I was 13 in 1978. Recently, I was asked to compare and contrast today’s 13-year-olds with those who were 13 in 1978.
Well, while I do remember quite well being 13, I have no 13-year-olds presently in my life to make the comparision. I know no one 12 - 15, as a matter of fact.
If you remember being 13 in the '70s and if you know a 13-year-old now, would you mind sharing your observations? What has changed? What hasn’t changed?
Thanks in advance!
I was 13 in 1981, so it’s not that far off. I remember that I still “played” outside, with friends. I’m sure most now play video games or otherwise sit in front of a TV or computer now in their free time. As a girl specifically, I definitely know that we weren’t as conscious of our bodies then at that age. I know a 13 year-old girl now who is obsessed with her own body, as in showing it as much as she can get away with, and all of her friends are into that as well. I probably would have tried to curl up and die if someone gave me belly shirts and low-rider pants to wear, and I was thin!
Seems like 13 now is more equivalent to 16 then. Or so.
I was 13 in 1973. We spent most of our time playing basketball on a neighbor’s concrete patio / driveway. When we tired of that, we played tetherball over at the church playground. We also spent lots of time on a creek bank and exploring in the woods. Our biggest fears were 1) getting snake-bitten, 2) hit by tornado, 3) the “wolf-dog” that belonged to the only rent-house family on the road. We were always working to improve our hut or clubhouse. Goodness, we spent a lot of time working on that thing. I lived in a pretty segregated society. I certainly had some racist attitudes at this age. Almost all of my friends already knew how to drive. I learned to drive at… 9 or 10. You know out on a country road with a parent helping or out in a hay field or something. My parents thought Alice Cooper was the devil but I thought he was awesome. We thought we were cool because we listened to FM radio, and 8 tracks were also cool.
Kids today seem to be more wordly, progressive, and tolerant. They seem so “hardened”, its hard to tell what they fear. The music they listen to clearly sucks. 
It seems that they have been exposed to almost everything and are not easily impressed.
I was 13 in 1979, so I’m only a year younger than the OP. I remember being into the first Superman movie, Everything Star Wars or Raiders, Mork and Mindy, Happy Days, this new thing called HBO that showed movies with cussing and boobs, AC/DC, Queen, dissing disco, reading the old, good Steven King novels and being completely incompetent with girls.
I think there really was more innocence back then. What I knew about sex came from the occasional pilfered Penthouse or Hustler magazine and I never saw any hardcore porn until late in high school (I think I might have actually had sex before I ever saw a porn video).
I would also second trublmakr’s memory about pretty much playing outside whenever and wherever with no thought whatever about kiddie snatchers or gangs or drug dealers (not that there were any gangs or drug dealers in Grand Forks, ND in the 70s…). During the summer, my brothers and I pretty much vanished into the neighborhood at the crack of noon and reemerged sometime after dark. I don’t remeber ever telling our folks where we were going, and we usually had no clue ourselves when we set out, we were just going “out” somewhere to find something to do, and we always found something. Every summer day is a novel when you’re thirteen.
Nowadays, I’d be paranoid to let my kid out of my sight for a moment. Mike Nelson of MST3000 wrote about this very thing in one of his books. He numerated all the insanely dangerous and idiotic things he had done as a kid and how, now that he was a parent, he was going to keep them in a padded room and give them pieces of foam rubber to play with.
I think there are probably suburban areas and smaller towns where that kind of life is still the norm for 13 year olds, but in the cities I think there seem to be two extremes. There are the families that are zealously protective, even smothering with their kids. They are often, but not always religious. They make “play dates,” if a kid plays a sport the mom goes to practices, (practices, that was unheard of when I was a kid unless somebody’s dad was a coach. I remember being mildly suprised if my folks showed up for a game). Everything is planned and supervised, the kid gets no time to just go fuck off with his friends and kill frogs or climb on sheds or whatever. In extreme cases they even get home schooled so as to further isolate them from reality and other people.
Then, on the other side, you get the 13 year old who has a “baby daddy,” and maybe a drug habit. They are stunningly jaded and bitter. They’ve had hrrible childhoods in some cases.
When I was 13, I had never seen any kind of drugs nor did I know anyone even close to my age who had ever had sex. One weird thing today is that oral sex seems to have become a pro-forma lead up to intercourse. Girls will say they’re “virgins” if they’ve only given BJ’s. Oral sex is seen as something lesser than intercourse. In my day, oral sex was an advanced sexual act. It came after intercourse if it came at all. Now it seems like every eighth grade boy has had his Johnson slobbed already. Maybe it’s all the access to porn.
Not much of a cynic, I’d say. What a beautiful line!
I was 12 in 1978, can I still comment?
I lived in a suburb of a major city.
I still played with barbie dolls (really, and I think I’m relatively normal today).
We went to “any friend’s house” (a term my parents were used to) and came home when my mom rang the bell for dinner.
If we got in trouble at school, my parents punished us.
I used to take the phone off the hook if I thought a teacher might call my parents. There was no call waiting, no email, etc.
We didn’t have A’s or B’s…at that point (12 years old) it was “excellent” “very good” “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory”
Didn’t know about drugs, drinking, or anything of the like. Definitely didn’t know about sex.
When I was 11, a kid pushed my head into the water fountain and I got a large knot on my forehead. The teacher drove me and my bruise home. I think the kid was reprimanded but certainly not sued.
It was just different then.
I was 13 in '79. Dead-end town where the industry was dying off. Lower middle-class or upper lower-class, depending on your vantage point.
We were on the edge, and aware of that fact, because we watched and idolized our older brothers. We listened to their records – Floyd, Tull, Zeppelin – imitated their language, stole their cigarettes, sneaked their booze. We were a year away from our first jobs, our first joints.
We wanted fiercely to no longer be children. Our bodies had changed. What was next? School was a pointless drag. When could we drive, dammit!?
We did a lot of fishing. Talked about playing in bands, and half-assed practiced our pawn-shop guitars with their hopelessly warped necks.
Girls were more of a mystery then, I think, than they are to boys now.
The 13 year olds I know have more stuff, and are more bored with it.
But I imagine much is the same.
We were intensely curious what it might mean to be a man. So we never asked about it. That would have meant admitting ignorance. We had no idea that everyone else already knew just how ignorant we were.
We wanted deeply to be loved. Our fathers’ approval meant the world. So why did we find ourselves so often at odds with the old man? Sometimes you wanted to explain, but the sudden anger would come, or else it wouldn’t and then you had to walk away because if you tried to tell him, you might start crying. Crying was a sin unless somebody died.
We loved each other dearly. We laughed a lot. We were often cruel to each other. We made foolish decisions.
I remember sitting in a field of soybeans with my friend Michael after one of his brothers had been arrested again. We were smoking cigarettes and watching the sun go down. The beauty of it was almost overwhelming. He said, “Damn.”
Well, I was 13 in late August of 1995 to 1996. So, let’s see…
The Internet was just starting to commerically explode. I’d used BBSes and Prodigy and Compuserve in the past, but this was the first time I was using the web as we think of it now.
I was in Boy Scouts. So I was having a meeting once a week and going camping once a month, plus other things involved with that.
I was throughly hating middle school, though it wasn’t so bad that particular year since I switched schools for that one year. Then I was spending the last part of the next summer before my freshman year in high school doing things like band.
I was playing a fair amount of computer games, mostly a lot of space flight sims like Privateer, and was being a bitter holdout against switching to Windows 95. I didn’t have a console system until I bought myself a Playstation in late 1997.
I was reading a lot, but then I’ve always read a lot. Probably watched a fair amount of television as well, though I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what.
Sample_the_Dog, your post just gave me goose bumps!
Thanks, everyone!
Does anyone here personally know anybody who is 13 now? If so, what sorts of things are they into? What surprises you about what they know or do? What do you recognize about them, having seen it before in your own youth?
My oldest son is 13, and I, as I’ve said, was 13 in 1981. He’s a boy, and I was a girl, so that may make big differences. What he’s into (surprise surprise) is the X-Box. Also movies, books to some degree, but not nearly as much as I was/am. I make what I’m sure are pathetic attempts to talk about girls, women, romance, etc. with him. Talking about SEX isn’t really an issue. I’ve told him, and I firmly believe, that it’s not something a 13 year old is emotionally mature enough to even contemplate doing. Hard to even imagine him having sex, especially since he doesn’t even know what to SAY to a girl. We have a couple years yet to slide on that one, I do believe.
I have 3 boys, no girls, but I tell my friends that if I had a girl, at 13 or 14 I’d be putting her birth control pill beside her cereal bowl every morning. There’s no way I’d even take a chance, better safe than sorry!
One thing I have noticed about the 13 year-old, and his 11 year-old brother: They are WAY into their hair. Holy cow, they spend as much time/hair product as I do! They both say they’re going to color their hair green/orange/blue/whatever. I’m adamantly against it- I never see a kid with blue hair and think, “Why, that looks so great!”
The 2 things that are quite definitely, in my opinion, the most different between us and them are the technology (much more advanced) and the sexuality (much more overt).
I was 10 in 1978. When I was 12, we’d still be playing football and we were just getting into crushes.
On another board I post at, my friend started a similar thread and apparently the “in” thing with 12 and 13 year olds nowadays is giving blow jobs and hand jobs. WTF? :eek:
Well, I was 13 around 1997-98, and the area where I live still has a healthy young population of young teens downtown whom I talk to, so I guess I’ll add my experiences.
I didn’t have TV, but I spent a great deal of time RPing online. Me and my best friend explored the forests by our houses (I lived on the outskirts of surburbia) and played around in them almost every day after school - mainly thinking up stories and drawing. I skated all the time, too, though it was eventually banned in all the good places… We also spent a lot of time playing video games and CCGs (I hung out with a geeky bunch, what can I say?).
There were a great deal of people around me with boyfriends/girlfriends, but while making out was popular no one really was into sex. (Or, if they were, no one talked about it.) We joked about it constantly, though. I was not allowed to date at that age (neither were a lot of my friends), but that didn’t really seem to stop us. The clothes were really quite scandalous for such young kids, and I echo the previous sentiment that everyone, even boys, were extremely occupied with their body image.
AIM almost completely replaced the telephone in my circles, but cellphones were getting really popular.
Most weekends were spent downtown until 11 or 12, either getting rides with older kids or from the parents. We had a few teen oriented hang outs and city-maintained park areas that were very popular. My city was on a river, and we frequently had parties down there. I didn’t have a curfew as long as I kept my grades up. There was one particular place called Mt. Helicon (sort of a snackbar/coffee house) that was sort of just a hangout where everyone would go and just socialize - mainly all teenagers, some early twenties mixed in.
I didn’t know anyone who used alcohol or drugs, but everyone had suspicions about those who did. There was a really distinct class division of the “preps” vs. the “freaks”, and then probably the remaining 60% who just considered themselves normal.
I hope this helps. 
wordly maybe true, but I meant worldly.
I was 13 in 1971. I was into sports, bikes, hiking in the woods near my house, sports, baseball cards, football cards, building thing in aforementioned woods, sports, and last… girls.
I saved enough money to buy my own bike in 1971. It’s not like I needed one. I already had one my father had gotten for me the previous year… it was purple with a banana seat and a 3 foot sissy bar. I had taken an old bike I found, and had sawed off the forks and “chopped” my bike. It was also…a 5 speed!!!
Girls were a mystery. I spent some time hanging around them, but these strange creatures did NOT have their priorities straight. They did not CARE about Willie Mays and that he should retire. They didn’t CARE that my bike was the fastest bike in the neighborhood. Although, I must say, they did interest me in one thing. Kissing was a new experience. Much different than kissing my mother or grandmother… And somehow… exciting…
I was in high school in 1978. After school and on weekends I would ride my 1976 Yamaha 250 Enduro through the desert. Or I’d read books. I was heavily into science fiction back then, and I also read a lot of Poe and Sherlock Holmes. I built models from about six years old until after high school. Dad had an airplane, so we woud go flying occasionally. Video games cost a quarter, which limited the time I could play them. Playing video games (at the arcade, not at home) was more of a “thing” back then that it is now. I mean, you had to go out to play them.
But what about when I was 13? Pretty much the same. I didn’t have access to my 100 Enduro, which was at my dad’s house; but otherwise my life was pretty much the same. I rode my bicycle and skateboard, I built models, and I read books. When I was 13 I was in the San Diego Navy Sailing Club, and I sailed one of their 14-foot sloops or 8-foot Sabots most weekends. I taught new members how to sail a boat.
Now? Well, I ride my motorcycle, read books, and frequently get on the water. So except for having a job instead of going to school, I’m pretty much the same.
I have no experience with 13-year-olds today.
I have a son that is 14, and I don’t think he’s all that much different from the boys that were 13 or 14 back in the 70’s. He plays basketball and football with his buddies after school, rides his bike, walks to the store to waste his money on candy and pop, and talks about building a treehouse in the woods behind the house.
The differences are, of course, the electronics and the amount of information that’s available to 13-year-olds these days. These kids seem to be so much more open about sex than we ever were. My daughter, who is 15 now, told me about a conversation a couple of years ago that some of the boys sitting near her were having. They were comparing how many times a day they masturbated, and apparently they didn’t care who was listening in on this discussion. She has also talked about other things that were just whispered about when I was a teen, but she and her friends don’t seem to think anything of talking openly about them.
I think kids that age can get pretty much any kind of infomation they want off the internet, and they’re pretty free about talking about it. But I also think that most of them are just as nervous about the opposite sex as we were at that age, and it’s a limited few that actually match actions to words (at least until they’re 15 or 16).
I hope.
My nieces are 13, and most of their time is spent on organized sports. Soccer, softball, travel teams, school teams. Lots of money and tons of time dragging them around to practices and matches in every neighboring city and halfway across the state. When I was 13 in 1970, there were very few out-of-school sports leagues. There was summer Ponytail softball, but it was at the local park and we got ourselves there and back, and there were no uniforms or equipment…not even different color t-shirts. One team wore red tunics over their clothes, the other wore blue. You played with whatever mitt you had laying around, and it only lasted maybe 4 weeks…twice a week. There were no practices to speak of…one session where we learned the rules, then a couple games. No awards ceremonies…don’t even think we got ribbons.
Sex was a big mystery back then. We were allowed to be kids. Now a friend tells me her 13-year-old son is made fun of at his school because he doesn’t HAVE any kids yet. My nieces are fairly demure in their dress, but I see kids their age everyday dressing and behaving provocatively. They have no idea what they are doing, but they have this powerful weapon, sex, and they intend to flaunt it. And their parents encourage them. (Not my nieces’ parents…don’t misunderstand!) 13-year olds have been exposed to so much sexual information and entertainment…we had Cher. And Mary Tyler Moore. Compare that to Courtney Love and Britney Spears.
I was 13 in 1976-7
I hadn’t had my first boyfriend or kissed a boy yet. At mixed girl-boy parties we used to slow dance in the dark but were too self conscious to ‘fast dance’.
My world revolved around my three best (girl) friends. We shared an obsession with the same pop group and I think any sexual feelings we had were diverted or sublimated that way. All our money, earned doing holiday jobs, went on LPs and clothes, mainly T shirts.
We used to giggle about male masturbation but I can’t remember female masturbation being mentioned that much. I used to get teased for not being as well-endowed as they were. I never minded being relatively flat-chested, I realised they were very self-conscious about their boobs.
We used to go out of our way not to look too sexy or trashy, while being very image conscious: the scruffy cool look, later to be called grunge, was ours.
We were allowed out on our own, never ferried around by parents like kids are nowadays. We had some male friends.
We were politically aware, and were active in community work and political campaigns.