Those of us who grew up in the pre-Internet era have memories that today’s young people will likely never have. The childhoods of baby boomers and Generation X were easier in many ways, as they didn’t have access to endless entertainment and didn’t have to contend with the pitfalls of the online world on a daily basis.
The internet has improved people’s lives in many ways, but it has also fundamentally changed the way we grow up. While older generations had a handful of TV shows on limited channels at set times, younger people can watch streaming shows and YouTube channels 24/7. Baby boomers used typewriters while millennials had laptops. Generation X carried Walkmans while Generation Z has smartphones.
And that’s just the technology. The world has changed in other ways too, such as a greater awareness of safety that has changed the way people raise their children and less access to pristine nature. Change isn’t inherently good or bad, but there are definitely some nostalgic elements of baby boomer and Gen X parenting that these older generations wish today’s young people could enjoy.
Here are some top answers on Reddit from people born before 1980 to the question, “What is something you grew up with that you want younger generations to be able to do?”
Be unreachable
“The freedom of being unreachable and not knowing what everyone on earth is doing at any given time, so… a life before the iPhone and before social media.”
“Before the CELL PHONE. Before the pager. (I mean, I know there were cell phones, but before 1993 practically nobody had one and certainly nobody except highly paid business people expected or even thought about it.)”
“Yes, I came here to maintain anonymity, but it was so nice to be unreachable.”
“I remember leaving my phone at home and not thinking anything of it. Now it’s not even ‘optional’. The phone is a staple on the ‘keys, wallet’ checklist before you leave the house.”
“Yes, it’s not good if people can reach you 24 hours a day.”
Unrestricted, unsupervised outdoor exploration
“Running wildly out in the country all day without even thinking about what could go wrong.”
“We used to just run around in the woods near my friend’s house, build tree houses and ride our bikes to the neighbors’ kids’ houses. We had no sense of time outside of sunset. I think that’s something that gets lost in all the hustle and bustle these days.”
“That would be mine too. Hop on a bike with a friend or two and go out. Maybe to the creek or the woods or the bargain store downtown. Just a wonderful, aimless wandering around with no fear of being spoken to by anyone. A quick ten-cent call home to tell Mom where you were. Just be home for dinner. Our era had the best childhood ever.”
“That’s true. I wandered for miles. But looking back, I can think of more than a handful of incidents where I narrowly escaped. I’m talking about hitchhiking, telling my parents I was staying at someone’s house, and they told their parents they were staying at mine, and then staying out all night. Things like that. It was fun – good times, but when I think about MY kids or grandkids doing the same thing, I want to vomit.”
The joy of wonder without answers
“Wondering. Sometimes we just wonder something. When we’re watching a movie with friends. Someone says, ‘I wonder if William Holden is still alive?’ Everyone shrugs and says, ‘I don’t know,’ and we go on with our lives.”
“There’s something humbling and wonderful about not knowing anything. Now that we literally have so much knowledge in our hands, we have this anxious ‘need to know everything.’ And everyone has become a Tik Tok expert.”
“Or you can allow the existence of mysterious, wondrous things without any readily available explanations, to eliminate the feeling of awe at how strange, crazy, wonderful, talented, insane or whatever our world can be.”
“The world was more of a mystery back then. That has its advantages and disadvantages, but I feel like some of the wonder has been lost.”
The gift of boredom
“Boredom. Boredom creates creativity. Boredom has disappeared from their lives.”
“The skills you gain from the experience of being bored every now and then. Most importantly, how to develop that inner voice that has stood by my side on many occasions and saved my ass on many more occasions. If you always rely on external sources for information or support, you are sure to get stuck when something goes wrong or you need to make a decision quickly.”
“Boredom leads to reading and learning an instrument.”
“Although I’m glad my kids have found friends online, the desperation of boredom and creating their own things has been really important to me.”
“Boredom. The many times I complained to my parents that I was bored and they just said, ‘Then find something to do’, led to all kinds of fun.”
The freedom to make mistakes
“Being able to make a mistake without it going viral on the internet.”
“Experiencing embarrassing coming-of-age scenarios without them being documented somewhere on a server farm with global access.”
“I’m sorry that children don’t have a chance to make mistakes and correct them without them being immortalized online and haunting them forever.”
“The possibility of breaking things and making mistakes… the price for that has become far too high.”
Tactile pleasures
“The satisfaction you feel when you slam the receiver of a landline phone down.”
“Encyclopedias.”
“Paper maps. I’d love to see someone successfully use a paper map (and fold it back into its original shape) these days.”
“Reading a book instead of playing video games (the most useless invention ever). I’m actually old enough to remember there being no TV or radio in the house (my parents read newspapers and magazines instead to keep up with the news, but it’s much slower and more local).”
“The thrill of buying a vinyl album. I know you can still do that, but it just doesn’t feel the same as it used to. In the ’60s and ’70s they were absolute TREASURES.”
“Sleeping on sheets that had been dried on a clothesline in the spring. The smell of those sheets was intoxicating.”
Travel feeling more adventurous
“Taking a road trip with friends to a place you’ve never been before, using a road atlas to get there, and then exploring the area without consulting online reviews or Google Maps suggestions.”
“Experience world travel like it used to be. There was a time when traveling to another country was a big deal and an adventure.
Today, we can buy a ticket at the last minute, research the destination on the way to the airport, watch Hollywood movies on the plane, rent a car from a well-known brand, stay in a well-known hotel chain, eat well-known dishes and let our GPS navigate us while chatting with our friends in real time.
Traveling is still fun, but the magic and romance have largely disappeared. The feeling of being far away and totally immersed in a foreign culture almost doesn’t exist anymore. It’s too easy and homogenized now.”
“So true. I remember traveling on a bus in South America in the early 2000s with a 19-year-old American who was really fascinated by the idea that I had traveled in the 1970s ‘before email’. You had to wait two weeks to get a letter in the post office in each country. It was so freeing and you really immersed yourself in the local culture, letting go of your cultural reference points and becoming someone new.”
“The old way of travelling involved a lot of happy accidents. You would go to a town you knew nothing about and get chatting to someone on the bus who would then invite you to stay overnight. You would be fed, shown around and helped to find your way around, whatever you needed to know along the way. A lovely way to meet people and discover nearby treasures you didn’t know about. Today you can research and plan everything in advance. I still travel unplanned, with no plan, no accommodation planned, but when I mention it other people shudder and say their fear won’t allow it. Didn’t we have fear in the past? Yes, we did, but it was all part of the risk in life.”
Life in the 21st century is better, easier, faster and more convenient in many ways, but growing up in the days before the Internet was something special, wasn’t it?
