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This was in an e-mail:

To All The Kids Who Survived the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they
carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored
lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took
hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one
actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were o.k.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no
99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell
phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat
rooms..........we had friends and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They
actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers
and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you are one of them. Congratulations!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
:lol: A lot of that is very true.

That was really good! Thanks for posting it! :)

I actually feel sorry for kids nowadays.

Thats cool

I actually feel sorry for kids nowadays.

Yes, I feel sorry for even myself! Makes me nostalgic for something I never had!

I'll just tell myself that those decades had problems as well. Though it's never worked before...

That was really good! Thanks for posting it! :)

I actually feel sorry for kids nowadays.

Heh, you don't have to feel sorry for me. I loved being born in the middle of the 80s and living my childhood through the 90s. I wouldn't have it any other way!

The water-hose thing applies to kids of the 80's, too. I was born in 1985 and my sibs and I all drank water from the hose in the summertime. Good stuff!

We did the pickup truck thing...Sometimes we had multiple people in the bed with me. That was so much fun. I haven't done that in at least 13 years.

We did the pickup truck thing...Sometimes we had multiple people in the bed with me. That was so much fun. I haven't done that in at least 13 years.

Woah....I could have lived without knowing that. ;)

We did the pickup truck thing...Sometimes we had multiple people in the bed with me. That was so much fun. I haven't done that in at least 13 years.
it's been about 30 minutes for me. *nostalgic*

Woah....I could have lived without knowing that. ;)
THEY WERE IN THE BED WITH ME AND I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THE EXPERIENCE!

:grineyes:

Heh, you don't have to feel sorry for me.
Ok, no feeling sorry for you. Check. ;)

being born in 1990 sucks. -_-

:lol: A lot of that is very true.

All of it is true! And I am here(born in 1950) to prove it! :lol:

Concening the child proof medicine thing....................

When
I was about 3 or 4 I remember getting into the chocolate E-Lax in the medicine cabinet.I broke out in a rash and had the runs the next day! :lol: Child proof caps are good.................Yup! :lol:

man I did all of that AND: rode my Bigwheel on the highway, drank paint thinner, changed the channel on my TV with a pair of vice grips, made prank phone calls without fear that we'd ever get caught, snapped bra straps without being called in for sexual harassment awareness counselling....

Heh, you don't have to feel sorry for me. I loved being born in the middle of the 80s and living my childhood through the 90s. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Ditto. 1985 Rules!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the list, Jenny! I will pass them on to my co-workers born within those eras. :)

Haha - I remember doing some of them myself, and I was born in the late 70s... :D

That was really good! Thanks for posting it! :)

I actually feel sorry for kids nowadays.


So do I - they're missing out on so much on life. I know we have safety now, but boy it was a blast riding around in the back of a pickup truck with your friends!

Stuff that never killed us!

Hey, Jenny! :wave:

Concening the child proof medicine thing....................

When
I was about 3 or 4 I remember getting into the chocolate E-Lax in the medicine cabinet.I broke out in a rash and had the runs the next day! :lol: Child proof caps are good.................Yup! :lol:


:lol: I think we ALL did that one at least once!!! My brother got into them and we didn't see him for three days!!! (locked in the bathroom)!!

I remember wanting more Flintstone vitamins! Man those things were good after breakfast in the morning!

When was that Tylenol thing anyway - late 70s??? I hate those caps - I have arthritis and its a nightmare to open them when my hands are flared up.

:lol: I think we ALL did that one at least once!!! My brother got into them and we didn't see him for three days!!! (locked in the bathroom)!!

I remember wanting more Flintstone vitamins! Man those things were good after breakfast in the morning!

When was that Tylenol thing anyway - late 70s??? I hate those caps - I have arthritis and its a nightmare to open them when my hands are flared up.

My Mom caught my sister eating E-lax and they were wormy! :eek:


The Tylonal thing(which seemed to start all the product/candy tampering business) was in the early 80's I think. It freaked me out so much that I didn't take my kids trick or treating that year. Boy, were they ever mad! :lol:

That's no fairs :( The world of today sucks ass. I was born in the wrong time period.

:lol: I think we ALL did that one at least once!!! My brother got into them and we didn't see him for three days!!! (locked in the bathroom)!!

I remember wanting more Flintstone vitamins! Man those things were good after breakfast in the morning!

When was that Tylenol thing anyway - late 70s??? I hate those caps - I have arthritis and its a nightmare to open them when my hands are flared up.
I remember taking those Flintstone vitamins. Boy were they good.

We had a truck and I used to sit in back of it on a lawn chair. Probably not the smartest thing to do but it sure was fun. :lol:

I was born in '88 and I did this....


Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one
actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.



Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.

This is bull****. It's not it's a school team or something. You have to PAY to play.... so they'll only take money from the good players??


We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chatrooms..........we had friends and we went outside and found them.

Uhh yeah, whoever made this is a hypocrite considering this was in an EMAIL.




All in all.... I'm glad I grew up when I did.

I was born in '88 and I did this....


Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one
actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.





This is bull****. It's not it's a school team or something. You have to PAY to play.... so they'll only take money from the good players??




Uhh yeah, whoever made this is a hypocrite considering this was in an EMAIL.




All in all.... I'm glad I grew up when I did.

We're not putting down the era you were born in - there are definitely great things about being born in the late 80s too. All this email is saying is that more and more, kids are being restricted out of necessity or political correctness than when we were kids.

As for the pickup truck thing. It is now ILLEGAL to allow anyone in the bed of a pickup. Back then it wasn't. The cops might only stop you if you had a ton of people in there and/or might even be partying. These days, I can't see anyone getting that far within the city with even one person back there - and you can totally forget having open liquor in there! - big charges now!

And yeah, we tried to balance on lawn chairs in the back too. I also remember riding on the top of the back seat in February in an Mustang convertible and passing and waving to cops - they would wave back!

And back then - you DIDN'T HAVE TO PAY to be on a little league team. Completely free for the kids - uniforms - everything. Corporate sponsors took care of the bills - not the parents. So not everyone could play - you actually had to be good (why I was never on one! :lol: ) Most parents also had more time to coach you too.

And it was RARE that a kid got a ride in a car to school. We walked or if it was too long, would take the school bus. You never saw a lineup of parents in their cars to pickup kids - NEVER.

We were allowed to play around the neighbourhood and your parents just knew you were somewhere around. We used to get called in to dinner with a whistle. Each family had their own number of blows or whatever so you knew who's mom was calling who. Now with kidnappings and all, so many parents need to know where their kids are at every minute. I hardly ever see kids playing road hockey in the suburbs now or playing massive games of hide and seek, mother-may-I, and dodgeball. We used to get about 50 kids playing all at once.

Things have changed a lot. And there's some good (the toys they have these days are INCREDIBLE). But with that, today's kids have also lost a lot of the imagination and interaction with other kids because of them. And lastly, it was RARE to see an overweight kid. We basically were outside after school and all weekend long rain, shine or snowstorms.

I was born in 1983 and some of those things still apply to me when I was growing up!

I was born in 1983 and some of those things still apply to me when I was growing up!

Yeah - they would. I think it was the late 80s and beyond that things really changed. Seemed like more kids went missing and more danger. Also, the advent of cell phones changed a lot. Same with game boys and video games in general. You absolutely COULDN'T STAND being at home - you rarely watched t.v. - only maybe a little bit before bed - and you were ready for bed because of all the exercise we got. We were usually amused by a lot more simplier things too. Oh the mileage you could get out of a discarded refridgerator or freezer carton! It became a cool fort until enough rains collasped it entirely! :happyface

My parents would freak out if I climbed a tree even. They didn't even like me playing with the kids next door because they didn't get along with their parents.

My parents would freak out if I climbed a tree even. They didn't even like me playing with the kids next door because they didn't get along with their parents. That's probably one of the reasons I'm so sheltered and shy today.
:(

My parents would freak out if I climbed a tree even. They didn't even like me playing with the kids next door because they didn't get along with their parents. That's probably one of the reasons I'm so sheltered and shy today.


It could well be!! We not only were encouraged to go out and meet the neighbourhood kids, but more or less forced!!! And it was just easier I think. All kids approached each other a little more easily unless they were just naturally incredibly shy. And most of us then didn't have daycares at all (I'm going back to the 60s - I was born in '61). You just met them playing outside and then as new kids joined the neighbourhood.

We just all live in a WAY too fast paced society these days. Parents don't get to know each other the same, or they don't like each other, or don't have the time. And the funny thing is, I don't think we were supervised nearly as closely. It wasn't child abuse like it is today. My mother had my eldest brother babysit us and it started when he was just around 13 or so. We were left on our own when she'd go shopping. We were allowed to play by creeks and ponds. Maybe it has something to do with media, but you didn't hear of kids getting hurt or dying anymore than you do now with them being watched like hawks. I don't know - I think we're a little too over-protective these days sometimes.

I was born in the wrong time period.

That's what I always say! I would have loved to have been born between 1866-1900. Now, that is a fasinating ara in which to live!

I mean, sure there was poor sanitation. Sure death by disease was more frequent. Dental health was unperfected at best. Still, the feeling is still there.

But then, I wouldn't have SO, internet, television, certain classic books that hadn't been written yet. Eh, I can dream, at least. Then, back to the now!

That's what I always say! I would have loved to have been born between 1866-1900. Now, that is a fasinating ara in which to live!

I mean, sure there was poor sanitation. Sure death by disease was more frequent. Dental health was unperfected at best. Still, the feeling is still there.

But then, I wouldn't have SO, internet, television, certain classic books that hadn't been written yet. Eh, I can dream, at least. Then, back to the now!


I used to think that, but after having 8 abcessed teeth and laser eye surgery, I'm thrilled to be living right now thanks!! I have always said though that I'd love to live for a week or a month at a pioneer village or something. Although I'd have bad hair for the entire time!! ;)

The good old days were good but I'm glad they're gone! I like the modern world better. Computers,the internet, cell phones,etc............... :happyface

That's what I always say! I would have loved to have been born between 1866-1900. Now, that is a fasinating ara in which to live!

I mean, sure there was poor sanitation. Sure death by disease was more frequent. Dental health was unperfected at best. Still, the feeling is still there.

But then, I wouldn't have SO, internet, television, certain classic books that hadn't been written yet. Eh, I can dream, at least. Then, back to the now!

Yup, todays dental health is great! My dad told me that his aunt
(circa 1920 or so)pulled her own tooth because she didn't have the dollar for the dentist! :eek: Those people were tough! :lol:
And my husband's grandpa came here alone from Canada when he was 9 years old and went to work to support himself.(which he managed to do!) Yup our kids sure have it bad nowdays :crazy:

I used to think that, but after having 8 abcessed teeth and laser eye surgery, I'm thrilled to be living right now thanks!! I have always said though that I'd love to live for a week or a month at a pioneer village or something. Although I'd have bad hair for the entire time!! ;)

Yeah, most of the time, I am grateful for the now. But if I were to visit my fantasy past, it would have to be for at least a year.

We were usually amused by a lot more simplier things too. Oh the mileage you could get out of a discarded refridgerator or freezer carton! It became a cool fort until enough rains collasped it entirely! :happyface

We used to take those boxes, fill em up with leaves in the fall and climb up into a tree and jump into the box. Fun times we had as kids, building forts, playing hide and seek. I couldn't even tell you how many gallons of Kool Aid we used to consume every summer. :)

We used to take those boxes, fill em up with leaves in the fall and climb up into a tree and jump into the box. Fun times we had as kids, building forts, playing hide and seek. I couldn't even tell you how many gallons of Kool Aid we used to consume every summer. :)

Yup, we did have good, simple childhoods! Lots more interaction with other kids. I watched Finding Neverland this morning and it brought back a lot of memories of play as a child. I don't think kids use their imaginations as much now (I might be wrong), but I think they rely on other forms on entertainment that's so readily available to them.

Yeah, TONS of Kool Aid and Freshie - and it was a special treat to have your mom freeze them into those trays and make freeze-pops!

Also, jaw breakers (now outlawed), blackcat gum, licorice popsicles, wax harmonicas...and "clackers" - those arcrylic balls on ropes that could kill someone if one ever got loose (mine never did)! Also, taking and old pair of mom's pantihose, and putting a rubber ball in it, and playing a game (I forget the name) with it up against the wall swinging it under arms, between legs and all. I drove our neighbours nuts with that one!! :lol:

Yup, we did have good, simple childhoods! Lots more interaction with other kids. I watched Finding Neverland this morning and it brought back a lot of memories of play as a child. I don't think kids use their imaginations as much now (I might be wrong), but I think they rely on other forms on entertainment that's so readily available to them.

You are so right. We also read a lot more books and comics than kids do today. Encyclopedia Brown and Yes and No books were my favorite, and coloring books. I had hundreds of them all over the house, the really big ones as well as the regular size ones and every color crayon you could imagine. I visited a friend of mine last week who has a 9 yr old daughter and she was coloring pictures on the computer. I didn't see a single coloring book or crayon in her room, just computer games and DVDs. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with coloring pictures on the computer but to me that takes most of the fun out of it. I used to really let my imagination run wild with a coloring book and a couple boxes of Crayola crayons, markers and water colors.

You are so right. We also read a lot more books and comics than kids do today. Encyclopedia Brown and Yes and No books were my favorite, and coloring books. I had hundreds of them all over the house, the really big ones as well as the regular size ones and every color crayon you could imagine. I visited a friend of mine last week who has a 9 yr old daughter and she was coloring pictures on the computer. I didn't see a single coloring book or crayon in her room, just computer games and DVDs. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with coloring pictures on the computer but to me that takes most of the fun out of it. I used to really let my imagination run wild with a coloring book and a couple boxes of Crayola crayons, markers and water colors.


I LOVED Encyclopedia Brown !! I had read pretty much all of the Hardy Boys, Three Investigators, The Great Brain before I was 13; everything today's kids get seems to primarily be toy advertisments...

I LOVED Encyclopedia Brown !! I had read pretty much all of the Hardy Boys, Three Investigators, The Great Brain before I was 13; everything today's kids get seems to primarily be toy advertisments...

The Great Brain was awesome!!!!!!!. I was looking for those books for my nephews a few years ago and went to every bookstore by my house and could not find them anywhere. Very interesting books about childhood life at the turn of the century. Now those kids had imaginations!

Everything on that list applies to me. I lived in the country when I was growing up and it was great. We didnt have to worry about getting hit by cars, we drank from garden hoses all the time, never had a BB gun though ;)

We're not putting down the era you were born in - there are definitely great things about being born in the late 80s too. All this email is saying is that more and more, kids are being restricted out of necessity or political correctness than when we were kids.

As for the pickup truck thing. It is now ILLEGAL to allow anyone in the bed of a pickup. Back then it wasn't. The cops might only stop you if you had a ton of people in there and/or might even be partying. These days, I can't see anyone getting that far within the city with even one person back there - and you can totally forget having open liquor in there! - big charges now!

And yeah, we tried to balance on lawn chairs in the back too. I also remember riding on the top of the back seat in February in an Mustang convertible and passing and waving to cops - they would wave back!

And back then - you DIDN'T HAVE TO PAY to be on a little league team. Completely free for the kids - uniforms - everything. Corporate sponsors took care of the bills - not the parents. So not everyone could play - you actually had to be good (why I was never on one! :lol: ) Most parents also had more time to coach you too.

And it was RARE that a kid got a ride in a car to school. We walked or if it was too long, would take the school bus. You never saw a lineup of parents in their cars to pickup kids - NEVER.

We were allowed to play around the neighbourhood and your parents just knew you were somewhere around. We used to get called in to dinner with a whistle. Each family had their own number of blows or whatever so you knew who's mom was calling who. Now with kidnappings and all, so many parents need to know where their kids are at every minute. I hardly ever see kids playing road hockey in the suburbs now or playing massive games of hide and seek, mother-may-I, and dodgeball. We used to get about 50 kids playing all at once.

Things have changed a lot. And there's some good (the toys they have these days are INCREDIBLE). But with that, today's kids have also lost a lot of the imagination and interaction with other kids because of them. And lastly, it was RARE to see an overweight kid. We basically were outside after school and all weekend long rain, shine or snowstorms.


:nod: :yeahthat

I remember riding in the back of my uncle's truck with my cousins, man that was a blast. I miss the time I grew up in, when I was growing up I hated it, now I miss it, cause things really were alot better than they are now.

I also remember climbing alot of trees, almost fell out of a few but they were too much fun to climb to give up climbing them :D

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?

Yes it makes me sad..... The world is an evil piece of crap now Jenny..

The 30's thru 70's were the BEST. Being born in the late 30's and living in the 2023's, what a horride load of damage starting in 2000's......Reasons that I think of: Greed, Money, Capitalism. And we must not forget a more corrupt bunch of so called "leaders" of our country,.

The good old days were good but I'm glad they're gone! I like the modern world better. I hate the world now,its a piece of trash!!!!!!!

I hate the world now,its a piece of trash!!!!!!!


Yeah a lot of weird things going on in the world today. What I like about it is the modern conveniences that we didn't have before.

Oh I understand honey :)

Greed will always be a problem, too many have that as front-and-center in their primary motivation. But capitalism itself is not inherently bad: look at the good Andrew Carnegie did with his incredible fortune, how many people benefited from the great Carnegie Libraries -- over 2,500 buildings...!!

This was in an e-mail:

To All The Kids Who Survived the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they
carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored
lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took
hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one
actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were o.k.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no
99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell
phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat
rooms..........we had friends and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They
actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers
and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you are one of them. Congratulations!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
You have to forgive me for bringing some cynicism into this thread, but...
Both my parents were born in the '40s and had to go through a lot.
Firstly, my aunt died from a freak accident when she was only two years old.
Both my parents were also bullied in their school buses decades before it was taken seriously.
Both of their mothers were also hospitalized for depression.
And two kids from my mother's class had diabetes already in the '50s (one of them was overweight).
Yes, there were of course good times too, but often, things weren't as great as this e-mail tells you.
My mum also ate some laxative chocolate as a kid with the expected result just like some people in this thread did.
It must have been common back then...

Yes Furienna, There were certainly dangers that people just were not aware of. The Ex Lax that I ate was in the bathroom Medicine cabinet. And show a little kid access to chocolate they are bound to get into it! But like everything else the government pushes onto people sometimes goes way too far! Some of the ridiculous lawsuits people win because of their own stupidity has gotten out of hand!

Here is a funny video "To All The Kids Who Survived The World I Grew Up In"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2XbkDfyzQs:lol::lol:

As someone who still has a scar from a kid, knew a kid who was struck and killed by a car at the age of 10, and saw a horrible playground accident that probably caused life altering brain damage, I don't understand this meme I've been seeing that we were better generations because we were allowed to be endangered more. Endangerment has nothing to do with why kids were more intelligent and resourceful decades ago. We respected intelligence, problem solving and creativity more. Now we bully kids like that as nerds or label them as "Aspies" or "autistic" so they grow up feeling as if they're broken or damaged. Point is, people are confusing the risks we endured as kids as being responsible for why we produced better generations of people, and it doesn't make much sense to me.

We also weren't tougher for having survived the past. We were just lucky to not be one of the millions who never made it out of childhood alive or not enter adulthood as maimed, disfigured, disabled or scarred physically or mentally from abuse or neglect. A lot of kids from the 1930s-1950s suffered from polio or other illnesses that affected them later in life. Many kids from the 1940s, 50s and 60s were horribly abused and neglected and became drug addicts or self destructive in some way. There is nothing to be smug about having survived a period of childhood that many didn't, IMO.

You have to forgive me for bringing some cynicism into this thread, but...
Both my parents were born in the '40s and had to go through a lot.
Firstly, my aunt died from a freak accident when she was only two years old.
Both my parents were also bullied in their school buses decades before it was taken seriiusly.
Both of their mothers were also hospitalized for depression.
And two kids from my mother's class had diabetes already in the '50s (one of them was overweight).

Exactly. Childhood diabetes was as common back then as it is now. A classmate of mine was a diabetic.

Child abuse was more rampant and acceptable in the past, but it was dismissed as discipline or swept under the rug. Kids had to suffer in silence.

Then there was the terror of having to prepare for nuclear war. I was born in the 1970s but we caught the tail end of that madness, of being told that we wouldn't live to see our 40s.

Exactly. Childhood diabetes was as common back then as it is now. A classmate of mine was a diabetic.

Child abuse was more rampant and acceptable in the past, but it was dismissed as discipline or swept under the rug. Kids had to suffer in silence.

Then there was the terror of having to prepare for nuclear war. I was born in the 1970s but we caught the tail end of that madness, of being told that we wouldn't live to see our 40s.
Yeah, abuse was absolutely more common and/or not taken seriously.
Like somebody else said, there were diseases like polio which hardly exist today.
My mum will tell me that people back in the '50s had a great hopes for a better future.
Still, they were also afraid of the atomic bomb...

The 30's thru 70's were the BEST. Being born in the late 30's and living in the 2023's, what a horride load of damage starting in 2000's......Reasons that I think of: Greed, Money, Capitalism. And we must not forget a more corrupt bunch of so called "leaders" of our country,.

Do you really think that the 1980s and the 1990s, especially the 80s, were any good? They weren't!

Well for video and console games the early 80s kicked......... (Then it started going downhill)