# How were things different when you were a kid? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2026, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032 "2026-04-04T22:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/61 "2026-04-05T13:50:56Z")
There were two indoor malls in our town in 1968, when I was 8YO. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/62 "2026-04-05T13:52:13Z")
Our mall didn’t open until about 1980. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/63 "2026-04-05T13:53:33Z")
For some reason, Baltimore was crazy for malls; couldn’t build them fast enough. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/64 "2026-04-05T13:55:40Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > I had no idea they were associated with cocaine and that’s why they were discontinued. > > Interesting! For those who don’t want to click on my link above > [@](#): > > In October 1979, a newspaper story by Marcia Kramer detailed a private party at a New York City loft where guests were greeted by a large brass bowl filled with cocaine and lined with 20 McDonald’s spoons. They could take the spoon, dip it into the pile, and blast off. > > Not long after, congress held hearings exploring the sale of drug paraphernalia. The hearings were [conducted](https://priceonomics.com/the-mcdonalds-cocaine-spoon-fiasco/) in an effort to curb the availability of items common to the drug trade by introducing legislation that would [ban](https://www.newspapers.com/image/385297700/?terms=McDonald%27s%20cocaine%20spoon&match=1) their sale. A lobbying group, the Paraphernalia Trade Association, grew concerned that the proposed law—dubbed the Model Drug Paraphernalia Act—could negatively impact things like marijuana pipes, which, by themselves, were innocuous. During one hearing organized by then-senators Joseph Biden and Charles Mathias, a PTA spokesperson held up a McDonald’s spoon and suggested it would fall under their definition of a drug item. The point was that anything could be considered “illicit,” and trying to govern it was a slippery slope… > > Joyce Nalepka, the former president of the National Federation of Parents for Drug Free Youth, disagreed. She attended the hearing and believed the spoon was complicit in the drug issue. She had learned about the spoon’s lurid double life and expressed concern that it was being used to both plow powder and make light of the drug problem in the country. Nalepka decided to reach out to McDonald’s then-president Edward Schmidt to see if he might be able to do something to legitimize the issue. > > saying. > > “The drug paraphernalia industry says your tiny spoon-shaped coffee stirrer is being used as a cocaine spoon,” Nalepka said. > > “What do you want me to do?” > > “I’m testifying before the U.S. Senate tomorrow. I want you to say you’ll redesign the spoon and allow me to go back to the Senate hearing and announce that you don’t want to have your company associated with drug paraphernalia.”… > > Schmidt was initially reluctant—replacing all of their restaurants’ spoons would be a massive undertaking—but Nalepka was persistent. Schmidt soon announced that “McDonald’s will either redesign or discontinue the item altogether.” > **[Sniffing Around the History of the McDonald's 'Cocaine Spoon'](https://www.mentalfloss.com/crime/mcdonalds-cocaine-spoon-controversy)** > > When you hear people say the Coke tastes better at McDonald's, this probably isn't what they had in mind. [![](https://i.ibb.co/zTQGnYsy/IMG-2170.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/zTQGnYsy/IMG-2170.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/65 "2026-04-05T13:58:55Z")
How stupid does one look snorting coke off a spoon with a big letter M on the end? Isn’t that why you grew the extra long pinky fingernail? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/66 "2026-04-05T13:59:58Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > You said you grew up in the 1990s. I would have sworn that the U.S. ended the use of leaded gas decades earlier, but I see that it wasn’t banned until 1996! Leaded gas started to be phased out in the early 1970s. By the late 70s or early 80s I think all new cars were required to use unleaded gas. Gas stations continued to sell both leaded and unleaded gas though, since there were still a lot of older cars on the road that needed the leaded gas. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/67 "2026-04-05T14:04:08Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Air travel was exciting and fancy. They didn’t pack you in like cattle. The airlines treated you with respect. Getting on a plane was fun. The golden age of air travel is definitely long gone. Yes. Now, as a tall guy, I can’t fit into economy. They have been chipping away for years. Our travel budget just has _First Class_ built in it. But often you can’t get it unless it’s international. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/68 "2026-04-05T14:07:05Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Were there fewer pervs hanging around mall restrooms waiting to abduct/molest children? I’m not sure, but there was certainly stranger danger. If you were a kid in the 1950s… > **[Murder of Peter Weinberger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Peter_Weinberger)** > > Peter Weinberger (June 2, 1956 – c. July 12, 1956) was a one-month-old infant who was kidnapped for ransom on July 4, 1956, in New York state. The case gained national notoriety due to the circumstances of the kidnapping and the victim's family, as unlike many victims in kidnappings for ransom, Weinberger was not from a wealthy and prominent family, but from a suburban middle class family. > As was required by law at the time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) waited for seven days bef... Or 1960s… > **[Murder of Marise Chiverella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Marise_Chiverella)** > > On March 18, 1964, Marise Ann Chiverella, a 9-year-old American girl, was raped and murdered while on her way to school by 22-year-old James Paul Forte in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. > The murder went unsolved for nearly 58 years, until it was announced by authorities in 2022 that the perpetrator had been identified as James Paul Forte using investigative genetic genealogy. It is believed to be the oldest cold case in Pennsylvania to be solved through this method. The murder's solving gained major ... Or 1970s… > **[Disappearance of Etan Patz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Etan_Patz)** > > Etan Kalil Patz (/ˈeɪtɑːn ˈpeɪts/; October 9, 1972 – c. May 25, 1979) was a six-year-old American boy who disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Years after he disappeared, Patz became one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the 1980s. ... Or 1980s… > **[Murder of Adam Walsh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Adam_Walsh)** > > Adam John Walsh (November 14, 1974 – c. July 27, 1981) was an American child who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Highway 60/Yeehaw Junction in rural Indian River County, Florida. Walsh's death garnered national interest and became the basis for the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing. > Adam's father, John Wa... Or even 1990s… > **[Kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Dugard)** > > .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct,.mw-parser-output .geo-inline-hidden{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}38°0′31″N 121°46′16″W / 38.00861°N 121.77111°W / 38.00861; -121.77111 > > > On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard, an eleven-year-old girl, was abducted from a street while walking to a school bus stop in Me... Then you were at risk of being abducted. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/69 "2026-04-05T14:08:28Z")
Age 65. Let’s see… Unless you were dialing long-distance (and paying for it by the minute), telephone numbers were seven-digit. Computers were big machines that businesses used. Data was on paper. You referred to a dictionary or a good encyclopedia set, or else went to the library. Letter mail was important. So were daily newspapers and weekly magazines. With rare exceptions, television was three or four channels on the open airwaves. Radio was the primary format that new music was introduced to the public. With great difficulty and usually detectable photographs could be faked, but otherwise “seeing was believing”. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/70 "2026-04-05T14:14:43Z")
I’m 78, and I remember mail delivery TWICE a day back in 60-70s ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/71 "2026-04-05T14:16:23Z")
That’s damned depressing. Thanks for the research. It’s a big, wide, wonderful world we live in, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/72 "2026-04-05T14:19:42Z")
I also remember meals in a box Chun King and Chef Boy a Dee ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/73 "2026-04-05T14:22:01Z")
I remember milk delivery. There was an insulated metal (me-tal?) box that sat on our front porch and the glass 😳 jugs were left in there. The jugs had cardboard plugs at first, replaced by a plastic seal that covered the entire neck of the bottle and became a handle. Ultimately, it was cheaper to buy milk at the supermarket just down the street. The A&P had a huge, red pickle barrel. Cukes were a quarter(?). ---
**Author:** ![sb1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@sb1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sb1953)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/74 "2026-04-05T14:27:54Z")
There were small blue mailboxes about the size of a microwave oven dispersed along streets ev erywhere. They usually were mounted on concrete posts. They only accepted letters or a very thin parcel. Milk was delivered to our porch in steel galvanized crates in glass bottles. Our family had a set of encyclopedias. Almost any argument could be solved by “looking it up”. I felt we were privileged to have them as most kids needed to go to a library to find something. Soda pop was sold in machines in glass bottles that had a wire rack on the side to place the empties. The opener was in the front door. Gasoline was dispensed into your car by an attendant who knew you were there because you ran over a red rubber hose in the driveway that rang a bell. The cheapest time to call “long distance” was after 11 PM on sunday night. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/75 "2026-04-05T14:30:19Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > mail delivery TWICE a day back in 60-70s Ours was only once a day. I grew up in West Virginia, which only has about 4 square feet of flat space in the entire state. Everything else is on a hill. 😛 Every lot on our street was 40 feet wide, and each house was 1 floor up from the house next to it. In other words, If you were on the 2nd floor of our house, you could look out the window directly into the 1st floor of the house on the left. And their 2nd floor was even with their neighbor’s 1st floor, etc. Being a mailman there probably sucked. > [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I remember milk delivery. I remember milk delivery being a thing, but we didn’t have it in our area. Glass bottles were definitely the norm. We’d save up our soda bottles and take them back to the grocery store to get our 5 cent deposit back for them. I also remember this style of soda machine: [![](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/s-vintage-up-machine-s-vintage-up-machine-221132846.jpg) ](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/s-vintage-up-machine-s-vintage-up-machine-221132846.jpg) You put in your money, opened the door, grabbed a glass bottle, and yanked hard. You didn’t want to limp-wrist it because if you pulled the bottle partway out and let go the bottle would go back in and you’d lose your money. You had to pull hard enough to get the bottle out in one quick pull. There were plenty of soda machines that dispensed cans, but those were newer. The older machines were all glass bottles. > [@sb1953](#): > > There were small blue mailboxes about the size of a microwave oven dispersed along streets ev erywhere. We didn’t have those. > [@sb1953](#): > > Our family had a set of encyclopedias. Almost any argument could be solved by “looking it up”. I felt we were privileged to have them as most kids needed to go to a library to find something. Eh, not that privileged. Supermarkets in our town would sell one volume a week. So the first week you could buy A, the next week you could buy B, and so on. Took you half a year to get the entire set, but they were reasonably priced. It was mostly a gimmick to get you into the same store every week. If you bought an entire set from a door to door encyclopedia salesman (those were a thing), that could be a bit pricy. But yeah, a lot of families didn’t have encyclopedias back then. I used to browse through ours for fun. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/76 "2026-04-05T14:35:18Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > really lax regard to safety while driving in cars. I was born in 1978, and I have photographs my mom took bringing me home from the hospital. She was holding me in the front seat. When my son was born in 2013, they wouldn’t have let us leave the hospital unless we had a car seat _properly installed_ in the backseat. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/77 "2026-04-05T14:40:34Z")
Beach seats. In the front. Of your car. 😳 ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/78 "2026-04-05T14:46:45Z")
Except that the whole concept of “stranger danger” was greatly exaggerated and dangerously misplaced. The abduction and/or molestation of children by complete strangers has always been vanishingly rare in comparison to those acts committed by family members, friends, and trusted authority figures. It was the Adam Walsh case in particular, his appearance on milk cartons, and his father’s media crusade, that was largely responsible for whole generations of children and parents becoming paranoid about kids’ safety, making sure that their every free moment was scheduled and supervised, and ending the era of free-range childhood that so many here have happily recalled. And it wasn’t until the scandals of abuse by Catholic priests, a decade or two later, that anyone even started to take the issue of child sexual abuse seriously. They highlighted the fact that the danger was NOT primarily from strangers, and eventually led to a slight retreat from the earlier paranoia. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/79 "2026-04-05T14:49:57Z")
The sex. My god, the sex. Considering that, compared to modern teens who basically carry parental tracking devices in their pockets (viz, cell phones), we Gen-X teens in the 80s were downright feral. Already discussed at length in this thread is the long periods of time in which we were effectively devoid of adult supervision; not discussed is how that freed us up to have all the sex. I don’t know if teens today are having as much sex with each other as we did back in the day. I’ve read that they aren’t, and I wouldn’t be surprised. Between not being able get enough time away from the technological reach of the ‘rents in order to complete the transaction, and the need for expressed, written consent for every sex act, I’d be surprised if most teens weren’t chaste. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/80 "2026-04-05T14:54:50Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > and the need for expressed, written consent for every sex act, ETA: I am certainly not minimizing the need for consent. Certainly in my day, I understood and abided by the need for consent, and understood that “no” means “no.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=5)