Generational Differences

[Voyager]

Demographics:
Grew up in New York - Queens to be exact
Male or Female - Male
Birth Year (approximately, if you don’t want to be too specific ) 1951
Year graduated from High School 1969

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home? Television, color or b&w? More than one in the house? VCR? DVD player? Answering machine? Computer? Other electronics devices?
   We got our first tv when I was about 4 or 5. We never had color. We had two at one point… UHF, VHF, no cable. No answering machines or VCRs. No microwaves.

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not?
   Almost always.

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in? Yes.

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member?

5. we had 3 bedrooms, but my brother was in the same room until I was in 9th grade. We had two bathrooms, one upstairs and one down, so everyone shared the upstairs one. Very few master baths in those days. (The house was built in 1951.)

6. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family?
   Vacations. I helped my father work on his stamp collection.

7. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings?
   Played soccer. My friends and I played a lot of board games. Ride bikes.

8. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on?
   No, except for a paper route for a while. I bought books with it.

9. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school (age 18 or under, for non USA Dopers)?
   My father was in a car pool so I drove his car to school when he wasn’t using it. Didn’t have one of my own.

10. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there?
    Clothes, to a few shopping neighborhoods nearby, and to a big Korvettes in bicyling distance. Went locally and into NY for books.

11. What did you wear to school? What was fashionable?
    We weren’t allowed jeans. Nice pants, button down shirts.

12. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music?
    late '60s excellent rock. We had a big old console phonograph that played 78s still. I got a reel to reel tape recorder when I went to college, and my parents bought a real stereo.

13. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates?
    Yes. Movies, even to plays in NY.

14. How old were you when you were first left home alone? How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it? Did you have a “stay at home” parent? If so, which one?
    How far? Down the street when I was in first grade or so. To the Worlds Fair by myself when I was 12, and I think I went into NY by myself even earlier.

15. What’s your highest level of post secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?
    PhD. Mother got a BS with some masters work, father had to work after high school and took some college classes but never graduated.

[HeyHomie]

Male

Birth Year: 1970

Graduated from High School: 1988

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home? Television, color or b & w? More than one in the house? VCR? DVD Player? Answering machine? Computer? Other electronics devices?

We had a 25" color TV in the living room. I had a 13" b & w by the time I was 13ish, and later a color one. The 'rents had a color TV in their bedroom. We got a VCR around 1983ish; I had my own by the time I graduated high school. The 'rents got an answering machine shortly after I left for college. We also had an early Atari system. We got a Commodore computer one Christmas, and it went into the closet about a week afterwards and stayed there until the 'rents moved away, when it got thrown out.

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not?

Only on Sundays (see question #5). Mom’s cooking was HORRIBLE and usually consisted of frozen pizzas, etc. We all sat around and watched TV while we ate.

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in?

It’s about the same size.

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member?

At most 6, and at the fewest, 4. My stepfather’s two kids from a previous marriage moved in with us when I was 12-13ish. A series of home remodeling jobs and older step-siblings moving out meant that I started by sharing a room with my younger brother, and left for college having my own room. The house had one functional bathroom. There was a working toilet in the basement, but the basement was always cold and dark and I didn’t much care for going down there except in emergencies.

5. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family?

Sunday nights we went to my mom’s parents’ house, with very few exceptions (like when we were on vacation or whatever). We would have a Sunday dinner and then the adults would play cards while the kids watched TV. One of my favorite memories is the Sunday night routine where my brother and I would suffer through Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom while we waited for Wonderful World of Disney to come on. After Disney, I’d try to be all sneaky-like and change the channel (by physically walking up to the TV and changing it; this was in the day before remote control) over to Fantasy Island without the adults noticing it.

We traveled all the time. We were always going camping, or to Six Flags, or wherever.

6. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings?

We would play football in the middle of the street, with no protective gear. I cracked my head open on more than one occasion. There was a park just a couple of blocks from us, so we went there a lot. Rode bikes, played tag, the usual kid stuff.

During the summer (until I was 12-13ish) I was always enrolled in a summer day camp program. We were always going to the roller skating rink, or matinee movies, or to swimming pools, or to various city parks. Always a good time!

7. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on?

I detassled corn as soon as I was old enough (12? 13?). It’s a rite of passage for adolescents in central Illinois. I remember my first paycheck: I went to the video store and rented a VCR and a bunch of movies, including Blame it on Rio !

Later on I worked fast-food jobs here and there, for $3.35/hr. I blew my money on this & that.

8. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school?

I co-owned a Chevy truck with my stepbrother, but it needed a lot of costly repairs and after a few months it was mostly his. By the time I left for college I was mostly just mooching my parents’ Toyota pickup truck.

9. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there?

White Oaks Mall! I bought the usual teenager things: CD’s & whatnot.

10. What did you wear to school? Was it fashionable?

Fashion changed so quickly in those days that it was hard to know what was fashionable from one day to the next. The kids in my high school were unbelievably cruel to people who didn’t wear the “right” clothes, and what was “right” yesterday could get you laughed out of the room the next day. Anyway, I remember parachute pants being big; people sometimes wore dozens of little plastic bracelets on their wrists; and for a brief time shirts with Chinese characters on them were popular with boys.

One thing I’ll point out: today it seems fashionable for teenagers to shop in thrift stores. In my day you would not be caught dead in a thrift store! It was instant social suicide.

11. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music?

Well in the 70’s it was mostly disco. Mom had a pretty impressive record collection consisting of lots of classic rock (Rolling Stones, Boston, Santana, the Eagles, etc.) By the time I was in Jr. High/High School it was New Wave and Heavy Metal. I don’t remember the first song I could sing. We had a turntable, later an 8-track player, later still a cassette deck, and still later a CD player. I bought a Walkman™ cassette player when I was 13ish, I believe.

12. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates?

I dated a little. Not as much as other kids my age. We usually went to McDonalds and a movie, or parking at a park.

13. How old were you when you were first left home alone? How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it? Did you have a stay-at home parent? If so, which one?

I was in the first generation of “latch-key” kids, and I’m pretty sure I was at home on my own after school by second grade. I had strict instructions to keep the door locked and not go anywhere. I usually just watched TV. Mom would call right after I was to get home from school to make sure I was OK. The park a few blocks from our house was about the outer limit of how far I could go without telling my parents about it. I didn’t have a stay-at-home parent.

14. What’s your highest level of post-secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?

Me - Bachelor’s Degree
Mother, Father and Stepfather - all High School diplomas.

15. Geographical area: Springfield, Illinois.

[Sattua]

Female
Birth Year: 1980
Year graduated from High School: 1998

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home?
   A television with cable, a VCR, a record player, a double tape deck, and in 1998 parents got a five-disc CD changer and amplifier. A Commodor 64 and then, in 1986, a PC. I had a gameboy, too, and my own tape deck.

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not?
   We all ate dinner together every night except Monday, when I had piano lessons. My mother and I would eat out and dad would fry cube steak at home (he loves that).

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in?
   No, but the house my parents live in now is larger than the houses they lived in while I was growing up.

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member?
   Three people, my mother my father and myself. They always had an en-suite bathroom, so I always had my own bathroom. Never shared a room till the dorms in college.

5. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family?
   We would go to the orchestra and ballet. We had a Friday night television lineup on PBS we all watched. Sometimes we would go hiking or attend a local festival. We would go on an annual vacations together (we went to the same resort every summer).

6. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings?
   Play pretend, and later, have long angsty talks.

7. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on?
   I was a clerk in a shop, my senior year of high school. I started at $5.50 an hour and worked up to $6.75. I saved all of my biweekly paycheck except $20, which I spent on movies and scented candles.

8. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school (age 18 or under, for non USA Dopers)?
   My dad bought a safe junker for me to drive my senior year. He owned it though, and sold it when I went to college.

9. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there?
   Groceries and everyday things were bought at a local supermarket, and later at Meijer. Clothes and fun stuff was bought at the shopping mall on the other side of town.

10. What did you wear to school? What was fashionable?
    Gigantic jeans, tshirts, and a hoodie (before it was called a “hoodie.”) Yes, it was pretty fashionable. Grunge was good.

11. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music?
    I remember when the Thriller video debuted (1983). My mother listened to Billy Joel. My father listened to Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The first popular song I could sing… well… various songs from the 50s and 60s pretty early on. I didn’t start listening to new music until River of Dreams in 1993. I bought all of my music on cassette tape until I went to college.

12. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates?
    Nope, never dated. I guess people went to the movies, to Applebee’s, to school dances, or to Bob Evans for breakfast before school.

13. How old were you when you were first left home alone? How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it? Did you have a “stay at home” parent? If so, which one?
    First left home alone? Well, I would go play with neighborhood kids by myself starting at about age 6. I didn’t go places without telling my parents until I had that car in high school (at which point, they didn’t care, as long as I was home for dinner). I would drive to nearby stores, for entertainment. No, I did not have a stay at home parent. Stopped having baby sitters after fifth grade. Had a lot of practice keeping myself entertained.

14. What’s your highest level of post secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?
    My highest level: Ph.D.
    Father’s highest level: Ph.D.
    Mother’s highest level: MBA

[Gilligan]

Male
Birth Year 1961
Year graduated from High School 1979
Area - Trenton, NJ

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home? Television, color or b&w? More than one in the house? VCR? DVD player? Answering machine? Computer? Other electronics devices?
   TV: We had one B&W TV up until the 70s when we got our first color TV. During the 60s when they started switching shows to color, they would advertise that (as in Police Squad) but we were like, “uh, no it isn’t.” One fmily record player but as we each became teenagers we would get our own. Most of the other tech my parents didn’t get until we were out of the house.

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not?
   The kids had breakfast together, and the whole family always ate dinner together.

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in?
   No, but we live in a condo now.

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member?
   Two parents, six kids, and one grandfather during the winter (he traveled during the rest of the year.) We doubled up in bedrooms, except my sister who had her own room, so it was two boys, two boys, and then one boy & granddad. My father converted the attic to a bedroom and the oldest would get that in high school until he moved out, then it was passed to the next oldest down the line, until as we moved out it was less crowded. Two bathrooms in the house.

5. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family?
   As a whole family, summer vacation down the shore (Jersey) was the main all together activity, also occasional board games.

6. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings?
   Board or card games among the siblings, then street games with other neighborhood kids (kickball, etc.)

7. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on?
   Just a paper route, used money for records, snacks, junk.

8. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school (age 18 or under, for non USA Dopers)?
   Nope, not until college.

9. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there?
   Woolworths down the street when we were kids, for toys, models, and junk, then the mall (Quaker Bridge) when were teenagers, for clothes, records, and junk.

10. What did you wear to school? What was fashionable?
    Catholic schools, so we had to wear jackets and ties, and a uniform for my sister.

11. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music?
    Don’t remember 60s music, but by 12 70s rock was it. Record player only, I never had an 8-track player.

12. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates?
    Not until 17; we would go to movies or out to eat, or concerts.

13. How old were you when you were first left home alone? How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it? Did you have a “stay at home” parent? If so, which one?
    The four older kids, from 14 to 9, would sometimes go walking around for miles, just checking out stuff. I would have been 11 in this group. My mother stayed home while my father worked.

14. What’s your highest level of post secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?
    I have BA, and a year of grad school but didn’t finish masters. My father has BS, no grad school, and my mother didn’t go to college but had post HS tech training.

[Q.N.Jones]

Female, born 1977, graduated high school 1995

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home?

Always had a color TV. My parents got one for their room around the time I was 5 (1982) or so. This number gradually increased over the years until there were about 5 televisions when I was in high school. We got a VCR when I was 6 or 7 (1983-84). We didn’t get an answering machine until around 1990 because my parents hate them. We got our first computer in 1985 or 86. We got a Nintendo around 1990. Dad got his first CD player around 1987 or so.

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not?

Dinner every night was a requirement. It was very rare to get an excuse from attending.

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in?

No. I grew up in a 3000+ square foot house; the largest apartment I’ve ever had was 1200.

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member?

Six–mom, dad, three younger sisters, and me. When we were very young, I shared a bedroom with one sister, and we all shared a bathroom because there was only one in the house. After my parents remodeled when I was about 6, I had my own room, and the kids shared a bathroom while our parents got their own. We moved when I was 12; after that, I had my own bedroom but shared a bathroom with only one sister.

5. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family?

When I was young, we went camping and hiking, and took lots of boring car trip vacations to go see rock formations. As we got older, outings became a lot more random and dad distanced himself from socializing with the family. But we still all “hung out.”

6. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings?

“Play pretend” was the major activity. We did this with a big pack of neighborhood kids. We’d roam all over the block. This often involved riding bikes and beating each other up.

7. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on?

I wasn’t allowed to work while school was in session, but I worked during the summers. I detassled corn after my freshman and sophomore years. I made around $600 each summer. I wasn’t allowed to spend the money. I was required to save all of it.

8. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school (age 18 or under, for non USA Dopers)?

My parents bought us a somewhat junky “kid car” when I turned 16 and got my license. Whatever kids were living at home with my parents and were licensed could drive it, so I shared with up to 2 of my sisters.

9. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there?

When I was a kid, we had two major destinations. One was the corner store near the elementary school, for candy. The other was Woolworths, for whatever junk we could afford to buy on our $1 a week allowance.

10. What did you wear to school? What was fashionable?

I remember jams and jelly shoes. Layering a bunch of different colored socks over stirrup pants. Really big shirts. The early Madonna look. Rolling our jeans. In high school, grunge.

11. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music?

In grade school, Madonna, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, the New Kids on the Block all come to mind. I had a Walkman in the 1980s and a Discman by the mid-1990s.

12. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates?

I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16. After that, I went to the movies once or twice on solo dates. Most of our “dating” was done in packs.

13. How old were you when you were first left home alone?

6 or 7. Mom started out by leaving us during quick runs to the grocery store.

** How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it?**

Depended on the parent. Mom would let us go anywhere on the block. Dad wasn’t around much, but when he was, he’d use “you didn’t tell me where you were going” as an excuse to punish us. We’d regularly get grounded by Dad for doing things Mom allowed. His rules were unclear and inconsistent.

** Did you have a “stay at home” parent? If so, which one?**

Yup, Mom. She didn’t go back to work until I was in college.

14. What’s your highest level of post secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?

Law degree. Mom and dad both have professional degrees as well.

[Q.N.Jones]

Forgot to say, I lived in New Jersey from ages 0-12, and Iowa from ages 12-18.

[LifeOnWry]

Demographics:

Male or Female Female
Birth Year (approximately, if you don’t want to be too specific ) 1964
Year graduated from High School 1982 - I didn’t graduate, but left school shortly before graduation

1. What kind of electronics did you grow up with at home? Television, color or b&w? More than one in the house? VCR? DVD player? Answering machine? Computer? Other electronics devices? **I remember when Oscar the Grouch was orange, so we must have had a color TV by 1969. VCR by the time I was a preteen. Some videogame system…Odyssey?.. when I was about 12. When I was in eighth grade (1978) my dad bought a digital watch for $100. Saw my first solar powered calculator around then, too. Microwave in about 1979. "Remote"control for the TV in my early teens (they had cords.) **

2. Did you eat meals together as a family? How often? If not, why not? When I was young, yes. By my early teens my parents were divorced and things got much more casual.

3. Is the house that you live in now larger than the house you grew up in?** About the same size, but completely different configuration. That one was lots of small rooms, this is fewer, larger rooms.**

4. How many people lived in the home you grew up in? Did you share a room or bathroom with a sibling? If so, until what age? Did you ever share a room with another family member? Number varied… I am the eldest of four children, but there is a large age gap. My oldest sibling is five years younger, then one ten years younger and one twelve years younger. By the time the youngest one was really a “person” I had moved out on my own. I did share a room with my sister - for a number of years we shared a bed.

5. What sorts of activities did you do together as a family? Lots of family gatherings when I was young - seems there was always a christening or birthday or wedding or something to go to. Again, by the time I was 13, that pretty much stopped.

6. What sorts of activities did you do with other children, including your siblings? ** Fought with my sister, babysat my brothers. With neighborhood kids, we’d play Kick the Can or Red Rover or Hide & Seek.**

7. Did you have a job while a teenager (in school)? What kind of job? How much did you make? What did you spend it on? Got a job at Burger King when I was 15. Started as a counter cashier, worked up to shift manager. Starting pay was 3.35 per hour, ending pay was something like $14K per year. I turned most of my money over to my Mom, but spent some on clothes and makeup and books.

8. Did you own and/or drive a car while you were in high school (age 18 or under, for non USA Dopers)? No.

9. Where did you go shopping? What did you buy there? Groceries, there was a neighborhood type grocery store a mile from my house. I walked there about three times a week with a wheeled cart to bring groceries home in. Mom would give me a signed, blank check and a grocery list. I remember going to the butcher department and having meat cut to her specifications. Non-grocery stuff - for clothes I think it was mostly K-Mart or Sears. There was a strip mall not too far from where I grew up, and it was kind of an occasion to go there.

10. What did you wear to school? What was fashionable? **Until sixth grade, dresses or skirts. I was not allowed to wear jeans until I was in high school. IN high school, I went through a grunge phase, a glam-rock phase and a western wear phase. Oy. **

11. What kind of music was popular? What was the first popular song you could sing? What devices did you use to listen to music? Pop, AM-radio type stuff, then disco, then “classic rock” and new wave. I was fortunate because I come from a family of musicians, so I had exposure to LOTS of different kinds of music. First popular song I knew all the words to was either Last Night I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All by the Fifth Dimension, or Go Away Little Girl by Donny Osmond. I had a transistor radio (slept with that under my pillow) and a record player. House had a hi-fi console for records, cassette tapes, 8-tracks and radio.

12. Did you date? Where did you or others go for dates? Not so much actual dating. We went in groups to dances and roller rinks and stuff, or hung out at one another’s houses. I was probably in my very late teens or early 20s before someone actually picked me up and took me somwhere as an official date.

13. How old were you when you were first left home alone? How far away from home could you go and not tell your parents about it? Did you have a “stay at home” parent? If so, which one? **By third grade I would walk a mile to the grocery store. I don’t recall having any specific boundaries, but I know Mom always wanted to know where I was going and how I was getting there. Certainly by the time I was ten I knew how to use a bus transfer. No stay at home parent. **

14. What’s your highest level of post secondary education? Same for mother and/or father?** I have two years of college. My mother completed secretarial college and had a year of nurse’s training. My biological father was an engineer; but the stepfather I grew up with was… well, he was a bookie. wince**

15. Geographical area **From birth to age 15, I lived within Chicago city limits. After that, a series of suburbs in the same general vicinity. **