Good point. 16 or so years ago, when my son was in high school, he had a couple friends who were gay. A lot of his friends were musicians, and I had a studio in the basement, and they’d come over and we’d play a bit of music, or the kids would and I’d listen, so I got to know them pretty well, for being a high-schooler’s dad. The gay ones were (mostly) perfectly comfortable being gay and everyone knowing it.
I remember remarking to my wife that in our day, those kids would still be in denial, and having serious issues about it – much more serious than the (still considerable) issues they faced being gay in a straight society.
I’m sure it’s even better today, and there’s more hope every day (well, in many states, though not mine) that there will be legal acceptance of lifelong relationships.
As with anything else… SOME things were much better then, SOME things are much better now, SOME things are exactly the same, and SOME things are neither better nor worse- just different.
That was true of my old neighborhood, Astoria (Queens), New York, and of Austin, Texas, where I’ve lived since 1986.
Astoria was a great place to grow up in the Sixties and Seventies. It’s changed tremendously, for the better AND for the worse. Unfortunately, the blue-collar Italians and Greeks I grew up among can’t enjoy the things that have improved, because Astoria is becoming heavily yuppified, and housing/rent prices have skyrocketed.
In Austin, the people who get most nostalgic about how great it was in “the days” aren’t elderly conservative Republicans- they’re aging hippies who thought this was Heaven in the Sixties and Seventies, but hate the rich, sprawling, car-oriented, high-tech city Austin has become. On the other hand, people like my wife (who was born and raised here) tend to think Austin is a MUCH better place now!
That sounds very logical, and yet there’s more nostalgia among elderly black people than you’d think.
I’ve given this spiel before but while segregation was evil, it has some unintended benefits for black Americans in the South. Since ALL black people had to live in the same neighborhoods, and since ALL black people were barred from eating/shopping at white establishments, the ghettos of Atlanta and Dallas had plenty of educated middle-class black folks who served as role models and leaders of the community, and who ran thriving local shops, restaurants and theaters of their own. These people were the leaders of the civil rights movement in the South.
The end of segregation was necessary and desirable, but not surprisingly, the propserous black families who HAD been pillars of their communities moved out as soon as they were allowed to, and the neighborhoods they left behind have decayed and declined. Visit an old women in such a neighborhood and she WILL tell you how much nicer her neighborhood was once.
Or talk to a 75 year old black man in Detroit. He’ll tell you that, while Detroit wasn’t Paradise in 1961, it was a prosperous, safe town with good schools, a thriving music scene and plenty of high-paying factory jobs. When he looks at how his grandkids are struggling economically now, he may very well tell you “The Klansman was right- things WERE better back in the day.” And he won’t be lying or re-writing history.
Side note: Queens but Austin since 1986. Hmmm. Your initials wouldn’t happen to be JP by any chance? Because I knew someone who could say the same thing.
My ‘good old days’ would have been the 50s/60s. Among the things that are far better today are:
Civil rights
Women’s rights and equality, both in business and in sports
Medicine in general, especially in the area of disease prevention and treatment
Minimum wage
Tolerance for gays
Access for the disabled
Treatment of migrant farm workers
Electronics
Cars (perhaps not in sheer outrageous styling, but certainly in mechanical reliability)
Quality of life for the aged
I went to college in 1975. It was super cheap. Tuition at University of California was $212.50/quarter. I was able to get through college on small scholarships, a summer job, no working throughout the school year, and a student loan of the staggering sum of $1350, which I paid off at $90 every 3 months.
Medicine is way better, but it’s also way more expensive.
Given that we no longer have flaming rivers in Ohio, Lake Erie has a fishing industry again, and a few other things I suspect that even when it comes to the natural environment there has been some improvement.
I’m from the late 60’s and 1970’s. I don’t want to go back then. People who say it was better in the old days either came from a very privileged background or have selective amnesia.
Smallpox
Measles
Its first cousin, rinderpest, if you’re an African cattle farmer
Scarlet fever (no vaccine, but even before antibiotics, it eventually turned into a disease that rarely killed children, unlike the monster it once was)
Polio
Rubella
Mumps
Puerperal fever
Hypertension is much easier to manage than it was even a couple decades ago
Diphtheria
Tetanus
Whooping cough
Gonorrhea has some drug-resistant strains, but if you get it, it’s usually fairly easy to treat. Syphilis too.
Diabetes, especially type 1, is no longer an automatic death sentence, and kidney failure isn’t either.
Nor are many types of cancer, and its treatment is MUCH less brutal than it once was
Forgot about that! It’s a bacteria that was a major cause of ear infections and meningitis in small children and people in crowded conditions like college dorms and boot camp, and is now so uncommon that younger doctors don’t know how to recognize or treat it.
Ah, so you’ve met my grandparents. Nice old folks, weren’t they?
That was a frequent lament when growing up - de-segregation pretty much fractured the black community, so the poor were left to worsening conditions while the better-off went to areas where, rather than being a minority just during work, they were now “the other” 24/6 (Sundays we spent at church). Yet we were the 2nd black family on our block, thanks to them leaving the one black neighborhood in town as soon as they could, so clearly it wasn’t all sunshine and roses…
My ‘good old days’ were the 80’s and early 90’s when I was a kid up to early 20’s. I personally think they were pretty good, but of course that was seeing the world through the eyes of a child and just learning about life.
I can’t imagine a better time to grow up than the late 50’s and 60’s for a middle-class white kid like me. It was glorious.
The schools were better, in my view. No distracting electronics, so we went outside. The beginnings of space exploration. A new participation in politics. Cars were cool. Music rocked.
The cops were a lot rougher, but crime seemed to be lower.
Yes, it was better in a lot of ways. Racism was rude. Sexism was old-fashioned. Reading was admired. People cooked at home, and used their immune systems - after priming them with vaccinations. And kids got to play outside with so little supervision, and most survived.
And reproductive control was a good thing.
And there was a nice balance between frugality and progress.
And crime was organized. (I’m not joking; I miss that.)
And you didn’t have to spend a thousand dollars for a dog (because reproductive control was not important for dogs.)
And gas had lead, houses weren’t insulated, mpg could be single digit, … it wasn’t better in every way.
What I miss the most is long rambling conversations over a game of gin; now if a person wonders aloud about anything, someone googles it on a smart phone, gets the answer, and the conversation is over.
My minimal understanding of public health and the importance of good drainage and clean water has inhibited any serious desire to spend time in another era.
I’m 56. Some things were better when I grew up, most things weren’t. I miss the optimism of the space effort. I don’t miss the boys-only club aspect of it. I don’t miss being told that girls can’t do this, or that, or another thing.
Nowadays, doctors and dentists seem to be much more concerned about whether their patients are experiencing pain. Back then, if a kid said that the tooth wasn’t numb yet, the dentist was likely to say tough noogies, we’re gonna get this thing done.
I’m 68, so I basically grew up in the 50s. A great time to live, as long as you were white, male, Christian, young, heterosexual, healthy, middle- or upper-class, non-Communist or able-bodied. But we kids could be out all day, playing all over the neighborhood or in the woods, and nobody worried about us. Candy bars were a nickel, and movies (even double features) were a quarter. You could buy a gallon of gas for a quarter. Oh sure, there was the threat of nuclear annihilation, but we knew how to “duck and cover.” Politicians were civil to each other and actually got things done.