ExploreTrails@reddit
Right, how is this surprising to people. We didn’t grow up sheltered from the stupidity and violence it was all around us.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Sorry to hear that. Did they die as children? A man was shot dead by British soldiers at the entrance to our school. We had to walk past a memorial to him every day. There were frequent bombings, shootings and riots growing up in Northern Ireland. I never personally knew anyone who was killed but had a close call when I was a baby.
A few people I cycled with as a younger man have died. Not in childhood though. One had a massive heart attack. One suicide and one leukaemia.
HarlanCulpepper@reddit
OHHH, Northern Ireland...that had to be rough.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I thought it was good. My partner, from Ballymena and Protestant, didn't really like it. She sometimes has a hard time even saying Derry. Her father knew Liam Neeson's father quite well.
Father Ted is still the best Irish sitcom IMO.
SteveinTenn@reddit
I grew up in a small American town. I’d say fully 10% of my classmates died before graduation. This covers all 12 years of school. Most were car crashes, some before they were old enough to drive, they were with their parents. We didn’t wear seatbelts back then.
I knew a girl who drowned. Knew a guy who was killed in a plane crash. Both of those happened when we were 13. I can recall another girl who died in some sort of accident but I don’t remember the particulars of it.
I broke my arm a few times. I knew a guy who spent a few weeks in a coma from head trauma. Don’t remember why.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Looking back I also recall being driven about by my dad and his friend whilst we were standing on the back seat with our heads through the sun roof.
My dad and his friend were drinking.
I supposed survival had a lot of luck. When I was growing up many families had no cars at all and most had only one car.
Lack of traffic probably improved the odds of survival. Maybe 'car culture' was more developed in the USA.
RedditSkippy@reddit
The over parenting we’re seeing now isn’t great, but what you’re describing isn’t great either. There’s a medium between the two.
Ok-Cauliflower-3129@reddit
Before I got out of elementary school I personally knew 6 kids who died.
One got shot and killled breaking into someone's house.
5 died in a car crash after stealing a car and running from the cops.
Grew up in a very low rough middle class neighborhood back then 😂
Most owned their homes but people didn't have too many brand new cars and we had a lot of Cuban immigrant families.
No shootings back then though just fist fights.
alchemicaldreaming@reddit
I know it's just a TV show, but I have to say the presence of soldiers in the background of Derry Girls had such an impact on me. Being from Australia, I cannot imagine what it would have been like growing up with that level of military presence. Part of me wondered (albeit optimistically) if they really would just fade into the background, but your experience is obviously very different to that.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
There were constant patrols of army and police in Catholic areas. Dogs would go berserk when they entered the street. The soldiers largely ignored kids but by the time I was a teenager I was stopped and questioned a lot.
On one occasion when we were fishing a speedboat mounted with a machine gun came directly towards us. We were going to make a run for it (for a laugh) but the police and army were running down the fields towards us. We were not doing anything untoward and in hindsight we must have accidentally blown some kind of operation.
One i was questioned I could not understand the English accent. The soldier who was barely older than me thought i was taking the piss.
I also cycled across the boarder into the Republic of Ireland and had a squad jump out from the ditch to question me. I didn't see anyone. Again I assume they were waiting on someone else.
Rude-Consideration64@reddit
Flintstones vitamins
AttorneyElectronic30@reddit
We also skated without knee/elbow pads, rode our bikes all over creation without helmets or even shoes, went swimming in random creeks/ponds with no floatation devices or adult supervision, played with LETHAL toys like clackers, and drank directly out of water hoses. We were a bunch of tough little shits!!!
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I remember if it snowed and the snow became compressed on the road you could hang onto the back of vehicles and slide along behind them. A guy in our street delivered milk and had a flat bed van. His was a favourite to get a tow from.
golfisfinghard@reddit
We used to go to football practice in the back of a stake body pick up truck. My friends dad was a carpenter and there was no back gate. Practice was easily 35 minutes away. We held our pads and helmets between our feet while standing up the entire ride. Amazing all of us didn’t die. For some reason it was always awesome when it was their turn to drive.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
We used to sit in the back of a commercial van with no seats as well. The back doors were closed though. I wouldn't let my kids go on the school bus we had in the eighties and early nineties. No seatbelts and a bench that ran along lengthways. If the teacher braked hard, everyone slid forwards. I remember one was very heavy on the brake. I thought he was an awful driver at the time but he had to be doing it on purpose.
_higgs_@reddit
Pretty similar. Lots of freedom but no money. 70’s UK sucked.
notorious_tcb@reddit
The weakest didn’t, and it made the rest of us stronger!
Musicman1972@reddit
Others have said it but there is, literally, survivor bias here. Empirically it's safer now and whilst as a group we might dismiss that there were real families destroyed by real consequences far too often back then.
It's interesting how perspective changes and we become inured to what bought these changes in. An example is a child at my school was killed when running out after getting off his school bus.
The city subsequently put in railings to guide kids to the crossing so they didn't just hop off the bus and into the busy street.
Literally nobody objected. Years later they were removed as people said they were inconvenient. Tragedy is temporary I guess.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
There were similar railings removed in Belfast in Northern Ireland. After their removal there was another fatal accident at the same spot.
RedditSkippy@reddit
I don’t have kids, so what do I know, but there’s an article in the NYT today about parents who are staying with their kids when they go to sleepovers so the kids aren’t away from them. Like…what??
I think we know why we have an entire generation of people who are anxious!
InterviewMean7435@reddit
Lots of drugs.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Drugs are a thing now. When I was growing up they were like science fiction. I never saw anything until my third year at uni and was offered cannabis.
trailrider@reddit
Those who didn't survive aren't here now to dispute your pt. Like the girl who disappeared not far from where I was living at the time and is presumed dead these days. Climbing down a bridge with a 6kV cable? You got lucky. Looking back at some of the stupid shit I did, I'm honestly surprised I made it to adulthood.
I almost got ran over by my school bus one time when the driver didn't see me after I got off. I was walking close to the front bumper when the driver started moving again. I don't know how I didn't get run over. It's that sort of thing that caused school buses to have front crossing arms today.
Or the time some friends and I were racing cars and I almost got into a really bad accident if the car I almost hit coming in the other direction didn't swerve.
Even in early adulthood when I worked construction, I wonder how the hell I made it out OK given some of the stuff I did.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Looking back it's a wonder how we survived.
Pantokraterix@reddit
I saw a lot of those “GenX survived juuuuust fiiiine so I looked it up. Sure we survived but the childhood mortality rate for death by accident is over 30% lower now than it was then. There’s a reason all that safety stuff caught on.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I just remembered we didn't have bike helmets. BMX was a thing then as well around the ET films. Building ramps and falling off trying to do stunts was another thing I'd hate my kids doing.
Didthatyesterday2@reddit
I was wild, too. Fell into sink holes, crawled through and explored drainage tunnels. Ran wild in the woods with pellet guns shooting anything that moved.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
We had catapults. These are another thing I wouldn't want my kids to have let alone unsupervised.
Lighting fires was a thing we always loved to do. It doesn't appear to be something my kids were interested in at all.
Didthatyesterday2@reddit
Yeah, man. My brother lit an entire hill on fire. Probably 10 acre fire. It burnt our fort down!
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
There was a tree that may have been 300 years old beside a stream.
Kids had attached a swing to it that went out over a stream. This drew a crowd.
Kids would light a fire at the base of the tree. Over a few years they burnt the through the base of the tree until it fell down.
Didthatyesterday2@reddit
Wild!
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
It was mild. I remember one of my friends went out on the swing but forgot to let go when he returned over the bank. He ended up dangling stationary above the stream until he couldn't hold on. His left hand gave up first and he had a few attempts at grabbing on again until the right hand slipped and he inevitably went into the stream. His feet squelched the whole way home. It was hilarious.
Didthatyesterday2@reddit
That's good stuff. I had a friend who didn't let go of a swing like that and slammed into the river bank. Cut his back pretty bad. We drove him home in the back of a pickup truck. It all sounds country, but we were city kids.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
We lived in housing estates. But we didn't need to walk far to get to the countryside. The worst accidents we had were on bikes.
Which reminds me that helmets didn't even exist for kids back then.
alchemicaldreaming@reddit
I grew up in suburban Australia. There was a creek running through the suburb and land where you could keep a horse for cheap. The land was surrounded by industrial buildings, including a ship builder. It was creepy on weekends when none of the factories were open. My parents would happily let me cycle to the paddocks and spend all day there at the age of 13. No phones, no set time to be home.
I broke my arm on Mothers Day one year. Fortunately that day Mum had driven me to the paddocks, so I sat in a gutter feeling miserable and waiting for Mum to show up. I tried asking at one of the few factories that was open, if I could use their phone, but they said no. So waiting was the only option.
At the same time, one of the biggest unsolved crimes in Australia was occurring, Mr Cruel, who abducted young girls. One of their victims had been found in a neighbouring suburb. Alive, but obviously very traumatised. I do not recall Mum and Dad ever tightening safety arrangements - I was still allowed to come and go as I wanted. I don't know if they weighed up the risks and considered them very small, or whether it just didn't cross their minds.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I recall being told not to go into cars with strangers who offered sweets.
So there was an awareness of abductions etc. However as it subsequently turned out most abuse was occurring within families, the church and other institutions such as schools.
alchemicaldreaming@reddit
Sad, but very true.
DifficultAnt23@reddit
10,000 years of human civilization didn't have the electronic collars. They managed to survive?
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
Humanity survived. But looking back at how we grew up in the 1970s and 1980/ I'm surprised we (my friends and I) were not killed or badly injured.
OldSailor742@reddit
I remember jumping off pipes into murky water. Not knowing what lies beneath
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
We were well warned over going into water. We could all swim though.
Automatic_Fun_8958@reddit
If a younger person today was tranported back to the 70s they would have a hard time adjusting without a cell phone or laptop, LOL
Cool_Dark_Place@reddit
I was talking about something like this with a friend of mine not too long ago, and it was in reference to the movie "Back to the Future." And it was about how 1985 was more similar to 1955 than 2024 is to 1994 (or even 2015 to 1985.) Yeah, Marty struggled a bit with style and slang, and a few familiar things either being different, or non-existent. But the world still fundamentally worked the same. In both decades, the newspaper was still a primary news source, you could look up someone's address in the phone book, research was primarily done in libraries, teens in both decades were up to similar mischief, ect. But yeah, I think a modern teen transported back to the '80s or '90s (let alone the '70s) would be hopelessly lost.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I think that's true. A lot of the green space that we had to play on growing up has been built on now. There are houses and an old persons home. Where I live now there is a massive green space. I never see kids playing on it.
dethb0y@reddit
lot of people did not make it, back in the day, from all kinds of shit we no longer consider much of a threat.
Virnman67@reddit
I was born in 1967 so by 1972 when you were born, I was going to the store by myself (2 blocks) & walking to & from Kindergarten by myself (4 blocks). I won’t even get into any other shenanigans 🤣. My kids obviously didn’t have that same freedom. We survived because we survived. If you watch true crime you realize many kids didn’t.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I forgot about walking to school.
We did this stupid thing where we dared ourselves to run in front of vehicles at the very last minute. I probably died 100s of times in alternate universes.
All through primary school my kids were left off and collected from the school gate.
GBeastETH@reddit
You were definitely the outlier of extreme childhoods.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I'm not sure I was. Parenting must have been different.
One thing I am very worried about is the availability of drugs and the number of drug deaths. Other that a tiny amount of cannabis as a student I had almost no exposure to drugs.
Personal-Walrus3076@reddit
Many did not
TexasTokyo@reddit
Way too far, imo. My two nieces are both in high school and all of their "friends" are online. They don't meet anyone in public, except on special occasions. When they were a little younger, they spent most of their time during family functions on tablets playing Minecraft. None of this is very healthy, imo.
Human beings have never been so isolated and disconnected from the world around them and while they feel like they are connected more people than ever via social media, in reality it's all hollow and insubstantial.
Michael_of_Derry@reddit (OP)
I think we were also the first generation to have computer games. We had a spectrum 48k. My friend had a Commodore C64 and Sega Mega drive. There is apparently a resurgence in retro gaming and old TVs are gaining in popularity for this.
So I played computer games too. We would have gone to friends houses to play games and copied games on cassettes etc.
My kids play computer games. The games now are online and they 'meet' their friends online to collaborate on tasks etc.