I was born in 1978, but I sometimes I wish I had born the year my grandfather was born – 1910 – so I could have been young in the '20s and '30s. His stories about those decades were so much fun.
Yeah I’m about your age (born in 1990) and really I’m happy with the era I live in. I was watching Gone With The Wind last night and I’m glad to know that if I ever need my leg cut off, I can at least be sure that I’ll be put to sleep for it. 
I go with this.
I wouldn’t go early in time due to the levels of the technology and medicine. I’m also a black guy who says no way in any years before the 70s. I’m fine this time period but it would be cool to live the future, so much robot sex.
Yup. Born 1948 here. Being kept inside was punishment–we wanted to be outside all day. And pretty much without parental supervision. The technology was not in place for “helicopter parenting.” Thank goodness.
True again. There might have been one or two “fat kids” in class. Today at the community college I attend, being overweight is the rule, not the exception. And I mean REALLY overweight… not 20-30 lbs, but 75-100 lbs. There are plenty of girls and guys around who should weigh 120 and actually weigh 220.
I was born in 1976. Like Elemenopy, I had romantic notions of the 19th century and spent a chunk of my childhood thinking I was born in the wrong era. Little Women, Anne of Green Gables… I loved the classics.
Then came computers and I finally came into my own. It was the early PC era, and those early DOS days taught me things that are still relevant today, but today’s kids don’t have the opportunity to learn thanks to graphical user interfaces and computer savvy parents. Much like the puddle that is grateful that the hole it lives in is exactly the right size and shape for it, I’m grateful that computers were at precisely the right stage of their development for me 
As a child I dreamed of making jams (jellies), sewing, knitting, etc - all the old hand crafts. These days I can’t imagine doing those things without access to a whole world of recipes, patterns, equipment, hints, tips, instructions and tutorials. Please don’t send me back to the 19th century. There’s no fun in making jam if you can’t post pics of it on Facebook (or, you know, you’re dead of consumption).
I’m of '68 vintage, but I would love to have been a Dazed and Confused teenager, so perhaps a decade earlier? That would’ve either meant a much different mother or a perspective that would’ve forced her not to be the prototype helicopter parent. I realize the 70s were far from where we needed to be with rights, but I loved everything about the decade. Coming of age in the 80s for little Ms. Goody Two Shoes Christian sucked.
I was born in '78, and the only thing I regret about growing up in the 80s and early 90s were the godawful hairstyles. I like that I knew a world without the internet and smart phones.
I would have liked to experience the 60s though, at least from a musical perspective.
I land right between the end of Generation X yet before the earliest Millenials; my growing up years straddled the late 80s and early 90s. I get lumped into one or the other, but really I don’t feel like a part of either. It kinda sucks, but I do have some similar experiences with twice the ‘normal’ number of people.
Can’t complain about the fact that high technology grew up with me. Modern medicine is saving my life, and computers are great.
Surprised by how some mentioned wanting to experience the 1930’s and accompanying Great Depression, seems so terrible to be living through regardless of age.
But interesting views, in fact I see that yes those born earlier were lucky in some respects.
Nice simulpost, I’m a 78 baby, too. I love that I both did and didn’t grow up with computers. They were around but didn’t run our lives yet. My dad sold computers and had them in the house before I can remember. I got to experience green-on-black screens, non-visual OS, and word processors that weren’t wysiwyg (back when that was a thing) from childhood. I couldn’t post comments on friends’ silly pictures or get a call or text from my mom when I was outside playing unsupervised.
'63 baby here. As a woman, I don’t think an earlier time would have been good for me. I’m a software developer so things worked out for me on that end. In fact, I kind of straddle the line between no home computer tech/much home computer tech (ie, Atari console games just started happening when I was a kid, now I have an iPad tablet). It’s kind of cool to know and appreciate the differences in technology between then and now.
I have a weird personal “take” on issues of this kind, which I have mentioned in previous threads on the same sort of theme as this one. I’m a railway- and steam-locomotive enthusiast. Was born in 1948, in the UK; have always regretted that the railway scene which I knew in my childhood, so soon after – from the point of view of a hobbyist such as myself – declined and deteriorated: initially in the First World, and in later decades, ongoingly, worldwide. Steam locos were phased out; rail services, passenger and freight, dwindled under road and air competition; very many rail routes were abandoned, and this process still goes on.
I would greatly like to have been born ten, or better still twenty, years earlier – thus giving me one or two decades more in which the rail scene was still great, and in which I would have been that much older and in a position thus to get more out of it. If born before 1928, I’d have been of an age to have been likely to have to fight in World War II – an experience which, frankly, I’m glad to have missed.
Born in '60. Yep, I’m happy with that. It’s been amazing to see the changes in technology. Just amazing. And I’ll see a lot more to come.
I do miss how much freer and loser the 70’s and 80’s where. Grab a 12 pack and a Frisbee and a friend and head to the park. Smoke a J? No problem as long as your a little discrete. Well, I live in Colorado, so that’s changing.
We used to ride dirt bikes or go camping just about anywhere.
Anyway, it just seems like laws and ordinances are just piling up on each other. It’s a two edged sword I guess, cause I get a little ‘get off my lawn’ sometimes.
Born 1970.
Probably would have preferred 1930. Too young to be fussed about the Great Depression, too young to be sent away to war, come of age into a time of full employment and cheap housing, twilight years of medical advances, and a chance to see and use some awesome technology and cheap intercontinental travel.
My cohort (1937) was pretty much the smallest one in recent history while I came of age while the boomers were growing up. This meant, I got into college, no sweat (I think I wouldn’t have had a prayer there today with my HS average and SATs), I was able to pay for education by working and going to school part-time. Even full time tuition was only $700 a year. At any Ivy! Imagine that. It went up to $1000 by the time I finished. I paid $19 a credit, eventually $22. When I got out with a PhD there were jobs galore. Our state university sent me an offer totally unsolicited! And I had several offers to choose from and later got some unsolicited offers to move. The contrast with the situation today, especially in academia, is incredible. Also administrators had not yet taken over the governance of the universities. Also my active years, from 1960-2000 were the golden years of government research funding. It is rapidly disappearing. In Canada now, they are interested in funding only applied research. And they insist that you produce students despite there being no jobs for them.
It was a great time to be born.
Quite happy with my real life time frame. I beheld the Space Race in the full wonder of a child. Grew up seeing in the World Almanac a handful of new flags every year. Went through adolescence to a soundtrack of classic salsa, classic rock, funk and punk. Read both Mafalda and Doonesbury while in their original runs. Became politically aware with uprisings and revolutions going on just three hours’ flight away and protests on campus. Got to hear in person the stories of people who lived through the great events of the XX Century. Saw cities sink into blight and then rise again. Knew what it was like to go off the grid and just be by my own self with none knowing how to get to me. Saw the rise of the Internet, the Web, mobile devices, but I still can live unplugged a few days without having a panic attack. Rode unrestrained in the back of the station wagon and later sought cars with airbags and ABS. Had and have at my disposal medications and procedures that improved my quality of life and have already lenghthened my life expectancy.
What’s not to like?
As a lifelong music freak, I tend to think of that context in answering this question. And I’ve so often said I’m grateful to have been born exactly when I was. I was 12 when The Beatles hit, and had started listening to rock ‘n’ roll about a year before that. So I got to experience the most creative and innovative decade in the history of rock first-hand.
I understand that everyone loves the music that was out when they were in the prime of their youth the most, but I firmly believe the characterization in my last sentence can be objectively proven. I try not to sound condescending when saying this, but I feel genuinely sorry for those who grew up in a time when, say, hair metal or androgynous British synth bands were the major musical coin of the realm.
In a more general sense, I was able to spend my pre-teen years in the safe cocoon of mid- to late-50s middle-class suburbia. Ducking under our desks in the bomb drills was an abstract game we were unequipped to grasp the significance of. Somehow, I was also sheltered from the drama of the Cuban missile crisis. JFK’s assassination got my attention, of course, and ushered in an era of much greater awareness.
I embraced the significant cultural changes that started with the Summer of Love (1967) while managing to not go off the rails. I suppose I might have been considered a “weekend hippie,” but I emerged much more intact than many who dove into that ethos whole-hog.
It’s considered hip now to mock the 60s — and like any era, yes there were excesses and some things that might be mock-worthy. But those who do this weren’t there to live through it. I make no apologies in saying I wouldn’t have wanted to be born at any other time. I count myself as lucky.
That is to say, I couldn’t imagine living any other time than the time I did.
Born in 1982. I think you’d have to guarantee me a pretty amazing life to get me to agree to be born in some other period. As a solidly middle class couple in the present-day US, my wife and I live better than 99% of the people who have ever existed (for all that people are panicking about whether there will be highly skilled jobs for people like us in 20 years.)
I should try to remember that more often.
I was born in the mid sixties, but have always wished I was born in the early twenties. I yearn for a simpler time in America and wish I could have been around in the forties to experience America when she was at her strongest. To sum it up in a nutshell, I wish I was born into an America that is portrayed in the Andy Griffith Show, where towns were small and everyone knew each other and looked out for each other.