Inspired by a discussion I was having in another forum, Many people tend to view bygone eras with a more charitable perspective than the here and now. Simpler, more worry-free times where people were more joyous, less pre-occupied with personal gain, less selfish, perhaps even trouble free.

I've always had a tendency to look back at the 1960's and 70's as "the good old days", but this conversation I had with another person caused me to reflect, and I soon realized that both of those decades had their fair share of strife. What was different back then was that I still enjoyed the innocence of youth. It was my parents sweating the details back then.
And, while I've had many enjoyable times since then, it appears to me that the epoch I consider to be "the good old days" ended just about the time I shouldered the full responsibilities of adulthood. I was thereafter more cognizant of world events that might impact me negatively.

How does that compare to your own experiences? Is there a time period that you consider to be "The Good Old Days"? And what approximate age were you during this time? There are no "right" vs "wrong" answers here. Just curious how your experiences compare.

Well, I can go back a long time ago and miss the "good old days"...simpler and being born in 1938 I have experienced a lot. Hop scotch, jump rope, jacks, and I don't even know if my grandkids know what these games are. Picking up a nickel on the street, they may pick up a dollar but I don't know. I hope so. Simple, easy and FUN.

And then I"ll add, there was no sassing parents or others, and so much more respect in "the old days" than today's times.

I remember growing up and seeing the pictures on TV of all the kids in iron lung machines in hospital wards, due to polio. It just never occurred to my young mind that was a real threat, and that could easily have been me in one of those machines. I believe there is a tendency to believe that bad stuff only happens to other people, until it happens to you.

I also now recall the 1960s race riots, the string of political assassinations, armed soldiers shooting college students on campus, the Red Scare, Watergate, skyrocketing gasoline prices, and (shudder) disco...from my "good old days"...so I believe casting those days as simpler, more worry free...is more a case of my not having paid attention at the time, than the times themselves being more forgiving.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, Charles Manson, Tune-in Turn-on and Drop-out,...and oh yeah, This was a political commercial :

https://youtu.be/U4QVXcPDgjI?t=11

Yeah, they REALLY knew how to throw a party, back then

We all remember different things as our times were different. I was a dancer from jitterbug to disco and loved it all.

I know how the tv was used as a babysitter for a lot of the moms when the tv's really got to be a major household staple. My mom never had that for us kids, maybe a little for my sister who was youngest.

And one thing came to me about how mom made a lot of our clothes, and I can still see the sweet first communion dress mom made for me. Sewing machines were the gadgets back then.

It's a gadget and APP world today, could even be an APP to tell someone when to go to the bathroom, I wouldn't doubt it. I have no APPS in my life. I have not contributed to all the billionaires today.

I had a boss who gave me a pager when I was in sales and detested being controlled by that gadget and him. Now people are controlled 24/7 with their phones...............yikes...

Good chance most here have parents my age and they can relate to all this, not the children.

Well, in spite of everything I have said, I feel that I had a very positive, enjoyable childhood, and life for that matter.

My point is, an lot of people watch those old re-runs, and extrapolate from them that "Life was much more carefree back then....etc..etc" And I really believe that is an illusion.
There has ALWAYS been a school of hard knocks, there has always been a potential for a wolf at the door. We were just shielded and blissfully ignorant ...

My mom was born in the 20s, and her father was a manager at a foundry. She claims the only way she knew that the depression was going on, was by the tattered clothes some of her schoolmates wore to school. Yet by most accounts...the 1930s were hard times for most Americans.

Hard to imagine many looking back at the 1930s as "the good old days" if they were the one responsible for putting a roof over their heads and food on the table.

OH there were surely hard times and my grandparents arrived in the U.S. via Ellis Island and landed in PA and talk about starting new lives, the food they grew, the chickens they raised and ate eventually and the treat of a nice piece of "clean" beef now and then...but I so appreciated my life after the great depression hit us. The value of a dime. For me and I know I can speak for those of my generation, we were grateful. I can't help but think of my grandkids and they really don't know that deep gratitude, stuff has come easy to them...and that's just the way their life is. They are good people but can't imagine the way I've been "grown"....and I get that.

I don't miss the "old days" but I love to know the difference of then and now. And inflation, omg. The poor still suffer and can't get quality food and health care.

And then the 1940s came around, and she watched 4 of her brothers get sent off to war to battle the master race. And for a time there was genuine concern that Germany might succeed. Plus war time rationing. Polio emerging as the Boogeyman no one knew how bad it might get.

Certainly challenging to view all of that in the context of "good old days", as well.

Then, the 50's roll around, sure there was post war prosperity, but you've still got Polio, the Rosenberg conspiracy putting our nuclear secrets in dangerous hands, McCarthyism, a lunatic named Khrushchev promising to bury us.....yowza! Let the good times ROLLL lol!

When Ed Koch first became Mayor of NYC in the late 1970's, an older woman came up to him and said, "Mr. Mayor, make New York like it used to be." Koch replied, "It never was like it used to be."

I think people referring to the past as "the good old days" is an individual thing as not everyone has the same experiences. Example, an average (white) suburban middle-class family in the 1950s probably didn't have the same experiences as an immigrant family or a Black family during the same time period.

Also, I don't like when people tend to dismiss everything new or current and say things like TV, movies or music was better back then. The way I see it is that everything old was once new.

Good point.

Although I must confess, whenever I see those food prices advertised in the windows of Foley's grocery on the Andy Griffith show, I do get nostalgic.

And perhaps that's part of the key, that the fondness is relational to some less desirable element we are forced to cope with today. e,g. "I remember when we didn't used to have to deal with (whatever).

It's not so much that everything was better, ...just better in regards to whatever is tormenting me now. ?