For those of us a bit long in the tooth...

[gman2304]

53 here. Us gen x’ers grew up exactly the way the op did.

Boomer here! No you/they didn’t! Without elaborating too much, my 2 sons are near your age and they certainly didn’t grow up the way I did!

 

[PWMDMD]

Saying ma’am is an insult in modern times.

I watched an older woman berate a very nice 18-year-old kid (son of the owner who is my friend) who works at the gym because she held the door for him (he was carrying in a box) and all he said was, "Thank you, I appreciate it." Sparks flew out of the back of her head and she tore into this kid about how disrespectful he was because he didn't say, "Thank you, ma'am." She got right in his face going on about how she's retired from the Air Force and it got to the point that I stood up and stepped between them (she was tiny) and looked her in the eye and just said sternly, "WALK AWAY"! She turned and walked away and didn't make another sound. It was all captured on video and she's gone now.

Use ma'am or don't use ma'am but sometimes in this crazy world you just can't win...

 

[SaberOne]

The story sounds like something I could’ve written because I grew up when that culture was dominant. I recall sitting on the stump waiting for the milkman to walk up in his white outfit with a white bow bow tie. My grandmother gave me the change to pay him and I believe it was $.30. I can still remember the smell of the sweet magnolia trees along the street and the sound of the large locomotive train engines nearby. Just like my dad used to say “life was better back then.”

 

[JTK]

I wasn't born until 1970, but much of what I recall was as how @RTexasF described. I was fortunate to have both parents. We lived in a lower mid-class subdivision built in the late 1950s of basically identical 1000sq/ft Cape Cod style homes. My family of 6 lived in one w/ a single bathroom.

Fast forward 5 decades, I have a family of 6. My wife an I have been married 24yrs. Kids are 21,19,17,11. I've worked my butt off so my wife could be a stay at home mom. We live in a rural-ish area in a good smaller school district. My hart aches every day with the feeling I should have / could have done better for my kids. I believe I've done my kids an injustice by sending them to public schools. I've been trying to convince my wife to home school the 11yr/old things are getting so bad IMO.

I guess where I'm going with this, do you think our fathers felt the same way? Mine passed years ago, but I believe he was happy how we all turned out.

 

[wpod]

Those were "second generation" TV shows. We watched Captain Video and His Video Rangers" on the Dumont network and Winky Dink and You, a fascinating children's program that encouraged drawing on the TV screen. It was the central gimmick of the show, praised by Bill Gates as "the first interactive TV show". A "magic drawing screen"—a piece of vinyl plastic that stuck to the television screen via static electricity, was placed on the TV screen. A kit containing the screen and various Winky Dink crayons could be purchased for 50 cents.

At a climactic scene in every Winky Dink short film, Winky would arrive on a scene that contained a connect-the-dots picture that could be navigated only with the help of viewers. Winky Dink then would prompt the children at home to complete the picture, and the finished result would help him continue the story. Examples included drawing a bridge to cross a river, using an axe to chop down a tree, or creating a cage to trap a dangerous lion.

On Saturday mornings I'd watch "Victory at Sea" a show made up of newsreal clips and actual military footage which depicted how the Allies (mostly the US) fought the enemy in the Pacific Theater.

There was Howdy Doody, a show with marionettes depicting the resident of the fictional town of Doodyville along with the human talent that rounded out the show. Clarabell the Clown was played by Bob Keeshan who went on to play Captain Kangaroo, William Shatner played Ranger Bob, Dayton Allen, later of The Steve Allen Show and a very funny comedian, played Phineas T. Bluster. The show first aired in 1947, and lasted more than a decade.

Tv has done more the dumb down and brainwash society that anything else.

 

[John105]

I remember playing "doctor" with a girl friend aka playmate, proving I was right that we are not the same, and feeling so bad about it, I finally told her mom. Her mom laughed and thought it was the cutest thing.

Imagine if my son did that today in 2023?

 

[PWMDMD]

53 here. Us gen x’ers grew up exactly the way the op did.

Yet, we Gen X'ers are responsible for the mess that are millennials and Gen Z. Somehow we took are free-spirited childhoods that we wax poetic about all the time now and we turned it into a reason to hover over and infantilize the next two generations. Parenting is dead and it started with Gen X and it is now being made worse by millennials.

 

[supton]

Parenting is dead and it started with Gen X and it is now being made worse by millennials.

Not sure if I agree—I recall hearing complaints about “this generation” as a kid growing up in the 90’s. So maybe it’s the boomers faults for screwing up the X’ers who then in turn screwed up the millenials.

Before long we’re going to start blaming every generation going back. That or maybe it’s human nature to screw up. Every generation, in its quest to get its progeny ahead of the pack, instead makes them worse. A few succeed, others fail to differing degrees.

 

[SaberOne]

Clearly, you and I grew up in the same period. That is an exact carbon-copy of how I grew up.

 

[PWMDMD]

Not sure if I agree—I recall hearing complaints about “this generation” as a kid growing up in the 90’s. So maybe it’s the boomers faults for screwing up the X’ers who then in turn screwed up the millenials.

Before long we’re going to start blaming every generation going back. That or maybe it’s human nature to screw up. Every generation, in its quest to get its progeny ahead of the pack, instead makes them worse. A few succeed, others fail to differing degrees.

I don't disagree. What I object to is the Gen Xers who claim they had great childhoods filled with freedom and adventure and lessons are the same people who won't allow their children to grow up and learn the same lessons. I loved my childhood, not because it was easy, but because it was hard and it taught me how to be an adult. I've raised my children in a similar manner to how I was raised. No bulldozing difficulties. I hold them accountable and I expect them to make their mistakes right. I expect them to first try and figure out their problems and only come to me if absolutely necessary. They know life doesn't have to be fair and that often it is not. Sometimes life sucks and it's stressful - that's usually when I learned important things about myself - get over it and find a solution and move on. They are special to me and their mother and maybe a few other people but the rest of the world doesn't really care at all about them and THEY will need to find THEIR way in the world.

 

[andrewg]

The "back in my day" folks leave this part out alot, it doesn't fit their "my generation blah blah blah" rants. Never having to drinking out of a dirty water fountain, color-only schools, having to sit at the back of the bus, or chastised and harassed by the cops because you were a colored person walking back from baseball practice as they dump your equipment on the streets, laughing.

Rubbish. 60 years old and never recall racism of any kind back in the day.

 

[Zee09]

Saying ma’am is an insult in modern times.

I had that happen a few months ago and she was so ticked that she told her manager I said that....duh

 

[PWMDMD]

Rubbish. 60 years old and never recall racism of any kind back in the day.

Brown vs Board of Ed was 69 years ago and in your 60 years, you never recall racism of any kind? Lol...this is an unfathomable position for anyone to have no matter where you lived. You'd have to be incredibly sheltered, oblivious, wantingly ignorant of what's going on in the world, or some combination of all of these to never recall racism of any kind back in the day. It's just a fact that it was everywhere "back in the day".

 

[Zee09]

Brown vs Board of Ed was 69 years ago and in your 60 years, you never recall racism of any kind? Lol...this is an unfathomable position for anyone to have no matter where you lived. You'd have to be incredibly sheltered, oblivious, wantingly ignorant of what's going on in the world, or some combination of all of these to never recall racism of any kind back in the day. It's just a fact that it was everywhere "back in the day".

With all do respect to the OP
and forum rules many would appreciate it if you would take this private. Why soil a great thread.
Thanks.

 

[ATex7239]

Not sure if I agree—I recall hearing complaints about “this generation” as a kid growing up in the 90’s. So maybe it’s the boomers faults for screwing up the X’ers who then in turn screwed up the millenials.

Before long we’re going to start blaming every generation going back. That or maybe it’s human nature to screw up. Every generation, in its quest to get its progeny ahead of the pack, instead makes them worse. A few succeed, others fail to differing degrees.

From Wikipedia:

Rosy retrospection refers to the psychological phenomenon of people sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the present. The Roman occasionally referred to this phenomenon with the Latin phrase "memoria praeteritorum bonorum", which translates into English roughly as "memory of good things having passed". Rosy retrospection is very closely related to the concept of nostalgia. The difference between the terms is that rosy retrospection could be understood as a cognitive basis whereas the broader phenomenon of nostalgia is not usually seen as based on a biased perspective.

This has been going on for so long that it even has term in Latin… there is no new thing under the sun.

 

[John105]

I had that happen a few months ago and she was so ticked that she told her manager I said that....duh

Here in the Phila burbs I see plenty of people calling women as Miss , like on the tv show Dallas, Miss Ellie. I don't recall that growing up in the northeast...I don't find ma'am to be offensive to tell you the truth...more a sign of respect or polite

 

[Zee09]

Not sure if I agree—I recall hearing complaints about “this generation” as a kid growing up in the 90’s. So maybe it’s the boomers faults for screwing up the X’ers who then in turn screwed up the millenials.

Before long we’re going to start blaming every generation going back. That or maybe it’s human nature to screw up. Every generation, in its quest to get its progeny ahead of the pack, instead makes them worse. A few succeed, others fail to differing degrees.

Blame it on the technology

 

[PWMDMD]

With all do respect to the OP
and forum rules many would appreciate it if you would take this private. Why soil a great thread.
Thanks.

I don't think that was inappropriate given the comment it's responding to and the poster can reply with how it's possible to never see racism of any kind. We're just having a discussion here.

 

[TiGeo]

So then why did your generation (I'll assume Boomers) raise the current generation (Millenials primarily) like you did to be what you didn't want? I'm a GenX (so my parents are Silents...not Boomers) and my kids and their friends (Z/Zoomers) seem to be just fine...they basically had a "free range" childhood to some degree like I did. Folks always reminisce about the old days and how current gens have ruined it.

 

[Zee09]

Here in the Phila burbs I see plenty of people calling women as Miss , like on the tv show Dallas, Miss Ellie. I don't recall that growing up in the northeast...I don't find ma'am to be offensive to tell you the truth...more a sign of respect or polite

I encounter a bunch of 20 something ladies daily...they call me Mister Jim.
My neighbor gal is 27 and does the same but I tell her she is an adult and Jim is fine. She still says Mister...
Respectful young guys say Sir