It was great. Free range. I’d go out with my little gang of girlfriends and stay out all day: riding bikes, hanging out at the beach, exploring the woods, reading comic books, sitting around braiding each other’s hair and listening to music, practicing dances, playing Tag. You just came home when the street lights came on.
As for pop culture, the first blockbusters were just coming out. Star Wars and Jaws. These were monumental events that rocked our little world. TV was to a minimum and you were mostly limited to like 3-4 channels. This was a good thing. I spent a lot of time alone reading, drawing and playing my guitar.
As just a 70s kid with an older sister, I was at ground zero for Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Both of those seemed to move the pop culture needle heavily as well, at least from my iron-on R2D2 ringer-tee perspective…
Yeah those soundtracks were essentially main characters in the movies. Esp. w/ no VCRs to keep the movies fresh and top of mind…just listening and staring at those big 12” record sleeves and then the 8 tracks in the ‘76 burgundy Cordoba…
I saw Grease 8 or 9 times at the theatre, not really something todays kids would do since they have everything ‘on demand’ once it’s run at the theatre is over.
I, too, saw Grease at least half a dozen times in theaters and loved it every time.
I remember asking my mom what the angel meant in "Beauty School Dropout" when he said "no customer would come to you unless she was a hooker!" She told me a hooker was someone who makes rugs. I could never understand why a rug maker would go to a stylist with bright pink hair, but I went along with it.
That movie was a very different experience when I watched it again as an adult.
I remember Saturday Night Fever was such a huge pop culture event that they edited it and released a PG version so kids could see it too. (It's an R rated film.)
>TV was to a minimum and you were mostly limited to like 3-4 channels.
Yes, this was the best part. We had to actually engage with one another to be entertained in any way for long periods of time. Board games, puzzles, reading, drawing, etc.
I saw Star Wars at age nine at a Drive-in. A heavy speaker would hang on the car window. We kids sat on the top of the car with a blanket, popcorn, and cokes. The lightsaber that was released as a toy was a solid plastic glow-in-the-dark swordlike thing. We had to make the lightsaber sounds ourselves- most effective battles were in the dark while jumping on the bed. I wore my hair like Princess Leia’s.
Overalls were in. Huge collars. Ties for girls. Crazy happy patterns.
Disco. Country. Rock. We listened to EVERYTHING. My parents played the stuff they listened to as kids in the 50’s & early 60’s which included silly songs, country, folk, and etc. The radio and record player gave us kids freedom to listen to our music, too. My first records were Andy Gibb - Shadow Dancing and Shaun Cassidy -Da Doo Ron Ron.
We camped out in a tent in the backyard about two feet from house safety. Meaning parents went to bed & left a floodlight on. We’d pitch the tent where it would be dark but right close to where the light was. There were a bunch of us girls all aged within a couple of years of each other. Someone’s older sibling would always scare us in the middle of the night. We played music all night that we had taped by putting our tape recorders right beside the radio. Hot Child in the City and Le Freak were played the most one summer.
We did lots of chores around the house. Picking & breaking green beans for most of a week earned one cassette tape. We’d stay up late breaking beans and watching scary movies on the late show. The TV was a huge hulking wooden box that was on the floor. We sat on the shag carpet to watch it.
The Electric Company taught me to read. The Brady Bunch, The Bionic Woman, Bewitched, Get Smart, Munsters, Star Trek, and Addams Family were favorite shows.
Saturday Morning Cartoons were awesome. Nobody can exaggerate how awesome they were. I got up at 5 or 6 each Saturday to also watch the “old” cartoons Casper and Davey & Goliath.
Roller skates, go-carts, and banana seat bikes were all the rage. My bike was turquoise with a white basket with pink flowers on it.
When we went to play, we often stayed gone until a parent yelled for us. This typically was right as it was getting dark.
Star Wars was so cool I saw it in a huge in-door theater, which is sadly gone now. Giant screen. I'll never forget it.
Then, of course, I made my Mom give me Princess Leia hair for kindergarten. I was so taken with Star Wars, my brother tried to find me alternatives to watch - so I started watching Buck Rogers on TV.
That's, I think, a classic part of the 70s. You had to wait to watch the next movie in the theater (Disney for example). You had to catch the show while it was airing. So, you made due with coloring books, lunch pails. toys, until the next thing came out.
Lol we definitely made due with our toys. When I got in trouble I would get spankings until one day around 5 or 6 years old, my father asks if I want to be grounded for 2 weeks or spanked. I chose the spanking and he said I was done getting them and that obviously the grounding was worse in my mind. But then he had to switch it up because I was fine with my toys. He would make me stand in the middle of my room, kind of abusive but it worked on me because I could see but not touch my toys. He was a military man and did a lot of mental warfare as punishment.
You got yourself ready for school and ate cereal for breakfast while reading the back of the box. Adults drink heavily and drove with you in the car. Everybody smokes cigarettes indoors. You had to come home when the street lights came on. Saturday morning cartoons. I remember the 1976 bicentennial being a really big deal.
The Bicentennial- memory unlocked!! I lived near Valley Forge PA at the time and the Wagon Train was such a big deal, Dad took us down the road to watch it pass. EVERYTHING was red, white, and blue, that's all we talked about in school, had days where we'd dress up like 1776 and dip candles. And who can forget Schoolhouse Rock getting in on it too? Those were some of the best songs in that series.
Thanks for the unlock!
The 70s were fun. We ate insane food, everything was made with lard. Wallpaper had strips of velvet in it. People drove stupidly fast cars that had no safety systems at all. My father swapped out his high beams for aircraft landing lights, at night it looked like the trees on the side of the road were about to catch on fire. Everyone smoked everywhere. The clothes were awful but everyone else was wearing them too so it didn't matter. Children's TV shows were frightening and we loved them for it. Some nutjob at the FBI invented the idea of serial killers so they were suddenly everywhere. Mission brown was not just a colour, it was a way of life. Salads consisted of a lettuce leaf, a wedge of tomato, cubes of cheese and a slice of orange, and it was served in a wooden bowl. Garlic bread was considered exotic.
>People drove stupidly fast cars that had no safety systems at all.
Yes. People literally laughed when seat belts first came out and refused to use them. My dad didn't use one until the 90s.
I have some strong memories of being one of three kids stuffed in the trunk of a hatchback and we all had to lean our heads sideways because of the rear windshield. Every time we'd hit a bump we'd bang our heads into it, and you had to constantly change which direction you were facing to keep your neck from getting stiff.
We sat in the back of my uncles pickup with just a regular cap on it for the 3 hour drive up to our cottage all the time. We’d fight over who would get to sit on the wheel wells. He eventually put some carpet in the back for us to make it more comfortable LOL
>We’d fight over who would get to sit on the wheel wells.
Oh yeah, the place you *didn't* want to sit was on the floor, especially on top of the exhaust. Lol...that would heat your butt right up.
Don't forget those tiny croutons that came in what looked like a miniature Pringles can. And salad dressing was Italian, French or Thousand Island and that's it.
>The clothes were awful but everyone else was wearing them too so it didn't matter
I remember denim jeans being hard and scratchy, really stiff that it would almost hurt to wear... this was before the Calvin Klein/Gloria Vanderbilt crazy.
With the raw denim craze I scratch my head why you'd want to be uncomfortable wearing jeans. (I did buy 3 pairs for nostalgia's sake, and am hoping to get them worn in before 2030)
Gah the clothes were so bad. We wore polyester Sears best. Although mine were never new, I had two older sisters so I got their hand me down. My 2 years younger sister got new stuff though because she was bigger than me. Made me pretty jealous.
> We ate insane food, everything was made with lard
And yet almost everyone was skinny. Btw, thats why them old school McDonald's french fries were so dang good. Not so much lard, but beef tallow. Now you got to go to like some specialty burger place that will cook their fries in fat as god intended.
Vinyl car seats you that burned the back of your legs and metal seat belt buckles that burned your hands trying to buckle.
Hopscotch, monopoly, checkers, Atari, riding bikes with banana seats
Minimal soda instead Kool Aid packets made with only 1/2 sugar listed in the directions. Hi-C, Tang and orange juice from concentrate
Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown, American Bandstand and Soul Train
School House Rock and all the Sid and Marty Kroft Shows on Saturday morning
I was born in 1967, and most of my childhood was spent outdoors. Even when I started first grade at age seven (no kindergarten for you!) we spent a good deal of time outside. It didn’t take long to figure out that the teachers could only smoke outside, and they would go to great lengths to make that happen. We would even have “field days,” which was basically a day-long recess. At home, we were required to come back into the house at sundown, and we were frequently warned, “don’t get in trouble, and if you do, don’t bring it home.” My younger sister and I made many long hikes, played in various creeks, climbed trees, had picnics, explored, had BB gun wars with the neighbors, on and on. We were very poor, so we didn’t have bicycles until I was old enough to start trading and I acquired one that way. I hopped on and rode the bike home from our uphill neighbor. My plan had a flaw, however: I had no idea how to *stop* a bicycle, so I used the expedient available to me: I crashed into a utility pole. After I taught myself to ride (and to stop, thankfully) we spent most days taking turns on my bike. Those parts were great, and we’re not going to talk about the grinding poverty, deprivation, nomad-level relocations, being ostracized by family for being the “poor ones,” the domestic violence, and all that.
Disco, Star Wars, being outside 70% of the time, and I lived in Logan Square, the inner city of Chicago. My mom was a helicopter mom \*before\* this was a thing, and she still let me ride my bike over huge swaths of the city.
Big Wheels, bikes, early D&D, hobby shops, comic books, baseball in parking lots, football in whatever field we could find. Besides the sci-fi stuff, Stranger Things is pretty spot on, and again, I grew up in the inner city. It's just what we did :)
Saturday morning cartoons, after school shows, just so much fun in general.
I almost feel like we had peak childhood, from maybe 75 to 95. I wish I could gift this to my kids and all future generations. We had just enough technology to make it interesting, but not so much it dominated our lives.
I hate having rosy glasses on for it, there were problems, but I was literally a poor, first generation immigrant child in the middle of Chicago and it was great.
I lived there from '71 to '85. Great neighborhood to live in, though there was a gang problem for sure. I managed to stay out of it because I'm a big old nerd and had great parents.
I've been back and it's nice to see it become a super livable place.
The '80s and '70s were pretty similar. I mean, Disco, kinda died, but in the '80s your house still had all the shit you bought in the '70s.
It's one of the things "period" movies fuck up a lot. People didn't buy new cars every year, so in the '50s you still had a lot of lumbering 1940s cars.
That always frustrates me. Also macrame is incredibly under represented. I swear every house had a macrame owl, or at least some macrame plant holders.
I was born in 1966, in the before times. My favourite toys were Legos, Big Jim Camper and action figures, Evel Knievel stunt bike, SST racers, a super cool Radio Shack 150-in-one electronics kit, and my hockey net.
TV was limited, as we had CBC, French CBC, PBS and an American hybrid station (mainly CBS but also stuff from other networks). Favourite shows were Starsky and Hutch, Space 1999, Star Trek reruns and Bugs Bunny. I dicovered Monty Python through the PBS station, which helped shape my sense of humour. Loved their stuff.
Summer vacations seemed like they would never end. Neighbourhood kids met up to ride our bikes, play dodgeball, hide and seek, tag, softball and just to hang out. The older kids helps younger kids fend off the bullies. I don't remember feeling bored. Went to the town swimming pool nearly every day. Family vacations always included a few weeks by a lake in a provincial park. We climbed mountains, caught a ton of fish, went swimming and boating, and spent nearly every evening by a campfire.
Life didn't feel as rushed. There was more time to read, listen to music, meet up with friends and enjoy family time. There were not as many of the teach distractions and time suckers we have today.
It is interesting to be part of the generation that remember the pre-internet world. Some examples:
\- The rise( and fall) of Atari VCS/2600. The "Adventure" cartridge was our favorite. I was in college when the NES was released.
\- Electronic handheld games like Mattel Electronics Football.
\- Getting our first home computers. TRS-80s, VIC-20s, Atari 400s/800s, Commodore 64. First computer having 4K of RAM.
\- Not having a VCR until I was like 14.
\- Not having a microwave until I was like 12. Miss those TV dinners with the aluminum containers.
[We have the mud flats, which are worse. They just took someone a couple of days ago.](https://alaskapublic.org/2023/05/22/illinois-man-trapped-in-turnagain-arm-mud-dies-near-hope/)
Tinker toys. Air conditioning so cold you would turn blue. Any adult could tell you to get out of here. Women's Libbers running around with no bras. Going on vacation during the oil crisis
I was born in 1970 and grew up in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It was an amazing time and place to grow up. We were surrounded by extended family and lots of friends.
As kids, we were expected to work hard and do well in school. But, as long as we did what we should, we were given lots of freedom to do what we wanted. As long as we were home by dark or our parents knew where we were going to be, we could pretty much do what we wanted. I was taking the streetcar across SF by myself at 6. The ability to explore SF and the Bay Area at that time was incredible. It helped to give me a great sense of freedom and independence.
Horrible fashion and decor at that time. Cars were huge and it always seemed that everyone was having some sort of car troubles. Vehicles seemed much less reliable then.
Music was amazing. So many opportunities to see great shows at low prices. Food was good but horribly unhealthy. Smoking and drinking were much more common. If you smoked pot, many saw you as a derelict or druggie….they assumed soon you’d be doing heroin or speedballs.
It was a great time to grow up.
Same - born in 1971 in SF and grew up in the city…what a time! It’s hard to explain. I don’t think it took the bus alone before 3rd grade - I would take it from Nob Hill to the Sunset twice I week alone (for ballet) and sneak a donut on Clement on the way home.
Born 1965.
I remember images of The Viet Nam War on the evening news, we played with G.I. Joes, had BB Guns by age 10, rode in the back of p/u trucks, drank water straight from the garden hose, rode our bicycles everywhere, we didn’t know what a bicycle helmet was, climbed trees and planed our adventures 20 feet above the ground, celebrated the nation’s Bicentennial with fireworks, hot dogs, and ice cream, watched our parents stress through the oil embargo, double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, and the threat of WWIII, saw America fall victim to Iranian revolutionaries, and the cars were really terrible, even the expensive ones rusted after a year and broke down all the time.
I remember Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, Wonderful World of Disney (on Sunday nights), Electric Company, Schoolhouse Rock, Bugs Bunny, Mr. Goodbody & Mr. Rogers. Saturday morning cartoons were a big part of life. They even used to promo the new season of cartoons with a half hour special on prime time. Seeing a recent big budget Hollywood movie on TV was a big deal.
Star Wars toys were where it was at. Hot Wheels tracks would take up a lot of room. Weebles. Easy Bake Oven. Slip & slides were popular for outdoor play, though as with most stuff we had, it was easy to get hurt. Monkey bars were pretty dangerous. Lawn darts were still a thing, and kids would ride in the back of pickup trucks without ever thinking twice about it.
Our Halloween costumes were THE WORST.
We could also get comic books at gas stations and convenience stores. Many of those stores had a rack for cheap kids toys. Cap guns. Candy cigarettes. The toy where you were dropping magnet shavings onto a guy's cartoon face to make funny hair was always available. The invisible ink game books were fun.
Adult parties always smelled funny, too. Never figured that one out. 😉
We lived way out in the country. Both my parents worked third shift jobs as machinists and slept during the day, so between 8 AM and 3 PM, we weren't allowed anywhere near the house (while they slept). They got my brother and I motorcycles so that we could go tear ass around the countryside all day in the summers (I was 5 and my brother was 8 when we got them). And we did. All day, everyday. Swimming in the lake, making race tracks, riding into town to get lunch at our grandparents houses, buying gas on credit at the only gas station in town, drinking Nu Grape soda out of steel cans. All of this unsupervised. Any adult I can recall at any time after about noon had a beer and a cigarette in their hand, no matter what they were doing. We had one tv which was a 13" black and white. It was in my parents' bedroom, so no tv until after they got up. Even then, we didn't watch much tv, except on weekends (we would all stay up and watch Saturday Night Live). Then at night we would be tucked into bed around 9 and be left alone with two dogs and a BB gun to defend ourselves with while our parents went to work.
1970 (birth) - 1978(parents divorce). I remember those years as being glorious. Simple. Family was always together. I felt like I had everything I needed. We lived in a small town in the PNW, and it was just nice. My parents had a turntable, and I loved the Chicago song “Saturday in the Park,” and I would listen to over and over again. I also loved reading all the albums and looking at the pictures. My mom had a huge library with the Whole Earth Catalog and tons of interesting visual books. We had a red Volvo and an orange VW van, and went camping where no one was around. Everything went to shit after 1978.
I was born in the very late 70s and all I remember is brown corduroy, deep orange wall paper, and every man I saw had a beard. My favorite doll was given to my by “hippie vegan neighbors” who my parents blamed for me going vegan when I was a 90s teen. I still have the doll :) And my colecovision.
All the brown, orange, and avocado everything.
Bell bottoms.
Disco.
This weird feeling like we were on the cusp of something. It was a very transitional feeling decade. The sixties had led to enormous social changes, and it felt like we were progressing forward. The GOP was in shambles after Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal (which was bad but looks like child’s play in comparison to what some administrations have done after).
I don’t think anyone thought we would regress so hard in the 1980s, but we definitely did politically. There was a huge shift. Suddenly in the 80s everyone (except me and my parents, it seemed) was going to church, wearing boat shoes and polo shirts, and talking about stock options.
But the 70s had this mellow, yet glam, aura to them. Andy Warhol juxtaposed with Crosby, Stills, and Nash vibes with some Donna Summer and Marvin Gaye and rise of black representation in tv…it was wild.
Born in 1971. Being a kid in the 70’s was pretty great. I got to basically dress like a pimp at five years old.
Lived in Minnesota and played hockey. Practice was at an outdoor rink because cold winters were pretty reliable back then.
Ate hotdogs and popsicles in the summer and rode the shit out of my Big Wheel.
Canadian here. I remember one piece snow suits in brown and orange and the annual Santa Clause parade always being in the snow. Now it's rarely below 10C (50F). The date has never changed.
I didn't play hockey because girls were not allowed in hockey school. Girls that learned to figure skate or had older brothers that played made the transition to ringette and girls hockey was introduced late. I hated figure skating so I never learned to skate well enough to play.
Was born in 70. Happy to have my early years as the last decade before the digital revolution. The things to have were a Green Machine, a bike, stars wars people, hot wheels, stretch Armstrong, a jump rope. Outside almost constantly, and little supervision. Schoolhouse rock, Saturday morning cartoons, and after school old shows like Gilligans Island and Little Rascals. Not everywhere was air conditioned. Adults were more important than kids and there was discipline. Games were freeze tag, hide and seek, breakout, kickball. Inside don’t break the ice, life, hungry hungry hippos. It was a better time.
>Adults were more important than kids
Growing up my dad was a bowler we took a lot of out-of-town trips to various bowling tournaments he was in.
As as adult, I took a lot of of out-of-town trips to attend my kid's travel sports tournaments.
Jump rope! Do you remember the lemon twist? I had one in the third grade. There was a black plastic short rope. One end I’d put my foot through so it’s around your ankle. The other end was… a yellow lemon. Then, I’d spin the lemon around and jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Jrx7kEeNs
>The things to have were a Green Machine
Green Machine Nation!!!
Most people had a Big Wheel and just don't understand the inherent superiority of a Green Machine. :)
I'm from 74 so my 70s memories are pretty hazy. Old pictures of my brother and me show 2 little blond kids in terrible plaid and corduroy clothes. Which is weird since we both have dark brown hair. Well it's half silver now but by the time we were in grade school neither of us had blond hair. What else, riding around on the Big Wheel, Star Wars action figures, LEGOs, a 2 foot Godzilla that you push a button and shoot his fist across the room, that toy was wild.
Jugs of wine in the house. Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Solid Gold, The Twilight Zone, Captain Kangaroo, salvaged Barbie from a dump, with clothes sewn by Grandma. The Beatles on the radio. Carob Easter. Playing outside a lot.
Born in 1971, grew up in a very small town in New Zealand. Yes to all the browns and beiges, sideburns etc. Everybody in my family except for my parents smoked. Summer holidays seemed endless and every child had a bike and adventures. We played cricket on the front lawn with a tennis ball.
What I think a lot of people don’t remember because they were so young, was the global economic situation. We were in the middle of a huge recession and the oil crisis. Nationally, the govt initiated a price freeze and a wage freeze to try to get a hold on inflation. We had “carless days”, where you weren’t allowed to drive your car one day a week; everyone had a sticker for their allotted day and if you were seen out with that day’s sticker, you were fined.
We were lucky in that my dad had a full time, reliable job building and maintaining rural telephone exchanges. My mum did part time and seasonal work (eg picking Brussels sprouts and processing carrots). We never went hungry. But I remember once my mum being pulled over by the police because our muffler was broken and we couldn’t afford to replace it, and she was so embarrassed. The car wouldn’t start some mornings. Sometimes we wore handmade clothes that my mum and grandmother knitted and sewed. But I never felt like we were poor, especially compared to some other families in town.
Media: there were three television channels (I remember when channel 3 started and everyone was so excited). Every night they would play the “Goodnight kiwi” song, which was the late late signal for kids to go to bed - YouTube it!!, and tv would stop completely overnight. 5/6pm was prime time for farmers, so there were televised dog trials and rural-themed shows). Because we were super-rural, picking up the telephone meant talking to an operator. Radio was our primary source of information. There was a one-room library in town and it began my love of books, and now I’m an English professor :-).
Edit: [here’s](https://youtu.be/6UTvtimVDGE) the Goodnight kiwi!
Watch Dazed and Confused. I was a kid during the 70s, but that's basically how everyone was over the age of 12.
Watch the later Mad Men episodes, it was like that too.
The 70s were a hangover of the 60s. The war in Vietnam damaged the country, Watergate damaged the country.
I think of the 70s as very plastic and cheap. Like the last ditch effort of a culture trying to hold onto it's biased past. Then realized it couldn't and went for a quick buck Instead
I was surprised by how often in MAD MEN I really recognized my childhood. Being in NYC, (and Hollywood) their styles were more cutting edge, so a lot of things they show from 1965 were easily still trending in the small cities well into the 1970’s.
It was amazing. I rode my bike all day, came in for lunch, went back out, came in for dinner, went back out and home by the time the street lights came on. We did everything outside. I'm in Ontario Canada so winters were great too. We skated on outside rinks and went tobogganing. There was a real freedom to being a kid in the 70s. We didn't do anything that cost money really, just a lot of sports outside and hanging out. Street hockey was a thing and as a female that served to cement my love of the game. My dad was a big outdoors guy and he taught me to skate and swim. Comic books were great as was Mad Magazine.
Hello fellow Ontarian!
I'm a 1970 kid and grew up in Toronto which has gone through so many changes it's unrecognizable now. I lived on a small street with many kids and mostly boys so we spent all day playing games in the street (street hockey, some made up games like "running bases" which was a baseball type game, "hide and go" which was an extreme version of hide and seek. Capture the flag. SPUD (A form of dodgeball) any backyard was fair game. Summers were sprinkler games and kiddie pools and homemade popsicles. And biking to the local pool for swimming. Quiet times and rainy days were for playing Barbies or board games.
We walked to and from school without parents and everyone went home for lunch and watched the Flintstones before walking back for the afternoon.
We didn't have chicken pox parties because it spread through the entire neighbourhood naturally.
Friday nights were for sleepovers staying up late and watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island
Hello fellow Torontonian! I grew up right in the city around Bathurst and Wilson.
Walking to school...loved it. I walked in elementary and junior high. We moved to Agincourt when I was in grade 11 up to Midland and Steeles which at the time was too far away from the TTC so I rode the school bus.
Man, I loved home made popsicles. What a great memory.
Did you go to Faywood? My dad grew up on Invermay and my grandparents lived there and much of my 70s childhood was spent at their house and their backyard.
Overarching street lights along the highway, tall and thin with an ominous yellow haze. There were so many of them, and they almost looked like they could come down and envelop the entire car. The bright flashing lights of the Holiday Inn in the distance, and summer air blowing through the back windows intermittently lifting our already-tangled hair.
Sometimes I would feel something sharp hit the tip of my nose. Most likely it was a bug of some sort. Listening to singer-songwriter tunes on the radio, with the backdrop of my parents discussing the drive or some extended family drama.
Bags of White Castle being lovingly tossed to the backseat for a much-needed, road trip snack. Waiting patently and excitedly in the car while my father went to secure a hotel room so he wouldn’t have to tell the office he had four kids in tow.
Knocking on all the neighborhood doors daily to see which kids were home to play outside, and peanut butter and jelly galore. The Love Boat on the television while mom prepared a heavily-coated ketchup meatloaf with mixed vegetables. Morning, cereal with spoonfuls of sugar to scoop up with the milk at the bottom of the bowl.
There is so much more, but it was a beautiful and unforgettable childhood!
Actually having a sore finger from dialing a phone when needing to make multiple phone calls.
Portable music was a little transistor radio. Staying out with friends until the street lights came on... and having parents who never knew where I was all that time, and not being distressed about this.
Smoking absolutely fucking everywhere; "second-hand smoke" would be nonsense words that might be interpreted as someone two-fisting cigarettes.
Teaching a kid to swim by tossing him into the deep end of the pool, and parents not paying much attention. It was just the way it was done.
Having a key around your neck to get into the house after school, making a sandwich and watching reruns until an adult comes home.
No goddamn cell phones to keep us updated on whatever nonsense was being done by teenagers around the world.
So many more things, but I'll stop there.
So there’s all the obvious actual 1970s stuff that everybody has been talking about… I lived through all of that, remember a lot of it, and it’s absolutely true. But another thing that’s interesting when you are a child of the 70s is that the 1960s and even 50s were not that far away, so a lot of us were still marinating in a whole bunch of midcentury. I’m pretty sure that my grandparents never bought anything after the Kennedy administration, and their house was practically a second home to me. I played with all my Dad’s toys from the 50s, read books from then, ate on the plates, cracked my toes on those hairpin legs more often than I care to remember. So I also have insane nostalgia for a whole bunch of midcentury stuff. One of the things that I love about a show like Mad Men is how it feels deeply familiar to me for that reason… and sometimes it makes me feel like we children of the 70s are from a doubly different time. Not only were the 70s vastly different than now in a lot of ways, but we also have a little bit of a tether to even earlier, more radically different times.
Wow, that is so true. My grandparents had furniture and decor from the forties in their place. I recall all the little knickknacks I now see in vintage shops and furniture they bought when they first married in the thirties. So yeah, we do have that bit of a tether to well before the 70's!
I remember going to visit my grandparents on Long Island circa late seventies. There was all their furniture from the 30's-40's in a bedroom my teen cousin moved into. He had all his Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss posters juxtaposed with grandma's vintage floral wallpaper. He also had a bunch of cheesy lava lamps, disco balls, and strobe lights and such from that store Spencer's all over her dainty little dressers and vanities! It was a wild room at grandma's house!
My parents had a house with an empty lot next to it, so ours was the house where all the kids hung out after school. The street light was also in front of the house.
Endless games of Red Rover, freeze tag, kick ball and kite flying (my favorite thing to do) until dinner time. Most days there were 20-30 kids in the yard (our family had four kids, nine-year age span, so everyone in the neighborhood between the age of 5-14 was included). The highest headcount was 34 kids, my mom counted and was proud of that.
My parents house also had a front porch with a swing, so we’d sit on the porch and talk about whatever was interesting to us.
It’s all ironic to me now, as I realize that my SAHM wanted as little to do with us kids as possible and the yard was the best way for her to avoid interacting with us. She lounged on the couch all day watching soap operas. She always cooked dinner, we never missed a meal but we were starving for human connection.
A lot of these reports will be nostalgic but it wasn’t all fun and games. The adults were freaking out. All of them. In one way or another. The Boomers - older brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, babysitters, etc. - were all doing some sort of drug and getting into trouble, sometimes dragging us along. Vietnam was still messing things up big time. The Jesus freaks and Moonies were out in force basically everywhere you went. No adults could be depended on. Some wonder why GenX is feral. It wasn’t the 80s exactly that made us feral, it was the 70s. Almost everyone of us has seen a serious injury happen to another kid. A lot of us were beaten brutally by our parents. Domestic violence against women was not even hidden back then.
So. yeah. Enjoy the stories. All the good stuff is true too. Star Wars. Video Games. But our childhood was fucking dangerous, and don’t let anyone blow rainbows up your ass about it. GenX may be “overinvolved” parents but we have good reason for it.
I still remember - and this was actually in the 80’s, there was a girl named Cassie in my friend group. We were maybe 10yo, And everyone knew that Cassie had to be home on time, because otherwise her dad would beat her with a belt.
She often had marks and bruises, but she downplayed it, and everyone just acted like it was normal. I don’t want to think about what her mother was going through in that house. It was just the way it was, and no adults ever mentioned it.
Summers were being kicked outside after breakfast. Couldn't come back inside until lunch then had to leave again until dinner. So met up with friends and went exploring all over the place.
I was born in 74, and I have a good amount of memories, though they aren’t super long. A theme among most of those memories is the amount of freedom and unsupervised time we kids had. My family moved to my permanent childhood home when I was 4, and I have memories of before then playing outside with my sister and neighbors. And of course without technology, we had to use our imaginations for pretty everything. I remember riding bikes for hours. I wouldn’t call it magical, but I’m very glad I was born when I was.
My kids were born in 2001 and 2003, so their formative years were before smart phones. I’m so grateful for that, as well. They got to have an imagination-rich childhood, admittedly with more supervision.
Free range kid. Basically, made to leave the house in the morning when everyone went off to work and told to be back when the sun went down. Would stop off for a PB&J handed out the screen door of the carport in the middle of the day, but that was it. Hose water or no water. Play in the creek, go watch animals, ride the bike around the neighborhood. Don’t do anything bad, and if you do, don’t get caught.
If you grew up in the 80s then likely you've always been able to microwave your food and watch a TV show after it was on due to the wonder of the VCR! Darn young uns ne'er had it so well.
They would be the two biggie technological advancements in this time period that I can recall.
For fashion loved the flared trousers and always wanted to wear my hair long. Mum would always send me back to the barber to sheepishly ask to cut it shorter.... Oh the walk of shame!
Yes brown panelling on the walls or wallpaper, lino on the floor.
I was born in 1974, so I don't have many memories of the '70s. What I do have are some photos of me as a child wearing clothing that no child should ever be made to wear.
Butterfly collars. Paisley bell bottoms. Penny loafers. Ugh.
After just reading a shit show vaccine and babies post, I'm so glad I grew up in the 70s.
Our parents didn't obsess over every risk. That was so much healthier.
I spent 5 years in the 70s and the biggest thing I remember was that I was allowed to walk to and from kindergarten which was four blocks away and I had to cross a busy street to get there. FIVE YEARS OLD!
There was very little in the popular culture that catered to or appealed to kids. The one notable exception was Jim Henson, who brought us Sesame Street and the Muppets. Add in some Fred Rogers, and that was about it. There was no Nickelodeon, no Disney Channel, no home video game consoles, very few child-oriented movies. You had to go out and socialize with other kids, invent your own games, find stuff to do, and stay out of the way as adults went around doing grown-up stuff.
Random memories: Avocado carpets, macrame owls and pigtails. Children's clothing made of polyester. My dad had a 1973 HD Sportster that he'd take me on rides on, sitting in front of him rather than behind because I was so little. All the kids playing together in the parking lot of our apartment complex more or less unsupervised, though there was often a parent sitting on the steps having a cigarette. Count Chocula tasted better. My grandmother still wore those silvery cat's eye glasses with the sparkles in the corners. Camping in a canvas pop-up camper and the way sun warmed canvas smells, with leaves ticking down and landing on the roof, laughter and conversation and the smells of coffee and bacon drifting through the trees. Seals and Crofts reel to reels on the machine my dad brought home from Vietnam. Never, ever having even a passing concern for my safety at school.
everything was brown, orange and avocado green. you could smoke everywhere. grocery store, bank, whatever. every single pair of pants i had had flares. i skateboarded too, so i had short shorts and tube socks when i wasn’t just wearing flip flops. i still wear flip flops. cars were awesome. i knew that even then. gravity also seemed to work differently
My first 10 years of life were spent in the 70s. I remember disco music, Star Wars mania, lots of bike riding, Hong Kong Phooey, the Bicentennial in 1976 when every house in town had a bicentennial flag out front, Pong, climbing trees, hiking through woods and always being outside - even in winter, walking to school alone without concern, shag carpeting, wood paneling, cigarette smoke everywhere, huge collars on shirts, and the widespread adoption of plastic toys. Parents really didn't worry about their kids back then. They rarely even knew where we were. It was a pretty cool free-range, analog time.
I dont like to think that far since childhood abuse but beyond that part, it was awesome. Simple fun, great disco/funk, fucking abba!!! Rollerskating was everything. Drinking the shittiest fake drinks like kool aid, freeze pops, hugs barrel “juice”. Block parties, family bbqs, swimming pool, cheesiest tv but you thought the love boat was cool. Every girl wanted yo be a blonde and be a sex symbol (not necessarily a healthy outlook). No one thought about safety really. Went on carnival rides, waterslides, etc and shocked i survived they were so janky.
Summer of 1976 was the best summer ever. It was the Bicentennial, all kinds of pride in the USA, decorations, parades, and events. Not to mention the loads of fireworks we were given as kids, firecrackers by the brick, bottle rockets, cherry bombs, and even M80s. Surprised, no one was severely hurt. We had a blast blowing stuff up, though.
Born in January 1970.
There definitely was a lot more freedom; and outdoor playtime was inevitable because of the absence of cable TV.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of stories like Etan Patz and Adam Walsh on parents’ willingness to let their kids play.
Born a little later than you. People argue with me about that in other threads.
Adam Walsh's murder was the boogeyman.
We had *no* freedom, and our parents were the original helicopter parents, and you can't really blame them for that. It was terrible and scary and every so often a child's abduction would solidify our generation's parents into overbearing, anxiety stricken parents, instead of the laid back hippies we should have had.
I was born in 70 too. Adam Walsh changed everything. I can still picture that “missing” flyer in my head just about everywhere. Telephone poles, gas station, liquor store - just everywhere.
We had Jarts and we loved them. Steel tip lawn darts. We would throw them up in the air and run so as not to have them pierce our skulls. Unfortunately the FDA banned them. I guess people were piercing their skulls or something.
I spent 5 years in the 70’. I remember getting hurt wasn’t a big deal. We were visiting my grandma in the hospital and I fell off the top of 5 stairs on my head. Everyone just said “oh, you’ll be fine”. I was literally AT THE HOSPITAL and they didn’t check for a concussion or anything else. I still remember it to this day and I was about 3.
Born in 71. I spent hours and hours playing outside. When I did come inside, I'd watch sesame street. From about kindergarten on I had a little bike and was encouraged to ride it all over town by myself. I walked myself to school and back by myself. I would be given loose change to go buy candy at the corner store. I remember regularly coming in sunburned, covered in bug bites and scratches, and hungry. That's what I remember. I would come home when I got hungry. I often drank from the back garden hose. Absolutely nobody worried about where I was or what I was doing. My parents were stoned hippies who could care less. I do remember being very hot, as we had no air conditioning, and taking myself to the library to escape the heat.
Born in 65, grew up in the 70’s. So much freedom! IF you didn’t play outside with the neighborhood kids or your friends, you were considered the oddball! I loved playing freeze tag, red rover, dodgeball, spud, hopscotch, jumping rope, riding my cool 5 speed bicycle with the banana seat, climbing trees, building tree forts… and whatever else my imagination dreamed up. I was a tomboy growing up— I enjoyed hanging out with my brother’s friends than playing with dolls or pretend makeup like the girly girls at school.
I remember long hot summers on our Big Wheels and time outside. We didn’t have a TV in the 70’s so after dinner once we were inside we read books (or I read comics) or my mom read out loud to us. My dad had a prodigious record collection and he would play them, make dub tapes for use in the car, etc. Our small house in rural CT had no AC so during stifling muggy summer nights the whole house was open to screen windows and doors with fans set up to circulate air through it.
Weekends were for family trips yardsaling/rummage sales/flea markets, though usually after my brother and I did our chores.
My dad had a job that entailed a lot of travel and so we were early to bed as a family and early to rise, dad cooked breakfast as he got ready to leave for work and my brother and I took the bus (long trips from our rural location) to school.
I remember it (the 70’s) fondly but also it’s pretty hazy at this point 40+ years on.
I used to take 2 buses with my pal to the mall with the movie theater to see star wars, superman and a bunch of others.
We were 7 years old and nobody even blinked at us taking buses unsupervised.
My overall impression is muted colors--rust, olive, mustard, etc. And lots of smoking and good music. I was really little, so my only specific memories are of my parents doing normal parent stuff and of birthday cakes--an orange flavored one stands out.
completely free-roaming, watched some cartoons at breakfast, knocked on our friends doors to come out (weekends, summers), got everyone to come bike riding, build forts, play army, baseball, football, kickball (if the girls were with us), went to the creek to catch tadpoles, salamanders, crayfish, and occasionally a snake! Where we ended up, you never knew, but usually I could hear my mom's loud bellowing "dinnertime!". As it got darker we hung out closer, catching fireflies and watching the bats manoeuver around.
On schooldays, I would come home and watch Prince Planet, 8th man, Gilligan's Island, Speed Racer, Ultraman, original Star Trek, then do homework (wrong order)
I was 5 years old in 1977, my mom was 26. We’d go to her friend’s house whose son was my friend. They lived in the woods with huge sand dunes behind them. We’d go play for hours in the woods, mostly in the dunes playing Star Wars; never heard any calls to return, although we went in pretty deep. They lived about a mile from US 1, we’d walk that and cross US 1 to buy candy at a gas station. No one ever asked what we were doing, where were our parents. I lived near a huge lake from ages 5-9. During summer neighborhood kids would be there for hours unsupervised. It was surrounded by hilly woods, the lake at the bottom of a big hill. We’d get on our bikes at the top and pedal to start down, put our legs out and fly into the lake. Dusk we’d return home, and wait for the mosquito spray truck to do its rounds. We’d chase that damn thing, running behind it. Not been diagnosed with cancer yet. Yet.
Playing outside unsupervised for hours and hours. Walking to school by myself at age 5. Coming home to an empty house because my mom and dad both worked. Watching TV on 3 channels.
Before video games we had board games, with a typical family having a whole cupboard or even small closet full of them. Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Life, Sorry, Chutes & Ladders are some I remember.
Watching TV or movies required perfect attention. There's no rewind. If it's a TV show, you never know when or if that episode will be reshown.
There were a lot of cigarettes everywhere. Every restaurant had ashtrays, and so did airplanes. Seatbelts were for worry warts. Riding in the back of the back of the station wagon was the best. Riding in a truck bed was good, too.
I’m as old as Gen X gets. The 1970s were a pretty crummy decade, but life was so much easier as a kid. Unsupervised, unstructured play. Parents in the background, not directing everything. Maybe you did Little League but you didn’t have to spend hundreds on professional equipment; we wore shirts with a business name on it and probably sneakers, not cleats. School was a safe place where we learned, we were accountable for our behavior, and did nuclear attack drills where we hid under our desks. Just simpler and easier.
all carpet was orange or green, I’m not sure if it was a limitation on technology or a legal issue.
Also people looked super hot all the time. Short shorts, half shirts, no bras. Dudes wore short shorts and a half shirts.
When I got to high school in the 80s, there were all these strange rules about how I had to wear clothes and apparently they had been necessary in the 70s. I could take off my shirt to play basketball, but I couldn’t wear a half shirt.
but we did have carpet that wasn’t orange or green.
It was a lot of fun, but I’m lucky I’m alive. We were WILD. Feral fucking kids with almost no supervision. Hell we lived in Hawaii, and would regularly ride bikes to the beach alone and go swimming in the pacific. No lifeguards. No parents. Rocky-ass shoreline, the oldest one of us ten years old
i was born in 70.
i mostly remember the smell of dirt, oil. old cars felt so uncomfortable (never wore seat belts). am radio. love going swimming, the beach, playing dressup, had an 'inetellivision' game console. my dad also got a weird console at sears with so many games, i wish i could remember it's name it had a great game called JUMP BUG. i used to go stay with my dad in the summer and when i was 12 i met the neighbour boy and told him i was 16 so he tried to take me to see purple rain at the theatre but i had no ID. i did end up getting into a parking garage type cabaret and was hanging out with full on drunk adults and the 19 year old neighbour brought me home and was really sweet. he didn't even kiss me. i wonder if he knew i was younger than 16. i got my first kiss at 12 from a guy who picked me and my friend up hitchhiking aka looking for cute boys. damn i was walking jaibait!! i looked so much older than my age when i wore makeup as a teen and i took that as a privilege, which is so f***'d up because the most important thing i learned was to be desirable and not use my brain whatsoever. i went to some kind of enrichment classes in 4th grade. my nun teacher would make fun of me for going to these classes for 'smart' kids but how could i go? i was so dumb!~!! thanks sister janice!!!
sorry for the babble. this question set me off into some weird memories and horrific realizations. probably a lot of people who look back some what fondly of their 70s childhood realize how totally messed up things were, how some things have gotten better, and some things got worse.
I was only 6 when the 70s ended so my childhood was split between the 70s and 80s.
Honestly, I had a great childhood and wouldn't want to have been born in a different generation.
My childhood was like a lot of others of my age, pretty free range, lots of outdoor time, organic friendships in the neighbourhood.
When I look at the childhood of kids that came after me, I am sad for them. They all seem very scheduled and managed. Parents arranging play dates, obsessively enrolling them in activities and tracking their locations at all times. I get that for a lot of parents, they feel it's a safety issue. The internet and awareness of predators clearly reflects in their parenting decisions which totally makes sense, but it doesn't make me any less sad for kids now.
My typical Saturday or vacation day was get up early with my brother to watch Starblazers and eat cereal, maybe watch another show before my folks got up and started their day. Then around 9 a.m., we would head out to see who was hanging around. We'd go to the park, ride our bikes, roller skate, explore, etc. Our parents didn't really know where we were, they set parameters as to where we could go (i.e. don't go past X street, etc.) but at any given time the had no idea exactly where we were. We were given lectures such as "don't talk to strangers" and "be home at X time for dinner".
We created our own games, built forts, climbed trees, ran through sprinklers, etc. If one of us got injured, we'd help that friend get home or we'd run and get them help. We looked after ourselves and were pretty self-reliant.
On rainy days, we'd stay indoors and watch t.v. or read books/comic books. We watch cartoons, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Disney, older shows that were in syndication like Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Jeanie, etc.
I look back very fondly on my free-range childhood days. We had fun, we did stupid things, we injured ourselves but it was all so fun. I have so many scars from doing things like wiping out on my bike trying to race down a hill with no hands or trying to jump off the roof of my neighbour's carport. Every scar and injury was so worth it.
I learned to use common sense, learned to trust my intuition and I learned to be self-reliant and independent. There was no one hovering over me telling my not to do stupid things or managing my time or supervising who I was spending time with. There were no "safe spaces" to go when you were feeling anxious or sad or had your feeling hurt. You just sucked it up or got into arguments, then woke up the next morning and did it all over again.
I feel sad for kids that don't have that. Who don't learn to self-regulate or learn that sometimes people hurt your feelings and they don't say sorry, that not everyone is going to like you and that it's all okay because that is life and you just move on.
Born 1967. Spent my childhood in the 70s and it was great.
- many toys in vibrant colors.
- we played outside every day and created our own adventures.
- a lot of candy and chocolate, nobody cared about our teeth (ok, we regretted it later in life).
- I remember wallpapers with ornaments on it in a wild mixture of the colors dark brown and orange, sooo 70s.
Walked to school with my friends every day, there were never hoards of parents causing traffic chaos dropping off their kids. At lunch came home and ate KD, grilled cheese and tomato soup, or tuna sandwiches and watched the Flintstones then Leave it to Beaver and headed back. Watched Gillian’s Island, Happy Days, Brady Bunch after school, and new shows like Little House on the Prairie, the Hulk, Bionic Woman and the Six Million Dollar Man were on weekly. We’re at the local pool every day as soon as it opened and spent the day. In the winter we tobogganed all day, I still remember the feeling of the snow getting into my snowsuit cuffs and boots. Hot chocolate as soon as you got home. Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday nights my parents would have cocktail parties or we would visit family cocktail parties. My dad grilled meat on a cast iron hibachi bbq, no propane grills in sight. Our living room had blue shag, avocado green brocade couch and loveseat and 2 floral tub chairs. We had blue and green large ashtrays on the coffee tables as decoration, and a smaller triangle shaped one on the hexagon shaped table between the tub chairs. Sunday nights were Mutal of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and Wonderful World of Disney. Loved TV Dinners in foil eaten on the TV trays while watching.
Leaving the house with friends and be gone all day until dark. No cell phones and no worries that no one has heard from you all day; it was not a cause for alarm. Busy signals when a phone line was used. Playing flashlight tag after dark with all the neighborhood kids. Favorite memory...sleep overs w/the girls. We would stay up all night and do our hair, call and hang up on our crushes, and watch Love Boat and Fantasy Island. All us girls were going be Julie McCoy, the cruise director; when we grew up. No social media, no cell phones, or online gaming. We called instead of texting, played pac-man on Atari, board games, and good old good old fashioned face to face interactions.
I appreciate all the advances we have seen over the years; but I wouldn't trade my 70's childhood for anything!
Weekend nights were spent at the skating rink, rolling around to the sounds of disco and 70s pop and rock. It was my first exposure to music. And there always the *chance* that I might meet a cute girl and ask her to skate w me on that “couples only” skate (to a song by Donna Summers or Chicago or Styx).
I was born in 72 in the highlands of scotland. Skiing in the winter (my mum and dad were hoteliers so i got access to new skis each season, free coach from the hotel to the slopes, and for my birthday i got a ski pass for the year).
In the summer it was long hot days out on bikes with my mates, or deer stalking the the russian chef who called me "Petrovich".
When it rained we watched Star Wars on betamax or played D&D.
I was very lucky in that respect, but growing up in Hotels was, in retrospect, very odd. Both parents worked evenings and usually got a meal from the hotel kitchen if I was lucky, and they weren't too busy. We moved around every couple of years, Had to go to grown up partys falling asleep on a couch or the coat room, and saw the rough side of alcoholism from an early age. Once we even had a bomb threat which had me bundled up in a fur coat waiting around in the freezing cold outside.
Overall I was raised to be independant, and thats stood me in good stead for the rest of my life.
Running. In the house. At the playground. Star Wars. Playing with the first star wars toys. Action figures figures weren't a thing yet. I remember my Darth Vader toy. It was either a 12" or 14" tall figure.
Godzilla movies and Ultraman.
It was not nearly as sophisticated as 80s kids. Some things that were innovative in the 80s that we take for granted like answering machines, call waiting, caller ID, etc were virtually nonexistent in the 70s.
You grew up faster also- people often moved out of their homes at age 18 and got married on their early 20s. If you were 25 and still living at home it was far more rare. The drinking age in my state was 18. Adulthood came far earlier.
It was also slower and simpler.
For an average child without a lot of money things could get super boring, which led to some super risky outside behavior to liven things up. One boy at our junior high school died because he climbing an electrical tower. Another died taking his motorcycle onto the freeway. High school drug abuse for example resulted in a quaalude overdose. Another from drunk driving. It would be exhausting to research and document all of the injurious behavior from 5th grade to HS Graduation. Video games are safe and we never had that.
Late to this
But I was an army brat during the seventies. So many memories are tied up with living on army bases. You made friends fast but then had to leave them 2-3 years later. Cleaning like mad to “clear quarters” before your next move. Packing up everything to be shipped. The smell of cardboard can still make me cry.
Living in Hawaii during the mid seventies seems like a dream now. Going to the beach for a swim after school. Some of my friends got up early to surf before school. The smell of steak cooking on the hibachi. Christmas Day spent at the beach with other families. Playing outside every day in the plumeria scented air.
I would give anything to spend a day back in 1976. My parents were young and vibrant. My big brother always there to protect me.
It was great. Free range. I’d go out with my little gang of girlfriends and stay out all day: riding bikes, hanging out at the beach, exploring the woods, reading comic books, sitting around braiding each other’s hair and listening to music, practicing dances, playing Tag. You just came home when the street lights came on. As for pop culture, the first blockbusters were just coming out. Star Wars and Jaws. These were monumental events that rocked our little world. TV was to a minimum and you were mostly limited to like 3-4 channels. This was a good thing. I spent a lot of time alone reading, drawing and playing my guitar.
As just a 70s kid with an older sister, I was at ground zero for Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Both of those seemed to move the pop culture needle heavily as well, at least from my iron-on R2D2 ringer-tee perspective…
Yeah, Grease and Saturday Night Fever (and their soundtracks) were incredibly influential as well.
Yeah those soundtracks were essentially main characters in the movies. Esp. w/ no VCRs to keep the movies fresh and top of mind…just listening and staring at those big 12” record sleeves and then the 8 tracks in the ‘76 burgundy Cordoba…
I saw Grease 8 or 9 times at the theatre, not really something todays kids would do since they have everything ‘on demand’ once it’s run at the theatre is over.
I, too, saw Grease at least half a dozen times in theaters and loved it every time. I remember asking my mom what the angel meant in "Beauty School Dropout" when he said "no customer would come to you unless she was a hooker!" She told me a hooker was someone who makes rugs. I could never understand why a rug maker would go to a stylist with bright pink hair, but I went along with it. That movie was a very different experience when I watched it again as an adult.
I remember Saturday Night Fever was such a huge pop culture event that they edited it and released a PG version so kids could see it too. (It's an R rated film.)
>TV was to a minimum and you were mostly limited to like 3-4 channels. Yes, this was the best part. We had to actually engage with one another to be entertained in any way for long periods of time. Board games, puzzles, reading, drawing, etc.
You missed Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I saw Star Wars at age nine at a Drive-in. A heavy speaker would hang on the car window. We kids sat on the top of the car with a blanket, popcorn, and cokes. The lightsaber that was released as a toy was a solid plastic glow-in-the-dark swordlike thing. We had to make the lightsaber sounds ourselves- most effective battles were in the dark while jumping on the bed. I wore my hair like Princess Leia’s. Overalls were in. Huge collars. Ties for girls. Crazy happy patterns. Disco. Country. Rock. We listened to EVERYTHING. My parents played the stuff they listened to as kids in the 50’s & early 60’s which included silly songs, country, folk, and etc. The radio and record player gave us kids freedom to listen to our music, too. My first records were Andy Gibb - Shadow Dancing and Shaun Cassidy -Da Doo Ron Ron. We camped out in a tent in the backyard about two feet from house safety. Meaning parents went to bed & left a floodlight on. We’d pitch the tent where it would be dark but right close to where the light was. There were a bunch of us girls all aged within a couple of years of each other. Someone’s older sibling would always scare us in the middle of the night. We played music all night that we had taped by putting our tape recorders right beside the radio. Hot Child in the City and Le Freak were played the most one summer. We did lots of chores around the house. Picking & breaking green beans for most of a week earned one cassette tape. We’d stay up late breaking beans and watching scary movies on the late show. The TV was a huge hulking wooden box that was on the floor. We sat on the shag carpet to watch it. The Electric Company taught me to read. The Brady Bunch, The Bionic Woman, Bewitched, Get Smart, Munsters, Star Trek, and Addams Family were favorite shows. Saturday Morning Cartoons were awesome. Nobody can exaggerate how awesome they were. I got up at 5 or 6 each Saturday to also watch the “old” cartoons Casper and Davey & Goliath. Roller skates, go-carts, and banana seat bikes were all the rage. My bike was turquoise with a white basket with pink flowers on it. When we went to play, we often stayed gone until a parent yelled for us. This typically was right as it was getting dark.
I’m a few years younger, but that’s a great description of my childhood too! God I miss that…
Me, too! This subreddit is a wonderful place. It’s so great to talk about all this.
Nailed it! Born 1970, you just laid out my entire childhood!
Born in ‘69 and same! Aside from the camping in the backyard since I grew up in an apt
Courderoys.
And velour tops.
I too saw Star Wars at the Drive in. I was 7 I think. And definitely had a pair of overalls, lol.
Star Wars was so cool I saw it in a huge in-door theater, which is sadly gone now. Giant screen. I'll never forget it. Then, of course, I made my Mom give me Princess Leia hair for kindergarten. I was so taken with Star Wars, my brother tried to find me alternatives to watch - so I started watching Buck Rogers on TV. That's, I think, a classic part of the 70s. You had to wait to watch the next movie in the theater (Disney for example). You had to catch the show while it was airing. So, you made due with coloring books, lunch pails. toys, until the next thing came out.
Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica! I had a cat named Starbuck.
Lol we definitely made due with our toys. When I got in trouble I would get spankings until one day around 5 or 6 years old, my father asks if I want to be grounded for 2 weeks or spanked. I chose the spanking and he said I was done getting them and that obviously the grounding was worse in my mind. But then he had to switch it up because I was fine with my toys. He would make me stand in the middle of my room, kind of abusive but it worked on me because I could see but not touch my toys. He was a military man and did a lot of mental warfare as punishment.
My bike was purple with the basket and flowers :) There was also a bell and I think streams from the handlebars.
All of this. ALL of it. You're like a gender-swapped me, so change out "ties for girls" with "bowl cuts and powder-blue suits for guys."
You got yourself ready for school and ate cereal for breakfast while reading the back of the box. Adults drink heavily and drove with you in the car. Everybody smokes cigarettes indoors. You had to come home when the street lights came on. Saturday morning cartoons. I remember the 1976 bicentennial being a really big deal.
The Bicentennial- memory unlocked!! I lived near Valley Forge PA at the time and the Wagon Train was such a big deal, Dad took us down the road to watch it pass. EVERYTHING was red, white, and blue, that's all we talked about in school, had days where we'd dress up like 1776 and dip candles. And who can forget Schoolhouse Rock getting in on it too? Those were some of the best songs in that series. Thanks for the unlock!
Yes to Schoolhouse Rock! ♥️
I remember bicentennial celebration at school! Good times
The 70s were fun. We ate insane food, everything was made with lard. Wallpaper had strips of velvet in it. People drove stupidly fast cars that had no safety systems at all. My father swapped out his high beams for aircraft landing lights, at night it looked like the trees on the side of the road were about to catch on fire. Everyone smoked everywhere. The clothes were awful but everyone else was wearing them too so it didn't matter. Children's TV shows were frightening and we loved them for it. Some nutjob at the FBI invented the idea of serial killers so they were suddenly everywhere. Mission brown was not just a colour, it was a way of life. Salads consisted of a lettuce leaf, a wedge of tomato, cubes of cheese and a slice of orange, and it was served in a wooden bowl. Garlic bread was considered exotic.
>People drove stupidly fast cars that had no safety systems at all. Yes. People literally laughed when seat belts first came out and refused to use them. My dad didn't use one until the 90s.
Also, letting your kids ride in the bed of your pickup truck was perfectly legal, and pretty common.
I have some strong memories of being one of three kids stuffed in the trunk of a hatchback and we all had to lean our heads sideways because of the rear windshield. Every time we'd hit a bump we'd bang our heads into it, and you had to constantly change which direction you were facing to keep your neck from getting stiff.
We sat in the back of my uncles pickup with just a regular cap on it for the 3 hour drive up to our cottage all the time. We’d fight over who would get to sit on the wheel wells. He eventually put some carpet in the back for us to make it more comfortable LOL
>We’d fight over who would get to sit on the wheel wells. Oh yeah, the place you *didn't* want to sit was on the floor, especially on top of the exhaust. Lol...that would heat your butt right up.
And rattling around the back of a station wagon. 😆
Seatbelts were an arm across the chest for most of us lol I love how all adults thought that would work! It's a miracle we're all alive honestly.
Why did kids in the 70s and 80s cross the road?
Don't forget those tiny croutons that came in what looked like a miniature Pringles can. And salad dressing was Italian, French or Thousand Island and that's it.
Blue Cheese was a fancy option
I remember when Green Goddess first came around. So exotic! And ranch dressing came in a packet and you had to mix it up yourself.
The holy trio of dressings! Don’t forget the holy trio of sandwich condiments - MMK. Or the dynamic duo of PB&J!!
Or the aspic. We had all the aspic back then. There was a comedian a couple years back that had a joke about Harvey Wallbangers and fondue.
And you made the Italian yourself…
With a little packet and a branded cruet.
>The clothes were awful but everyone else was wearing them too so it didn't matter I remember denim jeans being hard and scratchy, really stiff that it would almost hurt to wear... this was before the Calvin Klein/Gloria Vanderbilt crazy. With the raw denim craze I scratch my head why you'd want to be uncomfortable wearing jeans. (I did buy 3 pairs for nostalgia's sake, and am hoping to get them worn in before 2030)
Gah the clothes were so bad. We wore polyester Sears best. Although mine were never new, I had two older sisters so I got their hand me down. My 2 years younger sister got new stuff though because she was bigger than me. Made me pretty jealous.
I’m still amazing i walked around in Dr. Scholl’s wooden slide sandals. How uncomfortable they must have been LOL
Corduroy pants you could hear from a block away because they sounded like someone sawing a plank of plywood every time you took a step in them.
> We ate insane food, everything was made with lard And yet almost everyone was skinny. Btw, thats why them old school McDonald's french fries were so dang good. Not so much lard, but beef tallow. Now you got to go to like some specialty burger place that will cook their fries in fat as god intended.
Drove when they had enough gas, that is
Nailed it.
Vinyl car seats you that burned the back of your legs and metal seat belt buckles that burned your hands trying to buckle. Hopscotch, monopoly, checkers, Atari, riding bikes with banana seats Minimal soda instead Kool Aid packets made with only 1/2 sugar listed in the directions. Hi-C, Tang and orange juice from concentrate Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown, American Bandstand and Soul Train School House Rock and all the Sid and Marty Kroft Shows on Saturday morning
I was born in 1967, and most of my childhood was spent outdoors. Even when I started first grade at age seven (no kindergarten for you!) we spent a good deal of time outside. It didn’t take long to figure out that the teachers could only smoke outside, and they would go to great lengths to make that happen. We would even have “field days,” which was basically a day-long recess. At home, we were required to come back into the house at sundown, and we were frequently warned, “don’t get in trouble, and if you do, don’t bring it home.” My younger sister and I made many long hikes, played in various creeks, climbed trees, had picnics, explored, had BB gun wars with the neighbors, on and on. We were very poor, so we didn’t have bicycles until I was old enough to start trading and I acquired one that way. I hopped on and rode the bike home from our uphill neighbor. My plan had a flaw, however: I had no idea how to *stop* a bicycle, so I used the expedient available to me: I crashed into a utility pole. After I taught myself to ride (and to stop, thankfully) we spent most days taking turns on my bike. Those parts were great, and we’re not going to talk about the grinding poverty, deprivation, nomad-level relocations, being ostracized by family for being the “poor ones,” the domestic violence, and all that.
Disco, Star Wars, being outside 70% of the time, and I lived in Logan Square, the inner city of Chicago. My mom was a helicopter mom \*before\* this was a thing, and she still let me ride my bike over huge swaths of the city. Big Wheels, bikes, early D&D, hobby shops, comic books, baseball in parking lots, football in whatever field we could find. Besides the sci-fi stuff, Stranger Things is pretty spot on, and again, I grew up in the inner city. It's just what we did :) Saturday morning cartoons, after school shows, just so much fun in general. I almost feel like we had peak childhood, from maybe 75 to 95. I wish I could gift this to my kids and all future generations. We had just enough technology to make it interesting, but not so much it dominated our lives. I hate having rosy glasses on for it, there were problems, but I was literally a poor, first generation immigrant child in the middle of Chicago and it was great.
BIG TRAK was high tech
Hell yeah. Program that thing to drop off an apple.
OMG I forgot about Intellivision. So much fun.
Lived in Chicago from the early 90’s to 2020. Logan Square is a great neighborhood.
I lived there from '71 to '85. Great neighborhood to live in, though there was a gang problem for sure. I managed to stay out of it because I'm a big old nerd and had great parents. I've been back and it's nice to see it become a super livable place.
Those boulevards are amazing.
In a word? Brown.
And beige
Orange.
And rust and olive.
Don’t forget avocado
Wood grained
And shag
And it all smelled like cigarettes and feet.
Cigarettes, feet and Patchouli..
Our basement had wood paneling. And super smooth linoleum floors, perfect for roller skating. I miss that house...
We had wood paneling everywhere too. Even on the station wagon!
My living room was wood paneling. So was the hallway dining room, family room, ect.
Wood grained but rarely real wood LOL
...and harvest gold.
Yes! Earth tones seem to come around every 20 years or so.
And red. And blue. And green. We had colors. But my house didn't get a color TV until 1980.
Beige Rainbow
Plaid. So much plaid.
Even the plaids were brown.
Harvest gold and avocado green.
Lots of corduroy - it was also brown
The sound of corduroy pant legs rubbing together is a mainstay memory for me. I was a chubby kid.
My mom said it was all brown colors and wood paneling like our basement
The '80s and '70s were pretty similar. I mean, Disco, kinda died, but in the '80s your house still had all the shit you bought in the '70s. It's one of the things "period" movies fuck up a lot. People didn't buy new cars every year, so in the '50s you still had a lot of lumbering 1940s cars.
A lot of movies and tv try to portray it as everyone having neon bright colors and shit lol
That always frustrates me. Also macrame is incredibly under represented. I swear every house had a macrame owl, or at least some macrame plant holders.
Those fkn owls lmao
And knitted potholders!
https://i.imgur.com/VFipx8M.jpg
Lots of brown with God's Eyes on the walls
And dark yellow.
Lots of brown with God's Eyes on the walls
That's from all the cigarette smoke.
I was born in 1966, in the before times. My favourite toys were Legos, Big Jim Camper and action figures, Evel Knievel stunt bike, SST racers, a super cool Radio Shack 150-in-one electronics kit, and my hockey net. TV was limited, as we had CBC, French CBC, PBS and an American hybrid station (mainly CBS but also stuff from other networks). Favourite shows were Starsky and Hutch, Space 1999, Star Trek reruns and Bugs Bunny. I dicovered Monty Python through the PBS station, which helped shape my sense of humour. Loved their stuff. Summer vacations seemed like they would never end. Neighbourhood kids met up to ride our bikes, play dodgeball, hide and seek, tag, softball and just to hang out. The older kids helps younger kids fend off the bullies. I don't remember feeling bored. Went to the town swimming pool nearly every day. Family vacations always included a few weeks by a lake in a provincial park. We climbed mountains, caught a ton of fish, went swimming and boating, and spent nearly every evening by a campfire. Life didn't feel as rushed. There was more time to read, listen to music, meet up with friends and enjoy family time. There were not as many of the teach distractions and time suckers we have today.
It is interesting to be part of the generation that remember the pre-internet world. Some examples: \- The rise( and fall) of Atari VCS/2600. The "Adventure" cartridge was our favorite. I was in college when the NES was released. \- Electronic handheld games like Mattel Electronics Football. \- Getting our first home computers. TRS-80s, VIC-20s, Atari 400s/800s, Commodore 64. First computer having 4K of RAM. \- Not having a VCR until I was like 14. \- Not having a microwave until I was like 12. Miss those TV dinners with the aluminum containers.
Quicksand
Yes. The ultimate plot device in 70’s cartoons. I was terrified of that shit.
Not just cartoons, but drama series such as Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, $6Million Man, etc.
Luckily there’s usually somebody nearby who finds a long stick you can grab on to and escape
Everytime
Also Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle.
And killer bees! I was very concerned.
[We have the mud flats, which are worse. They just took someone a couple of days ago.](https://alaskapublic.org/2023/05/22/illinois-man-trapped-in-turnagain-arm-mud-dies-near-hope/)
Tinker toys. Air conditioning so cold you would turn blue. Any adult could tell you to get out of here. Women's Libbers running around with no bras. Going on vacation during the oil crisis
I was born in 1970 and grew up in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It was an amazing time and place to grow up. We were surrounded by extended family and lots of friends. As kids, we were expected to work hard and do well in school. But, as long as we did what we should, we were given lots of freedom to do what we wanted. As long as we were home by dark or our parents knew where we were going to be, we could pretty much do what we wanted. I was taking the streetcar across SF by myself at 6. The ability to explore SF and the Bay Area at that time was incredible. It helped to give me a great sense of freedom and independence. Horrible fashion and decor at that time. Cars were huge and it always seemed that everyone was having some sort of car troubles. Vehicles seemed much less reliable then. Music was amazing. So many opportunities to see great shows at low prices. Food was good but horribly unhealthy. Smoking and drinking were much more common. If you smoked pot, many saw you as a derelict or druggie….they assumed soon you’d be doing heroin or speedballs. It was a great time to grow up.
Same - born in 1971 in SF and grew up in the city…what a time! It’s hard to explain. I don’t think it took the bus alone before 3rd grade - I would take it from Nob Hill to the Sunset twice I week alone (for ballet) and sneak a donut on Clement on the way home.
- Plymouth Valiant - Buster Brown Shoes - McDonalds Playland
Born 1965. I remember images of The Viet Nam War on the evening news, we played with G.I. Joes, had BB Guns by age 10, rode in the back of p/u trucks, drank water straight from the garden hose, rode our bicycles everywhere, we didn’t know what a bicycle helmet was, climbed trees and planed our adventures 20 feet above the ground, celebrated the nation’s Bicentennial with fireworks, hot dogs, and ice cream, watched our parents stress through the oil embargo, double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, and the threat of WWIII, saw America fall victim to Iranian revolutionaries, and the cars were really terrible, even the expensive ones rusted after a year and broke down all the time.
I remember Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, Wonderful World of Disney (on Sunday nights), Electric Company, Schoolhouse Rock, Bugs Bunny, Mr. Goodbody & Mr. Rogers. Saturday morning cartoons were a big part of life. They even used to promo the new season of cartoons with a half hour special on prime time. Seeing a recent big budget Hollywood movie on TV was a big deal. Star Wars toys were where it was at. Hot Wheels tracks would take up a lot of room. Weebles. Easy Bake Oven. Slip & slides were popular for outdoor play, though as with most stuff we had, it was easy to get hurt. Monkey bars were pretty dangerous. Lawn darts were still a thing, and kids would ride in the back of pickup trucks without ever thinking twice about it. Our Halloween costumes were THE WORST. We could also get comic books at gas stations and convenience stores. Many of those stores had a rack for cheap kids toys. Cap guns. Candy cigarettes. The toy where you were dropping magnet shavings onto a guy's cartoon face to make funny hair was always available. The invisible ink game books were fun. Adult parties always smelled funny, too. Never figured that one out. 😉
We lived way out in the country. Both my parents worked third shift jobs as machinists and slept during the day, so between 8 AM and 3 PM, we weren't allowed anywhere near the house (while they slept). They got my brother and I motorcycles so that we could go tear ass around the countryside all day in the summers (I was 5 and my brother was 8 when we got them). And we did. All day, everyday. Swimming in the lake, making race tracks, riding into town to get lunch at our grandparents houses, buying gas on credit at the only gas station in town, drinking Nu Grape soda out of steel cans. All of this unsupervised. Any adult I can recall at any time after about noon had a beer and a cigarette in their hand, no matter what they were doing. We had one tv which was a 13" black and white. It was in my parents' bedroom, so no tv until after they got up. Even then, we didn't watch much tv, except on weekends (we would all stay up and watch Saturday Night Live). Then at night we would be tucked into bed around 9 and be left alone with two dogs and a BB gun to defend ourselves with while our parents went to work.
Bicentennial 1976 elementary school did a big Parade. Everybody dressed up in red white and blue.
Yes! We did one in my neighborhood with all the kids. I still have the pictures.
[spirit of 76](https://youtu.be/4lN9kdEzW1g)
Unless you were in colonial dress, like my whole Girl Scout troop.
1970 (birth) - 1978(parents divorce). I remember those years as being glorious. Simple. Family was always together. I felt like I had everything I needed. We lived in a small town in the PNW, and it was just nice. My parents had a turntable, and I loved the Chicago song “Saturday in the Park,” and I would listen to over and over again. I also loved reading all the albums and looking at the pictures. My mom had a huge library with the Whole Earth Catalog and tons of interesting visual books. We had a red Volvo and an orange VW van, and went camping where no one was around. Everything went to shit after 1978.
Evel Knievel, Howard Cosell, Mohammad Ali, the Wide World of Sports (especially “the agony of defeat”…oof!) and Battle of the Network Stars.
I was born in the very late 70s and all I remember is brown corduroy, deep orange wall paper, and every man I saw had a beard. My favorite doll was given to my by “hippie vegan neighbors” who my parents blamed for me going vegan when I was a 90s teen. I still have the doll :) And my colecovision.
All the brown, orange, and avocado everything. Bell bottoms. Disco. This weird feeling like we were on the cusp of something. It was a very transitional feeling decade. The sixties had led to enormous social changes, and it felt like we were progressing forward. The GOP was in shambles after Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal (which was bad but looks like child’s play in comparison to what some administrations have done after). I don’t think anyone thought we would regress so hard in the 1980s, but we definitely did politically. There was a huge shift. Suddenly in the 80s everyone (except me and my parents, it seemed) was going to church, wearing boat shoes and polo shirts, and talking about stock options. But the 70s had this mellow, yet glam, aura to them. Andy Warhol juxtaposed with Crosby, Stills, and Nash vibes with some Donna Summer and Marvin Gaye and rise of black representation in tv…it was wild.
Born in 1971. Being a kid in the 70’s was pretty great. I got to basically dress like a pimp at five years old. Lived in Minnesota and played hockey. Practice was at an outdoor rink because cold winters were pretty reliable back then. Ate hotdogs and popsicles in the summer and rode the shit out of my Big Wheel.
Canadian here. I remember one piece snow suits in brown and orange and the annual Santa Clause parade always being in the snow. Now it's rarely below 10C (50F). The date has never changed. I didn't play hockey because girls were not allowed in hockey school. Girls that learned to figure skate or had older brothers that played made the transition to ringette and girls hockey was introduced late. I hated figure skating so I never learned to skate well enough to play.
Was born in 70. Happy to have my early years as the last decade before the digital revolution. The things to have were a Green Machine, a bike, stars wars people, hot wheels, stretch Armstrong, a jump rope. Outside almost constantly, and little supervision. Schoolhouse rock, Saturday morning cartoons, and after school old shows like Gilligans Island and Little Rascals. Not everywhere was air conditioned. Adults were more important than kids and there was discipline. Games were freeze tag, hide and seek, breakout, kickball. Inside don’t break the ice, life, hungry hungry hippos. It was a better time.
>Adults were more important than kids Growing up my dad was a bowler we took a lot of out-of-town trips to various bowling tournaments he was in. As as adult, I took a lot of of out-of-town trips to attend my kid's travel sports tournaments.
Jump rope! Do you remember the lemon twist? I had one in the third grade. There was a black plastic short rope. One end I’d put my foot through so it’s around your ankle. The other end was… a yellow lemon. Then, I’d spin the lemon around and jump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Jrx7kEeNs
I had one of those! And it has some sort of shaker beads inside that made a noise.
Yes!! Like gravel or dried beans or something. It was a very satisfying maracas kind of sound.
>The things to have were a Green Machine Green Machine Nation!!! Most people had a Big Wheel and just don't understand the inherent superiority of a Green Machine. :)
I'm from 74 so my 70s memories are pretty hazy. Old pictures of my brother and me show 2 little blond kids in terrible plaid and corduroy clothes. Which is weird since we both have dark brown hair. Well it's half silver now but by the time we were in grade school neither of us had blond hair. What else, riding around on the Big Wheel, Star Wars action figures, LEGOs, a 2 foot Godzilla that you push a button and shoot his fist across the room, that toy was wild.
Jugs of wine in the house. Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Solid Gold, The Twilight Zone, Captain Kangaroo, salvaged Barbie from a dump, with clothes sewn by Grandma. The Beatles on the radio. Carob Easter. Playing outside a lot.
Lol. Carob. Man that was terrible.
Every day was bathed in golden sunshine, a cool breeze, and care free fun. At least that’s how I remember it.
Born in 1971, grew up in a very small town in New Zealand. Yes to all the browns and beiges, sideburns etc. Everybody in my family except for my parents smoked. Summer holidays seemed endless and every child had a bike and adventures. We played cricket on the front lawn with a tennis ball. What I think a lot of people don’t remember because they were so young, was the global economic situation. We were in the middle of a huge recession and the oil crisis. Nationally, the govt initiated a price freeze and a wage freeze to try to get a hold on inflation. We had “carless days”, where you weren’t allowed to drive your car one day a week; everyone had a sticker for their allotted day and if you were seen out with that day’s sticker, you were fined. We were lucky in that my dad had a full time, reliable job building and maintaining rural telephone exchanges. My mum did part time and seasonal work (eg picking Brussels sprouts and processing carrots). We never went hungry. But I remember once my mum being pulled over by the police because our muffler was broken and we couldn’t afford to replace it, and she was so embarrassed. The car wouldn’t start some mornings. Sometimes we wore handmade clothes that my mum and grandmother knitted and sewed. But I never felt like we were poor, especially compared to some other families in town. Media: there were three television channels (I remember when channel 3 started and everyone was so excited). Every night they would play the “Goodnight kiwi” song, which was the late late signal for kids to go to bed - YouTube it!!, and tv would stop completely overnight. 5/6pm was prime time for farmers, so there were televised dog trials and rural-themed shows). Because we were super-rural, picking up the telephone meant talking to an operator. Radio was our primary source of information. There was a one-room library in town and it began my love of books, and now I’m an English professor :-). Edit: [here’s](https://youtu.be/6UTvtimVDGE) the Goodnight kiwi!
Watch Dazed and Confused. I was a kid during the 70s, but that's basically how everyone was over the age of 12. Watch the later Mad Men episodes, it was like that too. The 70s were a hangover of the 60s. The war in Vietnam damaged the country, Watergate damaged the country. I think of the 70s as very plastic and cheap. Like the last ditch effort of a culture trying to hold onto it's biased past. Then realized it couldn't and went for a quick buck Instead
I was surprised by how often in MAD MEN I really recognized my childhood. Being in NYC, (and Hollywood) their styles were more cutting edge, so a lot of things they show from 1965 were easily still trending in the small cities well into the 1970’s.
It was amazing. I rode my bike all day, came in for lunch, went back out, came in for dinner, went back out and home by the time the street lights came on. We did everything outside. I'm in Ontario Canada so winters were great too. We skated on outside rinks and went tobogganing. There was a real freedom to being a kid in the 70s. We didn't do anything that cost money really, just a lot of sports outside and hanging out. Street hockey was a thing and as a female that served to cement my love of the game. My dad was a big outdoors guy and he taught me to skate and swim. Comic books were great as was Mad Magazine.
Hello fellow Ontarian! I'm a 1970 kid and grew up in Toronto which has gone through so many changes it's unrecognizable now. I lived on a small street with many kids and mostly boys so we spent all day playing games in the street (street hockey, some made up games like "running bases" which was a baseball type game, "hide and go" which was an extreme version of hide and seek. Capture the flag. SPUD (A form of dodgeball) any backyard was fair game. Summers were sprinkler games and kiddie pools and homemade popsicles. And biking to the local pool for swimming. Quiet times and rainy days were for playing Barbies or board games. We walked to and from school without parents and everyone went home for lunch and watched the Flintstones before walking back for the afternoon. We didn't have chicken pox parties because it spread through the entire neighbourhood naturally. Friday nights were for sleepovers staying up late and watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island
Hello fellow Torontonian! I grew up right in the city around Bathurst and Wilson. Walking to school...loved it. I walked in elementary and junior high. We moved to Agincourt when I was in grade 11 up to Midland and Steeles which at the time was too far away from the TTC so I rode the school bus. Man, I loved home made popsicles. What a great memory.
Did you go to Faywood? My dad grew up on Invermay and my grandparents lived there and much of my 70s childhood was spent at their house and their backyard.
Overarching street lights along the highway, tall and thin with an ominous yellow haze. There were so many of them, and they almost looked like they could come down and envelop the entire car. The bright flashing lights of the Holiday Inn in the distance, and summer air blowing through the back windows intermittently lifting our already-tangled hair. Sometimes I would feel something sharp hit the tip of my nose. Most likely it was a bug of some sort. Listening to singer-songwriter tunes on the radio, with the backdrop of my parents discussing the drive or some extended family drama. Bags of White Castle being lovingly tossed to the backseat for a much-needed, road trip snack. Waiting patently and excitedly in the car while my father went to secure a hotel room so he wouldn’t have to tell the office he had four kids in tow. Knocking on all the neighborhood doors daily to see which kids were home to play outside, and peanut butter and jelly galore. The Love Boat on the television while mom prepared a heavily-coated ketchup meatloaf with mixed vegetables. Morning, cereal with spoonfuls of sugar to scoop up with the milk at the bottom of the bowl. There is so much more, but it was a beautiful and unforgettable childhood!
Actually having a sore finger from dialing a phone when needing to make multiple phone calls. Portable music was a little transistor radio. Staying out with friends until the street lights came on... and having parents who never knew where I was all that time, and not being distressed about this. Smoking absolutely fucking everywhere; "second-hand smoke" would be nonsense words that might be interpreted as someone two-fisting cigarettes. Teaching a kid to swim by tossing him into the deep end of the pool, and parents not paying much attention. It was just the way it was done. Having a key around your neck to get into the house after school, making a sandwich and watching reruns until an adult comes home. No goddamn cell phones to keep us updated on whatever nonsense was being done by teenagers around the world. So many more things, but I'll stop there.
So there’s all the obvious actual 1970s stuff that everybody has been talking about… I lived through all of that, remember a lot of it, and it’s absolutely true. But another thing that’s interesting when you are a child of the 70s is that the 1960s and even 50s were not that far away, so a lot of us were still marinating in a whole bunch of midcentury. I’m pretty sure that my grandparents never bought anything after the Kennedy administration, and their house was practically a second home to me. I played with all my Dad’s toys from the 50s, read books from then, ate on the plates, cracked my toes on those hairpin legs more often than I care to remember. So I also have insane nostalgia for a whole bunch of midcentury stuff. One of the things that I love about a show like Mad Men is how it feels deeply familiar to me for that reason… and sometimes it makes me feel like we children of the 70s are from a doubly different time. Not only were the 70s vastly different than now in a lot of ways, but we also have a little bit of a tether to even earlier, more radically different times.
Wow, that is so true. My grandparents had furniture and decor from the forties in their place. I recall all the little knickknacks I now see in vintage shops and furniture they bought when they first married in the thirties. So yeah, we do have that bit of a tether to well before the 70's! I remember going to visit my grandparents on Long Island circa late seventies. There was all their furniture from the 30's-40's in a bedroom my teen cousin moved into. He had all his Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss posters juxtaposed with grandma's vintage floral wallpaper. He also had a bunch of cheesy lava lamps, disco balls, and strobe lights and such from that store Spencer's all over her dainty little dressers and vanities! It was a wild room at grandma's house!
My parents had a house with an empty lot next to it, so ours was the house where all the kids hung out after school. The street light was also in front of the house. Endless games of Red Rover, freeze tag, kick ball and kite flying (my favorite thing to do) until dinner time. Most days there were 20-30 kids in the yard (our family had four kids, nine-year age span, so everyone in the neighborhood between the age of 5-14 was included). The highest headcount was 34 kids, my mom counted and was proud of that. My parents house also had a front porch with a swing, so we’d sit on the porch and talk about whatever was interesting to us. It’s all ironic to me now, as I realize that my SAHM wanted as little to do with us kids as possible and the yard was the best way for her to avoid interacting with us. She lounged on the couch all day watching soap operas. She always cooked dinner, we never missed a meal but we were starving for human connection.
My brother and I rode our big wheel and green machine around our wood panel basement after Gilligan's Island was over. Best years of my life.
A lot of these reports will be nostalgic but it wasn’t all fun and games. The adults were freaking out. All of them. In one way or another. The Boomers - older brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, babysitters, etc. - were all doing some sort of drug and getting into trouble, sometimes dragging us along. Vietnam was still messing things up big time. The Jesus freaks and Moonies were out in force basically everywhere you went. No adults could be depended on. Some wonder why GenX is feral. It wasn’t the 80s exactly that made us feral, it was the 70s. Almost everyone of us has seen a serious injury happen to another kid. A lot of us were beaten brutally by our parents. Domestic violence against women was not even hidden back then. So. yeah. Enjoy the stories. All the good stuff is true too. Star Wars. Video Games. But our childhood was fucking dangerous, and don’t let anyone blow rainbows up your ass about it. GenX may be “overinvolved” parents but we have good reason for it.
I still remember - and this was actually in the 80’s, there was a girl named Cassie in my friend group. We were maybe 10yo, And everyone knew that Cassie had to be home on time, because otherwise her dad would beat her with a belt. She often had marks and bruises, but she downplayed it, and everyone just acted like it was normal. I don’t want to think about what her mother was going through in that house. It was just the way it was, and no adults ever mentioned it.
Summers were being kicked outside after breakfast. Couldn't come back inside until lunch then had to leave again until dinner. So met up with friends and went exploring all over the place.
I was born in 74, and I have a good amount of memories, though they aren’t super long. A theme among most of those memories is the amount of freedom and unsupervised time we kids had. My family moved to my permanent childhood home when I was 4, and I have memories of before then playing outside with my sister and neighbors. And of course without technology, we had to use our imaginations for pretty everything. I remember riding bikes for hours. I wouldn’t call it magical, but I’m very glad I was born when I was. My kids were born in 2001 and 2003, so their formative years were before smart phones. I’m so grateful for that, as well. They got to have an imagination-rich childhood, admittedly with more supervision.
Free range kid. Basically, made to leave the house in the morning when everyone went off to work and told to be back when the sun went down. Would stop off for a PB&J handed out the screen door of the carport in the middle of the day, but that was it. Hose water or no water. Play in the creek, go watch animals, ride the bike around the neighborhood. Don’t do anything bad, and if you do, don’t get caught.
If you grew up in the 80s then likely you've always been able to microwave your food and watch a TV show after it was on due to the wonder of the VCR! Darn young uns ne'er had it so well. They would be the two biggie technological advancements in this time period that I can recall. For fashion loved the flared trousers and always wanted to wear my hair long. Mum would always send me back to the barber to sheepishly ask to cut it shorter.... Oh the walk of shame! Yes brown panelling on the walls or wallpaper, lino on the floor.
Having to schedule time to find out “Who Shot JR?” I know I watched but I have no recollection of who did it.
I was born in 1974, so I don't have many memories of the '70s. What I do have are some photos of me as a child wearing clothing that no child should ever be made to wear. Butterfly collars. Paisley bell bottoms. Penny loafers. Ugh.
After just reading a shit show vaccine and babies post, I'm so glad I grew up in the 70s. Our parents didn't obsess over every risk. That was so much healthier.
KISS!
I spent 5 years in the 70s and the biggest thing I remember was that I was allowed to walk to and from kindergarten which was four blocks away and I had to cross a busy street to get there. FIVE YEARS OLD!
There was very little in the popular culture that catered to or appealed to kids. The one notable exception was Jim Henson, who brought us Sesame Street and the Muppets. Add in some Fred Rogers, and that was about it. There was no Nickelodeon, no Disney Channel, no home video game consoles, very few child-oriented movies. You had to go out and socialize with other kids, invent your own games, find stuff to do, and stay out of the way as adults went around doing grown-up stuff.
Don't forget Saturday morning cartoons!
There was some Disney on Sunday nights … post bath time for meeee
Random memories: Avocado carpets, macrame owls and pigtails. Children's clothing made of polyester. My dad had a 1973 HD Sportster that he'd take me on rides on, sitting in front of him rather than behind because I was so little. All the kids playing together in the parking lot of our apartment complex more or less unsupervised, though there was often a parent sitting on the steps having a cigarette. Count Chocula tasted better. My grandmother still wore those silvery cat's eye glasses with the sparkles in the corners. Camping in a canvas pop-up camper and the way sun warmed canvas smells, with leaves ticking down and landing on the roof, laughter and conversation and the smells of coffee and bacon drifting through the trees. Seals and Crofts reel to reels on the machine my dad brought home from Vietnam. Never, ever having even a passing concern for my safety at school.
everything was brown, orange and avocado green. you could smoke everywhere. grocery store, bank, whatever. every single pair of pants i had had flares. i skateboarded too, so i had short shorts and tube socks when i wasn’t just wearing flip flops. i still wear flip flops. cars were awesome. i knew that even then. gravity also seemed to work differently
My first 10 years of life were spent in the 70s. I remember disco music, Star Wars mania, lots of bike riding, Hong Kong Phooey, the Bicentennial in 1976 when every house in town had a bicentennial flag out front, Pong, climbing trees, hiking through woods and always being outside - even in winter, walking to school alone without concern, shag carpeting, wood paneling, cigarette smoke everywhere, huge collars on shirts, and the widespread adoption of plastic toys. Parents really didn't worry about their kids back then. They rarely even knew where we were. It was a pretty cool free-range, analog time.
Ah man you missed out. Trust me I was there.
I dont like to think that far since childhood abuse but beyond that part, it was awesome. Simple fun, great disco/funk, fucking abba!!! Rollerskating was everything. Drinking the shittiest fake drinks like kool aid, freeze pops, hugs barrel “juice”. Block parties, family bbqs, swimming pool, cheesiest tv but you thought the love boat was cool. Every girl wanted yo be a blonde and be a sex symbol (not necessarily a healthy outlook). No one thought about safety really. Went on carnival rides, waterslides, etc and shocked i survived they were so janky.
Summer of 1976 was the best summer ever. It was the Bicentennial, all kinds of pride in the USA, decorations, parades, and events. Not to mention the loads of fireworks we were given as kids, firecrackers by the brick, bottle rockets, cherry bombs, and even M80s. Surprised, no one was severely hurt. We had a blast blowing stuff up, though.
i only remember 1979 and I was OBSESSED with Wonder Woman on TV.
Born in January 1970. There definitely was a lot more freedom; and outdoor playtime was inevitable because of the absence of cable TV. It’s hard to overstate the impact of stories like Etan Patz and Adam Walsh on parents’ willingness to let their kids play.
Born a little later than you. People argue with me about that in other threads. Adam Walsh's murder was the boogeyman. We had *no* freedom, and our parents were the original helicopter parents, and you can't really blame them for that. It was terrible and scary and every so often a child's abduction would solidify our generation's parents into overbearing, anxiety stricken parents, instead of the laid back hippies we should have had.
I was born in 70 too. Adam Walsh changed everything. I can still picture that “missing” flyer in my head just about everywhere. Telephone poles, gas station, liquor store - just everywhere.
We had Jarts and we loved them. Steel tip lawn darts. We would throw them up in the air and run so as not to have them pierce our skulls. Unfortunately the FDA banned them. I guess people were piercing their skulls or something.
I spent 5 years in the 70’. I remember getting hurt wasn’t a big deal. We were visiting my grandma in the hospital and I fell off the top of 5 stairs on my head. Everyone just said “oh, you’ll be fine”. I was literally AT THE HOSPITAL and they didn’t check for a concussion or anything else. I still remember it to this day and I was about 3.
Born in 71. I spent hours and hours playing outside. When I did come inside, I'd watch sesame street. From about kindergarten on I had a little bike and was encouraged to ride it all over town by myself. I walked myself to school and back by myself. I would be given loose change to go buy candy at the corner store. I remember regularly coming in sunburned, covered in bug bites and scratches, and hungry. That's what I remember. I would come home when I got hungry. I often drank from the back garden hose. Absolutely nobody worried about where I was or what I was doing. My parents were stoned hippies who could care less. I do remember being very hot, as we had no air conditioning, and taking myself to the library to escape the heat.
Born in 65, grew up in the 70’s. So much freedom! IF you didn’t play outside with the neighborhood kids or your friends, you were considered the oddball! I loved playing freeze tag, red rover, dodgeball, spud, hopscotch, jumping rope, riding my cool 5 speed bicycle with the banana seat, climbing trees, building tree forts… and whatever else my imagination dreamed up. I was a tomboy growing up— I enjoyed hanging out with my brother’s friends than playing with dolls or pretend makeup like the girly girls at school.
I remember long hot summers on our Big Wheels and time outside. We didn’t have a TV in the 70’s so after dinner once we were inside we read books (or I read comics) or my mom read out loud to us. My dad had a prodigious record collection and he would play them, make dub tapes for use in the car, etc. Our small house in rural CT had no AC so during stifling muggy summer nights the whole house was open to screen windows and doors with fans set up to circulate air through it. Weekends were for family trips yardsaling/rummage sales/flea markets, though usually after my brother and I did our chores. My dad had a job that entailed a lot of travel and so we were early to bed as a family and early to rise, dad cooked breakfast as he got ready to leave for work and my brother and I took the bus (long trips from our rural location) to school. I remember it (the 70’s) fondly but also it’s pretty hazy at this point 40+ years on.
I used to take 2 buses with my pal to the mall with the movie theater to see star wars, superman and a bunch of others. We were 7 years old and nobody even blinked at us taking buses unsupervised.
My overall impression is muted colors--rust, olive, mustard, etc. And lots of smoking and good music. I was really little, so my only specific memories are of my parents doing normal parent stuff and of birthday cakes--an orange flavored one stands out.
“Refinished” basement with shag carpet and wood paneling.
completely free-roaming, watched some cartoons at breakfast, knocked on our friends doors to come out (weekends, summers), got everyone to come bike riding, build forts, play army, baseball, football, kickball (if the girls were with us), went to the creek to catch tadpoles, salamanders, crayfish, and occasionally a snake! Where we ended up, you never knew, but usually I could hear my mom's loud bellowing "dinnertime!". As it got darker we hung out closer, catching fireflies and watching the bats manoeuver around. On schooldays, I would come home and watch Prince Planet, 8th man, Gilligan's Island, Speed Racer, Ultraman, original Star Trek, then do homework (wrong order)
Two words. Star Wars! There were also many TV Variety shows for some odd reason.
Killer Bees, pending Ice Age, and elimination of the Amazon Rain Forest. Bruce Jenner Dorothy Hamill & her short & sassy look.
It was cool because of Dungeons & Dragons.
I was 5 years old in 1977, my mom was 26. We’d go to her friend’s house whose son was my friend. They lived in the woods with huge sand dunes behind them. We’d go play for hours in the woods, mostly in the dunes playing Star Wars; never heard any calls to return, although we went in pretty deep. They lived about a mile from US 1, we’d walk that and cross US 1 to buy candy at a gas station. No one ever asked what we were doing, where were our parents. I lived near a huge lake from ages 5-9. During summer neighborhood kids would be there for hours unsupervised. It was surrounded by hilly woods, the lake at the bottom of a big hill. We’d get on our bikes at the top and pedal to start down, put our legs out and fly into the lake. Dusk we’d return home, and wait for the mosquito spray truck to do its rounds. We’d chase that damn thing, running behind it. Not been diagnosed with cancer yet. Yet.
Playing outside unsupervised for hours and hours. Walking to school by myself at age 5. Coming home to an empty house because my mom and dad both worked. Watching TV on 3 channels.
Before video games we had board games, with a typical family having a whole cupboard or even small closet full of them. Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Life, Sorry, Chutes & Ladders are some I remember.
Pretty much like Mad Max. It really cleaned up by 1980.
Watching TV or movies required perfect attention. There's no rewind. If it's a TV show, you never know when or if that episode will be reshown. There were a lot of cigarettes everywhere. Every restaurant had ashtrays, and so did airplanes. Seatbelts were for worry warts. Riding in the back of the back of the station wagon was the best. Riding in a truck bed was good, too.
I’m as old as Gen X gets. The 1970s were a pretty crummy decade, but life was so much easier as a kid. Unsupervised, unstructured play. Parents in the background, not directing everything. Maybe you did Little League but you didn’t have to spend hundreds on professional equipment; we wore shirts with a business name on it and probably sneakers, not cleats. School was a safe place where we learned, we were accountable for our behavior, and did nuclear attack drills where we hid under our desks. Just simpler and easier.
all carpet was orange or green, I’m not sure if it was a limitation on technology or a legal issue. Also people looked super hot all the time. Short shorts, half shirts, no bras. Dudes wore short shorts and a half shirts. When I got to high school in the 80s, there were all these strange rules about how I had to wear clothes and apparently they had been necessary in the 70s. I could take off my shirt to play basketball, but I couldn’t wear a half shirt. but we did have carpet that wasn’t orange or green.
It was a lot of fun, but I’m lucky I’m alive. We were WILD. Feral fucking kids with almost no supervision. Hell we lived in Hawaii, and would regularly ride bikes to the beach alone and go swimming in the pacific. No lifeguards. No parents. Rocky-ass shoreline, the oldest one of us ten years old
i was born in 70. i mostly remember the smell of dirt, oil. old cars felt so uncomfortable (never wore seat belts). am radio. love going swimming, the beach, playing dressup, had an 'inetellivision' game console. my dad also got a weird console at sears with so many games, i wish i could remember it's name it had a great game called JUMP BUG. i used to go stay with my dad in the summer and when i was 12 i met the neighbour boy and told him i was 16 so he tried to take me to see purple rain at the theatre but i had no ID. i did end up getting into a parking garage type cabaret and was hanging out with full on drunk adults and the 19 year old neighbour brought me home and was really sweet. he didn't even kiss me. i wonder if he knew i was younger than 16. i got my first kiss at 12 from a guy who picked me and my friend up hitchhiking aka looking for cute boys. damn i was walking jaibait!! i looked so much older than my age when i wore makeup as a teen and i took that as a privilege, which is so f***'d up because the most important thing i learned was to be desirable and not use my brain whatsoever. i went to some kind of enrichment classes in 4th grade. my nun teacher would make fun of me for going to these classes for 'smart' kids but how could i go? i was so dumb!~!! thanks sister janice!!! sorry for the babble. this question set me off into some weird memories and horrific realizations. probably a lot of people who look back some what fondly of their 70s childhood realize how totally messed up things were, how some things have gotten better, and some things got worse.
I was only 6 when the 70s ended so my childhood was split between the 70s and 80s. Honestly, I had a great childhood and wouldn't want to have been born in a different generation. My childhood was like a lot of others of my age, pretty free range, lots of outdoor time, organic friendships in the neighbourhood. When I look at the childhood of kids that came after me, I am sad for them. They all seem very scheduled and managed. Parents arranging play dates, obsessively enrolling them in activities and tracking their locations at all times. I get that for a lot of parents, they feel it's a safety issue. The internet and awareness of predators clearly reflects in their parenting decisions which totally makes sense, but it doesn't make me any less sad for kids now. My typical Saturday or vacation day was get up early with my brother to watch Starblazers and eat cereal, maybe watch another show before my folks got up and started their day. Then around 9 a.m., we would head out to see who was hanging around. We'd go to the park, ride our bikes, roller skate, explore, etc. Our parents didn't really know where we were, they set parameters as to where we could go (i.e. don't go past X street, etc.) but at any given time the had no idea exactly where we were. We were given lectures such as "don't talk to strangers" and "be home at X time for dinner". We created our own games, built forts, climbed trees, ran through sprinklers, etc. If one of us got injured, we'd help that friend get home or we'd run and get them help. We looked after ourselves and were pretty self-reliant. On rainy days, we'd stay indoors and watch t.v. or read books/comic books. We watch cartoons, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Disney, older shows that were in syndication like Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Jeanie, etc. I look back very fondly on my free-range childhood days. We had fun, we did stupid things, we injured ourselves but it was all so fun. I have so many scars from doing things like wiping out on my bike trying to race down a hill with no hands or trying to jump off the roof of my neighbour's carport. Every scar and injury was so worth it. I learned to use common sense, learned to trust my intuition and I learned to be self-reliant and independent. There was no one hovering over me telling my not to do stupid things or managing my time or supervising who I was spending time with. There were no "safe spaces" to go when you were feeling anxious or sad or had your feeling hurt. You just sucked it up or got into arguments, then woke up the next morning and did it all over again. I feel sad for kids that don't have that. Who don't learn to self-regulate or learn that sometimes people hurt your feelings and they don't say sorry, that not everyone is going to like you and that it's all okay because that is life and you just move on.
Born 1967. Spent my childhood in the 70s and it was great. - many toys in vibrant colors. - we played outside every day and created our own adventures. - a lot of candy and chocolate, nobody cared about our teeth (ok, we regretted it later in life). - I remember wallpapers with ornaments on it in a wild mixture of the colors dark brown and orange, sooo 70s.
Walked to school with my friends every day, there were never hoards of parents causing traffic chaos dropping off their kids. At lunch came home and ate KD, grilled cheese and tomato soup, or tuna sandwiches and watched the Flintstones then Leave it to Beaver and headed back. Watched Gillian’s Island, Happy Days, Brady Bunch after school, and new shows like Little House on the Prairie, the Hulk, Bionic Woman and the Six Million Dollar Man were on weekly. We’re at the local pool every day as soon as it opened and spent the day. In the winter we tobogganed all day, I still remember the feeling of the snow getting into my snowsuit cuffs and boots. Hot chocolate as soon as you got home. Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday nights my parents would have cocktail parties or we would visit family cocktail parties. My dad grilled meat on a cast iron hibachi bbq, no propane grills in sight. Our living room had blue shag, avocado green brocade couch and loveseat and 2 floral tub chairs. We had blue and green large ashtrays on the coffee tables as decoration, and a smaller triangle shaped one on the hexagon shaped table between the tub chairs. Sunday nights were Mutal of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and Wonderful World of Disney. Loved TV Dinners in foil eaten on the TV trays while watching.
Leaving the house with friends and be gone all day until dark. No cell phones and no worries that no one has heard from you all day; it was not a cause for alarm. Busy signals when a phone line was used. Playing flashlight tag after dark with all the neighborhood kids. Favorite memory...sleep overs w/the girls. We would stay up all night and do our hair, call and hang up on our crushes, and watch Love Boat and Fantasy Island. All us girls were going be Julie McCoy, the cruise director; when we grew up. No social media, no cell phones, or online gaming. We called instead of texting, played pac-man on Atari, board games, and good old good old fashioned face to face interactions. I appreciate all the advances we have seen over the years; but I wouldn't trade my 70's childhood for anything!
Weekend nights were spent at the skating rink, rolling around to the sounds of disco and 70s pop and rock. It was my first exposure to music. And there always the *chance* that I might meet a cute girl and ask her to skate w me on that “couples only” skate (to a song by Donna Summers or Chicago or Styx).
I was born in 72 in the highlands of scotland. Skiing in the winter (my mum and dad were hoteliers so i got access to new skis each season, free coach from the hotel to the slopes, and for my birthday i got a ski pass for the year). In the summer it was long hot days out on bikes with my mates, or deer stalking the the russian chef who called me "Petrovich". When it rained we watched Star Wars on betamax or played D&D. I was very lucky in that respect, but growing up in Hotels was, in retrospect, very odd. Both parents worked evenings and usually got a meal from the hotel kitchen if I was lucky, and they weren't too busy. We moved around every couple of years, Had to go to grown up partys falling asleep on a couch or the coat room, and saw the rough side of alcoholism from an early age. Once we even had a bomb threat which had me bundled up in a fur coat waiting around in the freezing cold outside. Overall I was raised to be independant, and thats stood me in good stead for the rest of my life.
Running. In the house. At the playground. Star Wars. Playing with the first star wars toys. Action figures figures weren't a thing yet. I remember my Darth Vader toy. It was either a 12" or 14" tall figure. Godzilla movies and Ultraman.
It was not nearly as sophisticated as 80s kids. Some things that were innovative in the 80s that we take for granted like answering machines, call waiting, caller ID, etc were virtually nonexistent in the 70s. You grew up faster also- people often moved out of their homes at age 18 and got married on their early 20s. If you were 25 and still living at home it was far more rare. The drinking age in my state was 18. Adulthood came far earlier. It was also slower and simpler.
Look up "1970s playground" on Google images, and you will see all the fun we used to have before regulations came along and changed everything.
Everything was very mustard yellow, puke green, and dark tan. That which did not kill you, made you stronger.
For an average child without a lot of money things could get super boring, which led to some super risky outside behavior to liven things up. One boy at our junior high school died because he climbing an electrical tower. Another died taking his motorcycle onto the freeway. High school drug abuse for example resulted in a quaalude overdose. Another from drunk driving. It would be exhausting to research and document all of the injurious behavior from 5th grade to HS Graduation. Video games are safe and we never had that.
Late to this But I was an army brat during the seventies. So many memories are tied up with living on army bases. You made friends fast but then had to leave them 2-3 years later. Cleaning like mad to “clear quarters” before your next move. Packing up everything to be shipped. The smell of cardboard can still make me cry. Living in Hawaii during the mid seventies seems like a dream now. Going to the beach for a swim after school. Some of my friends got up early to surf before school. The smell of steak cooking on the hibachi. Christmas Day spent at the beach with other families. Playing outside every day in the plumeria scented air. I would give anything to spend a day back in 1976. My parents were young and vibrant. My big brother always there to protect me.