Was it really better "Back in the day?"

In My Humble Opinion
1

Or do people see things through rose colored glasses and have selective memory?
There are also people like myself who have never grown up in an era and can only piece together what I think it might have been like.

I was speaking with my father who is in his 60s about how I thought it would be great to visit the era in which he grew up, as it seemed like a better time overall, to which he replied, “I don’t remember it being all that great, actually.”

I often forget how it might have been simpler but during his time, but I, as well as others often forget things that people struggled with a lot of tough issues and it wasn’t “Leave it to Beaver” 24/7, obviously.

So my question is basically, when did you grow up, do you think it was better then than it is now? Also, have you ever wanted to spend time in a different era?

2

No.

3

After reading the OP, I was born in 1961, no it wasn’t better, there is no other era I would want to live in, except maybe the future, assuming it’s not a radioactive wasteland. :wink:

4

I am 59 and grew up on the east coast of the US. Living conditions for human beings, which is what I assume “better back in the day” means, seem to have improved in every possible way since I was a child. The only thing I can think of that has gotten worse is the natural environment.

5

No, but I was younger and thinner, so that rocked.

6

I’ll go with this.

Also, change comes slow to some/many people, depending on what it is, so there’s that.

7

My estimation is that 90% percent of things are better now and 10% of things were better then. The folks who grouse about things being better back then are focusing on the 10% and blithely ignoring the 90%.

8

The answer is simple - No. It was not.

9

For anyone (in the United States) other than a middle-class, hetero, Christian white man, there is absolutely no comparison, and things weren’t so great (relatively) for them either.

“Things” are much better for everyone now.

10

If I were in the bottom 20%, I might well think things were better then. I was poor, but not, relatively speaking, as poor. But except for my fading health and strength, things are much better now.

11

There are two factors (I think) which make the past seem better than today for most people if they don’t think about it too hard. The first is madmonk’s response. We were all younger then. Except for people that weren’t alive then, but that’s why the “good old days” attitude is mostly an older person phenomenon.

The second is more profound I think. Whatever problems, stress, and failures we suffered from in the past, we got over them. Either they got solved, or we learned to live with them. Either way, it wasn’t the end of the world. There’s no such guarantee regarding the problems (personal or societal) we face today. That cancer might kill you. You might go bankrupt and become homeless. Guns might finally be banned. Kids, despite the false alarms in the past, might finally become Satan worshipers.

Basically, the future is uncertain and the past is not. And that counts for a whole lot.

12

Yes and no.

Some things were better, others were worse. And yes, we have selective memory, and that’s a good thing. We certainly do remember the past with rose-colored glasses.

Do you remember when your adult teeth came in, and they had those horrible points and ridges on them, making your mouth terribly uncomfortable until you’d ground them down? I bet not. But I bet you remember how fun it was to chase the ice cream truck or get pulled in a sled by your father (or fill in your own rosy-colored childhood memory).

Bullying in schools was definitely a problem, but never in my wildest dreams did I worry about being shot at school.

The woods where we played as kids how has fences and borders and keep out signs. On the other hand, there’s highway to get there, so you don’t have to drive for endless hours. The beach was great with so few people, but now it’s nice to have neighbors. Things change.

As a kid in the 60’s & 70’s, I saw lots of nostalgia for the WWII era. But it was obvious that nobody wanted to go back to that! Regardless, my parents’ generation remembered and treasured the feeling of everyone being in it together, sharing the awful responsibility of being at war. Even the worst things can cause the best memories, and even those best memories have flaws (that “sharing” was done separately by “colored people”.)

On a similar vein, it’s all too easy to look at one aspect of society and overgeneralize a trend. A decade ago, I was with friends who were grad students, 10 or so years younger than I was. They observed that the country was getting more conservative, alarmingly so.

I chuckled at that. Certainly it was true that the government in power at the time was strongly right-wing, and had set the clock back on a number of fronts that were offensive to their liberal views. (And to my conservative ones, but that’s another story.) I understood why they saw things that way, but listed a number of areas where things continued to progress (sexism and racism, for example). It’s a challenge to see the big picture.

Bottom line: there were benefits and cool things, but I’ll take now over then, in a heartbeat.

13

Ah yeah, my knees, shoulders, and hearing sure were better! But I was so damned stupid; all those silly mistakes I made.

14

It seems to me that being a child today isn’t anywhere near as free as it was when I was a child. I was born in 1960 and children my age could roam about as far as they wanted to as long as they came home by dinner time (evening meal). We rode our bicycles hither and yon and played in the woods making treehouses and underground dens and all sorts of things that I can’t imagine are allowed these days.

Outside of that, today is a much better place to live in, and tomorrow looks to be even better.

15

The Good Old Days: They were Terrible

The reality is that some things were better and some things were far worse. A lot depends on how each person defines the two terms – a white supremacist would think the the days of Jim Crow were better than a black person would, for example.

16

Kids and cats had it better back when they were allowed outside without an escort.

17

I’ve always had an avid interest in time travel.

I’ve always wanted to visit. Not really have any affect, just watch, a observe, a different time.

18

Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.

19

I don’t know man. The 90’s was a great f’n decade. It seemed like everybody was gainfully employed and my employee stock options were doubling every six months.

I doubt I’ll ever see a decade like that again.
(Not sure if 90’s qualifies as “back in the day”)

20

I was born in 1967. As has been said, some things were better and some things were not.

But to be contrary, I really don’t consider now to be all that much better than then either. I hate this having to be in constant communication (although I do have a cell phone), I hate that kids aren’t as free to be creative or imaginative (or as stupid in some cases) as we were. I have lived in small towns out here on the Plains all my life and I hate that the vast majority of them are dead or dying.