# Were the any ways in which "the olden days" were better than today? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 23, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947 "2019-04-23T18:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/81 "2019-04-24T16:03:58Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > In 1970 red delicious apples were a little smaller but they were firmer and didn’t taste like rubber. So that was better. > … Exact same apple, juts how they are stored and shipped. Pick one off a tree, you will find the same experience. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/82 "2019-04-24T16:05:43Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > There were a few things. Kids could and did walk to school by themselves (I actually had to cross Rte. 1, but there was a light) and we played outside incessantly. … Unions were much more powerful; the right-to-work states had not yet started the race to the bottom. … > > One other point: even though the president was Republican, both parties kept the interests of the country foremost and worked together on improving things. This is entirely gone with one party interested only in its own agenda, mainly to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor. Yes, I walked just over a mile. One major street. Yes, and we need them back. Not entirely but there was certainly more cooperation. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/83 "2019-04-24T16:07:08Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I dont remember anyone with peanut or gluten allergies back in the 70’s. Nope. We’re not sure where they came from. There is a correlation between soy based baby formula and peanut allergies but it seems like there are several sources. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/84 "2019-04-24T16:16:06Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > We had a large vegetable garden in the back yard, so a lot of the food we ate was absolutely fresh. Nothing like today’s supermarket food. There were also fields behind our house, where we picked apples and blackberries for home-made pies. > > We did lots of canning, so we had veggies and jams throughout the year. My father had a vegetable garden in the '50s. And I have a vegetable garden today. I suspect that gardening is at least as popular today as it was then. And if you lived near farmstands you were lucky then, but for most people supermarket food is much, much better. We mostly ate canned vegetables with some frozen. Our produce section is far superior to what it was back then. And the diversity of vegetables is much better also. And I don’t remember any farmers markets back then. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/85 "2019-04-24T16:27:22Z")
It was probably easier being a teacher back in the day. Schools weren’t ranked by test scores, so there wasn’t any “teaching to the test” stuff. Mediocre teachers weren’t held accountable. They didn’t have to keep taking classes to keep their certification. Parents didn’t browbeat their kids’s teacher for not giving them an A on a book report, as if that book report is the only thing standing between that kid and Harvard. A teacher could be all kinds of scandalous in the weekend without having to worry about losing her/his job. Bad teachers were most definitely rampant and of course education sucked for folks with physical and learning disabilities. And too bad if you were black and in Jim Crow. But I think a teacher in the 1970s had an easier time than a teacher today has it. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/86 "2019-04-24T16:34:55Z")
Sure the 1950’s were better. If you were a straight, white, Christian man. Women were subservient. The goal of a woman was to get married and have babies. Employers could fire woman for getting married and having babies. Any unwed woman having a baby would hide it or be ostracized. Jews were looked down on. And there were no Muslims or atheists. Whites were better than anyone. It was legal to not hire someone or refuse housing to a colored. Mixed marriages were illegal or looked down on. As for gays…Well, they were totally in the closet because it was illegal. I maintain that the best thing to come out of the 1960’s was our acceptance of different people. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/87 "2019-04-24T17:34:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It was probably easier being a teacher back in the day. Schools weren’t ranked by test scores, so there wasn’t any “teaching to the test” stuff. Mediocre teachers weren’t held accountable. They didn’t have to keep taking classes to keep their certification. Parents didn’t browbeat their kids’s teacher for not giving them an A on a book report, as if that book report is the only thing standing between that kid and Harvard. A teacher could be all kinds of scandalous in the weekend without having to worry about losing her/his job. … In the 1950s my Dad taught at the LA Unified School district, and trust me, teachers were hugely underpaid. My Dad had to quit and become a civil servant as it paid substantially more. So, no, not easier being a teacher back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/88 "2019-04-24T17:48:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Exact same apple, juts how they are stored and shipped. > > Pick one off a tree, you will find the same experience. [Oh](https://newfoodeconomy.org/history-economics-red-delicious-apples/)? I remember them getting gross in my lifetime–little kid throughout the 70s. Maybe they’re like Dungeness crab–good if you eat immediately after harvest, but they become inedible shortly after. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/89 "2019-04-24T17:49:35Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’ve always wondered how the unemployment rates would look if the job market was as overwhelmingly male now as it was in the 1950s. > > In other words, are we maybe comparing apples to oranges in some sense- yes, the jobs paid more on average, but the low unemployment may have been simply because we were only drawing from half the population for most jobs. That’s possible, but of course there were times of high unemployment in the past, too; it was disastrously high in the Depression, of course, and the 1957 recession saw it jump, too, even though that is well before the women’s liberation movement really swung into high gear. You would also have some trouble demonstrating that societies less inclined to having women in the workforce have better unemployment figures. Jobs, after all, do not spring from the ground; they are a product of aggregate demand, and the more productive you are the more aggregate demand you can have. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/90 "2019-04-24T18:00:01Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Sure the 1950’s were better. If you were a straight, white, Christian man. > > Women were subservient. The goal of a woman was to get married and have babies. Employers could fire woman for getting married and having babies. Any unwed woman having a baby would hide it or be ostracized. > > Jews were looked down on. And there were no Muslims or atheists. > > Whites were better than anyone. It was legal to not hire someone or refuse housing to a colored. Mixed marriages were illegal or looked down on. > > As for gays…Well, they were totally in the closet because it was illegal. > > I maintain that the best thing to come out of the 1960’s was our acceptance of different people. I think you paint an overly grim picture, while at the same time not being grim enough. Jews weren’t particularly ostracized or persecuted in the 50’s in the US. There were, of course, Muslims and atheists…and gays…but those weren’t prominent or viewed particularly well by the public (or even thought that much about or talked about). I don’t think think you are far off wrt women, but you are probably going a bit overboard on it as well as painting with too broad a brush…it’s a big country, and standards were and are different in different regions, towns, counties or states. The biggest thing I find wrong with your post here is the first sentence…even if you were a white male, it wasn’t better for you in the 50’s than today. Far worse in fact. The PERCEPTION is that it was better, but that’s incorrect. There have been plenty of posts showing why, even for white males, it wasn’t better in any sort of way (the best case made so far was that a standard white male wouldn’t be as fat). By any metric you were worse off, at every level of society, in the 50’s than today. Which is almost certainly going to be equally true 50 years from now comparing to today, though I’m equally sure folks on whatever analogue to this message board will be bitching about how bad things are then and how great they were today. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/91 "2019-04-24T18:10:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That’s possible, but of course there were times of high unemployment in the past, too; it was disastrously high in the Depression, of course, and the 1957 recession saw it jump, too, even though that is well before the women’s liberation movement really swung into high gear. You would also have some trouble demonstrating that societies less inclined to having women in the workforce have better unemployment figures. > > Jobs, after all, do not spring from the ground; they are a product of aggregate demand, and the more productive you are the more aggregate demand you can have. Good point- that’s the sort of thing I was curious about hearing! ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/92 "2019-04-24T18:28:18Z")
Things \*seemed \*to be nicer because you didn’t hear about the bad things beyond your local area. The bad things were happening, you just didn’t hear about them. Three channels of news on the black and white TV, and there was an actual news hour in the evening about 6pm. They had an hour to tell you about all the events going on, all over the world, that they felt you should be concerned about. That was about it. Later came the early news at 5pm, the late news at 10pm, and even then they could only cover the big stories. The Information Age that we have now offers around the world, around the clock, constant awareness of every tragic event. It cannot be escaped or ignored without effort. So it seems like the world is a much worse place to live when exactly the opposite is true. There is more equality, tolerance, education and a higher standard of living, for everyone around the world then there was in the '50s. The simpler answer is that WW2 destroyed much of the manufacturing infrastructure in Asia and Europe and the USA remained untouched and therefore had excellent business position to rebuild, resupply, feed, etc. the areas effected by that war. It’s all about business. They call us Baby Boomers for a reason, the economy, and opportunities were booming. And there were just fewer people, everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/93 "2019-04-24T18:35:49Z")
Anyone today who remembers the 1950s was a child at the time. What they think they’re remembering as “the 1950s were better than now” is actually just “being a child is better than being a grown-up”. All of those grown-up problems existed back then, too; they just don’t remember them, because they were children. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/94 "2019-04-24T18:39:22Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Today, it costs something like $2 for a news paper, but the average hourly rate is close to $30/hour :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/95 "2019-04-24T18:43:08Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > :dubious: Which part are you dubious about? The average hourly wage in the US is something like $27/hour. Papers cost something like $2…it varies, but that’s a good ballpark. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/96 "2019-04-24T18:48:43Z")
The average might be that, but the median is more like $22.85. The very rich pull the average up. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/97 "2019-04-24T18:54:24Z")
NM, I see the confusion. Yes, I was talking about the average wage, not the median wage. I think the point still stands…even though a news paper cost less in the 50’s, it was still quite a bit when compared to the salary of the average person (I used average wage there too, not median) and, frankly, you can get a lot more for basically free today wrt news. One of the big issues today is, folks just don’t buy a lot of news papers anymore. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/98 "2019-04-24T19:00:59Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Beyond that, I think that “the olden days” were better for children in some respects. Mostly in the realm of unsupervised play and learning to be independent. Today’s kids are sort of cocooned up- nobody just lets their kids go roam around the neighborhood anymore. For one thing, if they did, their kids would be the ONLY ones out there, so parents who aren’t otherwise helicopter parents are apprehensive about turning their kids out on their own without a relatively large peer group. Second, other people get wound up about it- I’ve read several accounts of parents getting in trouble because their kids walked to school alone, or with a sibling- some school districts expect parents to escort their kids to school, even if they’re walking a block or two. I grew up in the sixties - early seventies. It’s astonishing sometimes to think about how unsupervised we were as kids. What was normal back then would (quite literally) cause a visit from the SWAT team today. In my high school science class one day, I mentioned to the teacher I was going frog gigging after school, and had brought my .22 rifle in case I got frustrated and decided to just shoot one. His reaction was to ask the class whether I should aim above or below the frog to account for refraction. The fact that I: a) had several “spears\*” in my car, b) a gun in my trunk and c) was going out to kill some animals after school caused no concern or problems. What would happen to a kid who said these same things today? I suspect it would involve a school lockdown, lots of police, expulsion, criminal charges, and an online witch hunt from various activists that could possibly drive the family out of the school, if not the town itself. What was better then was that people didn’t freak out over things so much. Now anything you do will piss off some portion of the population, and they can harass you online if you become the latest villain. > [@bump](#): > > I also think times were better without all the nonsense that social media stokes-people weren’t nearly bombarded with so much BS from dipshits on instagram or facebook or wherever about how awesome their lives are and whatever cool thing they’re doing. A steady diet of only seeing other people’s contrived life highlight films will assuredly skew perceptions of what’s normal and what’s not, and I think this is one way that things were definitely better in the past. > > Of course, all these things are one side of the coin- social media has positives too, as does being more protective of your children. I think you’ve made a really good point. Now everyday is looking at someone’s vacation pictures. In the past you only saw this when they invited you over. I liked it better when braggarts had to at least provide you with dinner to show off their pictures. \*frog gigs resemble spears and would be a fairly dangerous weapon ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/99 "2019-04-24T19:05:06Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > In my high school science class one day, I mentioned to the teacher I was going frog gigging after school, and had brought my .22 rifle in case I got frustrated and decided to just shoot one. His reaction was to ask the class whether I should aim above or below the frog to account for refraction. The fact that I: a) had several “spears\*” in my car, b) a gun in my trunk and c) was going out to kill some animals after school caused no concern or problems. The real crime is nobody bounced you on your head for thinking shooting at the water was even a good idea, let alone how to deal with refraction. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947/100 "2019-04-24T19:13:57Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > I think you’ve made a really good point. Now everyday is looking at someone’s vacation pictures. In the past you only saw this when they invited you over. I liked it better when braggarts had to at least provide you with dinner to show off their pictures. I’m not even meaning braggarts; I just mean that it’s a very filtered view, and if you don’t keep that front and center, it’s really easy to look at the overwhelming number of awesome things you might see on social media, and conclude that something is wrong with you, because your awesome things are few and far between, and that they may not be quite so awesome. For example, kid pictures. Lots of people post carefully orchestrated pictures and videos of achievements, kids in perfectly coordinated outfits, etc… It’s really easy to look at your own kids who dressed themselves in a mishmash of blue and red socks, the top half of an astronaut costume, and some pajama pants with dinosaurs, and conclude that you’re doing it wrong if you compare to the way others set their social media pictures up just-so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-any-ways-in-which-the-olden-days-were-better-than-today/832947.md?page=6)