Why 70s Kids Are The Strongest Generation
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- čas přidán 4. 03. 2024
- ABOUT KAREN MORGAN COMEDY:
My channel & my comedy are all about laughing at life. Hit subscribe to keep the fun going! Here you will find standup comedy, storytelling, voiceovers, and random stuff that makes me laugh. My comedy material is about parenting, marriage, relationships, family, aging "gracefully" and the humor of everyday life. I'm also a Southern girl who married a Yankee and moved to Maine, so you will probably see stuff about how cold I am and how much I miss the Waffle House. I work as a clean comic on stage, so I try to do the same with my channel.
I was raised in the 1970s and went to school in the 1980s, so expect some humorous nostalgic trips to the past for Over 50 Gen X, Gen Jones and Baby Boomers. And because I am a very proud alum of the University of Georgia who was born and raised in Athens, you will definitely see some videos about the Georgia Bulldogs (Go Dawgs!).
Cheers!
Karen
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Hey y'all! Thanks so very much for all of your great comments!! 🥰🥰🥰 I do all of my own social media while I travel for shows, so please forgive me if I can't like or reply to all of them. But I would love to thank each of you individually if I could. We are strong people & we were so lucky to grow up when we did. If you don't already, please subscribe to my channel as it helps more of us see my videos to remember how lucky we were. Y'all rock!
Thanks Karen ! What's funny is you're from the southern U.S and I grew up in Edmonton,a Canadian city of 1.5 million halfway to the Arctic. My girlfriend grew up in a small town. But all our experiences were exactly the same 😂.
@@gp7910 I grew up in Melbourne, Australia and my upbringing was identical to both of yours. I feel for the kids today who dont get the freedoms we got when we were young.
Oh man! Soooo funny. I do think they said my name once! LMAO. THANK YOU ! Soooooo funny
@@iankearns774 Thats funny Ian! Btw have to visit Melbourne one day!
That's cool to know! Yes, we were lucky to grow up when we did.
@@iankearns774
Can we get a shout out to the metal merry go round that went 30mph and threw kids everywhere 😂
And we all loved it!😂
Those rocked…except the instant one was flung off backward onto the concrete! Lmao
It was a waiting weapon of revenge.
I loved that thing! And the 15 foot slide!
Don’t forget the splinters from the wooden bench seats
Go outside and play, don’t come back until the streetlights come on !
Now can't even tell if the street lights are: ON 🤦♂️🤦♀️
"Where are yez going?"
Down the creek.. "
Yez home for lunch?"
Nuh, we'll take a banana with us..
"Righto, be home before dark, no playing with matches, no throwing stones and watch out for snakes.."
Righto dad.. (negotiations with a strict Australian father, circa 1976)
Depending on your neighborhood you could sometimes stay out longer.
@@tinaanderson7283 nah, depending on your parents, not your neighborhood. we had to come in when the streetlights came on, take a bath, and then we could sit out on the front porch in our jammies watching the kids playing whose parents... i guess never? made them come in.
Nope. We were told, “Be back in time to get ready for (or even make) dinner. Do NOT be late!” Even though we were outside. Without watches. But don’t dare run inside to check the time. Yeah, that was a fun Squid Game.
From our point of view, it wasn’t neglect that we lived through. It was glorious freedom.
Yep, real freedom with no responsibilities, good times
@@vivian9187 "Right now we have freedom AND responsibility. It's a very groovy time!" ~Austin Powers
Truth
@@vivian9187 Couldn't care less about so-called "responsibilities" if I don't have freedom. GIVE ME BACK MY FREEDOM!
And with that freedom we learned Social Skills. We learned how to take care of ourselves from Sunlight to Sunset with out supervision or our parents looking for us. They knew we knew when supper would be ready. We cover some serious miles in the course of a day. We knew how to patch a Bicycle Tube on the spot. I threw papers. I always had a extra tube, patch kit and Air pump.
Gen X was the last of the strong and tough generations.
Yep! 1965 here!
Yep, 1966 here. Out riding bikes, playing in fountains, or whatever mischief all day with no supervision!
100%
Remember you could love John Denver, The Carpenters and Led Zeppelin at the same time?
I still do
said no one...
@@mycat2230 you’ve clearly never seen my dad’s 8-track tapes.
Yesss! Still do
And Willie Nelson.
The stainless steel slides that were 30 feet long and 2000 degrees 😂😂😂
OMG yes! And merry go rounds!
😂😂😂😂😂❤❤yep!!!! Sliding on wax paper to make them faster
And with those Adidas short shorts back then, it was quite easy to roast your little acorns on those slides if you weren't careful if you were a guy that is.
There's one still there in the town park of Chetopa, Kansas. Along with the long wooden teeter-totters and an industrial metal merry-go-round.
And no soft rubber ground protection in playgrounds, when you fell it was usually onto concrete or gravel!
Mastering the art of recording our favorite songs off the radio and clicking the record/stop buttons as soon as the DJ came on air.
OMG... great one .
Bad news.... my tape got all wound up , so my new step dad had to fix it.
It was awful, because he heard me telling my best friend that I didn't like him.
I hated hurting his feelings.
Blowing into the Nintendo cartridge to get it to work! 👊👊👊
I used to make mix tapes of video game music in the late '80s/early '90s (and I had a MacGyver mullet).
Remember when Kasey Kasem's Top 40 radio show was a must listen on weekends? Good times!
I still love recording my music
Water from the garden hose was THE BEST!!!!
Or the fire hydrant!
Still do it. Ain't killed me yet...
Water from the garden hose… told my 3 daughters about this… they looked at me like “You drank from what?!!!!”🤣🤣
Best flavor out there 😂
“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
Oh yeahhh......I remember that one.
You wanna knuckle sandwich?
Absolute class , My biggest regret was when my dad used to say "do you want a smack " was not to put my fingers to my lips, frown a bit and say "can I think about it and get back to you." 😂...he would have killed me but its still a regret ...
Omg my parents use to say that all the time lol
*...said every one of our parents.*
Safety? Heck, Evil Kneivel was our idol!
The things we did on pushbikes were insane. I remember a gang of us all under 10 finding a piece of wood, then adding a car tire after each jump. Didn't notice the danger as it was gradual.
So true! 😂
I must have made a thousand jumps off our DIY ramps with my Huffy bike with the banana seat. I'm still amazed I survived that although it does explain some aches and pains I feel now at 56.
💯 😂
I forgot about Evil Kneivel. For a few years I lived near his ramp for jumping the St. Lawrence River. He never did it. That was one big ramp; it stayed up for years.
"It is not our job to entertain you."
I can hear my Dad's voice saying that.
My mom, too. "If you need something to entertain you, I have dustrag with your name on it. Now get out of my hair."
Those were the days! Born in 67 and the 70s, and 80s were the BEST!!!!!!!
I was born in 67 too. I can’t agree with you more !
Same!
Me too, best years to grow up. And had the best music ever.
Same 1967 rules!! 🥰
You're not Gen X then LMAO you're the left-out Gen LMAO
I grew up in the years when summer vacation for kids was really free time. You went outside as soon as you finished breakfast and you came back in for dinner. We roamed every single inch of the countryside around us and no one EVER worried about a neighbor shooting you because you walked through their yard.
Damn your lucky. People shot at us all the time. Then again I grew up in the remote mountains of Colorado, and no trespassing sign meant NO Trespassing. Had bullets whiz past my ears several times. I've been telling my 80+ year old folks stories and they are totally freaked out by them. But yep gen x here.
My childhood too
I lived in Canada so that still doesn’t happen here. The shooting if you walk through the back yard.
Or kidnapped you
Our neighborhood didn't even have fences. We swam in neighborhs pools, climbed thier trees, drank from hoses, borrowed other kids bikes, nobody cared. If we got in trouble IT BETTER NOT get back to the parent. We lot stuff on fire, rode bikes to the bad side of town and got them stolen lol..and this was In Michigan. Where it seems like everyone has guns.
Cops punishment for minors was "we are calling your parents" AND IT WORKED!
They just shoved us in the van and gave us a good kicking then sent us on our way. That worked as well!
No it didn't because my parents didn't give a shit. So really there was no punishment🤣
Hell, in Chicago during the 80's you'd get an attitude adjustment by CPD....and then they'd call your parents, and that was infinitely worse!
There were no "diaper dicks" (cops or resource officers) in schools back then then. In elementary school the principal had a paddle and he used it. In high school you were actually scared of the school security guy, most teachers and especially the assistant principal. If you got suspended your old man tuned you up on top of it. That is gone, but now we have DEI, CRT, SEL, and kids don't know what sex they are. So much for the education system.
It worked because dad would remove his belt and you knew to not do that ever again.
I was a teen in the 70's. We did so much dumb, crazy stuff.. And there's not a digital record of it anywhere.
"What are you doing inside!?? go play somewhere!
I was raised by parents who believed in benevolent neglect. "Oh good, you are still alive. Have dinner."
I remember us thinking some kids had crazy parents that would tell them when they need to be home and had curfews. Widerdos! 😂
@@Penny-mk7fvwell to be honest in my neighborhood we did have the "go home the street light are on" rule.
My mother called it benign neglect!!!
@@pmc2999 I remember the streetlight rule too!
...and if things went badly the parents would just crank out another one ...
1969 baby here. Candy cigarettes and wax candy lips. Parents stayed up late in summer smoking and drinking and playing cards, while all the kids ran wild. Dancing the Bump and the Hustle. If we complained about being bored, Dad made us do pushups. We shoveled snow, scrubbed toilets, stacked firewood, cooked meals, drove several years before getting our licenses. Farm kids-we sometimes drove ourselves to school on tractors for the hell of it, and it was legal at any age. What a world. Checking the mail for a letter from the crush you met at church camp. Climbing trees. Watching soap operas with Grandma because there was only one tv and three channels. Dancing to American Bandstand on Saturday mornings. Sleeping in the unheated upstairs bedrooms while the adults got the comfy spots downstairs because we were kids and hadn’t earned the comfort privileges yet. Beautiful, beautiful life.
As farm kids, did you challenge one another to touch the electric fence with a millet stalk? 😂
You said it. It was a wonderful time to grow up!
Omg I can relate 1000%
Awesome… I’m keeping that
I'm a baby boomer but you just described my childhood.😊
Born in '62, so I was a little kid in the '60s, a big kid/teenager in the '70s, and a young man in the '80s. I couldn't have timed it better myself! It was the perfect time to be young!
Yep, right there with you.Nice breakdown.👍
Except for those 14 percent mortgage rates when it came time to buy our first house. The economy was in the toilet. And I remember we could only get gas in the car on certain days based on your license plate number. It took a few hours to get gas.
born 61 here... when I was 7 my uncle told me enjoy being a kid and have fun, you're in the best days of your life... and we sure did. Today, I see kids afraid to go out, faces to video games, and stupid (not smart) phones...we lived life, today they're afraid of it.
It suer was
@@tedebayer1 you are so right, and we are still alive to talk about it even though we damn near killed ourselves!!!
"Don't bleed on the carpet" was literally what Dad would tell me!
I threw up pickled beets on my moms new beige carpet , thought my life was over 😂😂😂
Proud Gen-Xer here that grew up feral and wouldn't want it any other way.
Ditto dat.
FE-RAL! Ate honeysuckle and wild berries for lunch, drank out of the garden hose (with rust on the end), and risked your life on the playground equipment that was over cement/asphalt. As long as you were home before the streetlights came on and didn't embarrass your unconcerned parents out in public, we were left to our own devices. FE-RAL!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You young whipper snapper. I used to tease my friend who was born just about a month after me. I was a different generation lol. I was born in December and she was born in January. The end 1964 is when it changed.
hell yeah, me as well!
Talk to any Silent Gen. Ask them what they got up to while their parents were distracted by WWII. We are feral-lite compared to them.
Gen X, the best generation EVA!!!!!! Child of the 70's, Teens in the 80's, and in my 20's in the 90's, but forgotten in the 2000's and beyond....and I don't GAF!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Gen X is the best generation ever! We get shit done and no B.S. We remember the world before the internet & smartphones. We got stuck between the baby Boomers & millennials & that has only made us stronger!😂
I’m only now beginning to appreciate how great it was. The fashion was crap though.
@@BrakdaytonOh god, remember legwarmers? 😂 And the hair! I spent half the money I got from my afternoon checkout job on hairspray.
What a time to be a teen. I was 10 in 1980 and turned 20 on 1990. Man I got a lot done in that decade, even 2 years in the army. Now I look back the the last 10 years of my life and it is a boring blur.
Well said 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Ma'am, you're dropping nothing but truth bombs. 1970 baby here! I grew up in NYC. I was riding the subway alone starting at age 8. My parents had zero interest in me or my siblings. They never had any idea where I was. They never cared about my grades. They never cared about my school activities or who my friends were. My husband had the same experience and he grew up on the opposite side of the country. Every Gen-Xer I know had the same experience growing up. It sounds horrible when I tell the younger generation about our upbringing but it really was the best of times. This only made us stronger and resilient.
Same rode subway at 10 alone lol
Truth.
As we remember the good old days. I bet you don't raise your kids the same way. . Gen X in some ways invented helicopter parenting.
@@kimgerber7663 My husband and I are definitely not helicopter parents. We actually raised our now adults children the old school way, without the neglect that we both experienced as Gen-X. Rules. Chores. Go play outside . Saying no to them when we needed to. Plus get a part-time job at 16 to pay for your expenses like gas and clothes was expected. In return our children always came home to at least one of us at home. Dinner together most nights. Attending their games. Always knowing where they were at.
EXACTLY TRUE. It's not that our parents didn't care about us or love us. They were just busy, drunk or working.
Our generation had mosh pits, kids today have safe spaces. We are NOT the same!
Literally no kid today has an actual safe space. Sure their circumstances are different. I should hope we improve things for our kids over time and not sum them up with cartoonish stereotypes.
In regards to your 1st sentence, no, not in the world. But these "safe spaces" are ALL OVER college campuses and even high schools. A room where they have stuffed animals to hug and to cry on; crayons to color with; legos to "de-stress", @MadTracker
I was told all about these, 5 or 6 years ago, by one of my colleagues/subordinates. I thought he was joking. Then I SAW 😳 one of these rooms, with my own eyes! 😮
@@MadTrackerexcept they actually do have dedicated "safe spaces" 😂😂😂
@@MadTracker Ah, this one has blinders on...
Absolutely. From Seattle, born 75 the 90s were the best for grunge bands!
"Gen-X ... raised on hose water and neglect". I just saw this on a t-shirt the other day and I was overcome with nostalgia.
hose water connoisseurs, we learned quickly which ones were fine to drink from. just like bubblers, there was always that backwards kid that put their whole mouth on the end of the hose...ugh, they were last - always - cuz if they weren't, you'd prefer to go thirsty.
And don't forget Pride!
What a fantastic T-shirt!
My kids actually told me that they wished they had the same childhood as me, we had 3 blocks of the neighborhood where all of us kids went to the swimming pool every day together and in the evening we played tag, kick the can and red Rover and we had to be in by dark which is about 9pm in the summer and those were fun times, my kids stay in the house all day on their phones but i take them on little trips to amusement parks with their cousins when I can.
Omg yes drinking out of the backyard hose and being out from dawn to dusk
And we’re all still alive and appreciated things in life !!
Well, we aren’t ALL still alive. But for those who are….it was good times with all that freedom.
True story! When I was about 9 years old I was “sword” fighting with a rusted lawn chair leg and filleted my hand wide open. Blood everywhere. Definitely needed stitches. Well we we going down to Myrtle Beach the next day and my mom and dad said I was fine, to suck it up. When we got to the beach my dad threw me in the ocean water and said that the salt water would heal my hand by the time we went home. I still have the biggest scar on my hand at 50 years old. lol
Who else is scrolling the comments to reminisce? What a fun, tough, and wild generation to grow up in!
me too---I feel sorry for today's kids because the vibe back then was so much better.
Me!! I love the comments :)
😂😂 me
😂😂me too.. 😂
@@KarenMorganComedyso true plus our commercial..
Parents do you know where your kids are??
When I claimed I was running away, Dad offered to pack my bags.
I got as far as the backyard with my Little Rascals run-away bag on a stick.
I was way over dramatic in the 70s 😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😅😅😂😂😂😂
I did run away for 6 months then called my mother and said I'm ready to come home...she said we're are you ....and I said another state...she picked me up and she got pulled over for speeding ..cop said why are you speeding..she said I just picked my daughter up and taking her home ...after being gone for 6 months and showed him the FBI run away flyer...he then wrote her a speeding ticket and said slow it down😂😂😂😂😂I survived
Same.😃
Be back in time to help make dinner.
Mother would make us pack our bags, then sit at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be picked up.
My first dirtbike was a Yamaha YZ125. I couldn’t touch the ground, used a hill to start and stop. Dad started it and said tear it up! I will forever respect him for the amount of confidence he had in me RIP Dad.
I used to hare scrammble and hill climb my cr125..Holy smokes did I have endurance.
l😅😅😅
Remember the public service announcement around 10pm asking you if you knew where your kids were? Thought it was normal, my daughter was absolutely horrified when she hear it saying "What was wrong with you people"😅
When my appendix burst, on the way to the ER, I was told there had better be something wrong with me.
I had a boyfriend who had the same - his boomer parents thought he was faking!
My brother cut off the tip of his middle finger once & my father told me to go look for the piece! He was taking him to the doctor. Smh
😂
Do we have the same parents?
Yes we're triplets... My mom mocked me at thirteen... "I'm dying... I'm dying... Take me to the doctor.... Wah wah wah...". The doctor told my mom, "Why'd you being him here? He needs to be in emergency!" Haha... I still don't let her live it down and once gave her a spanking with wooden spoons to remember haha
We’re the generation that survived Slip-N-Slides!
Don't use dish soap!!
And Jarts.
hahaa but millennials, too!!
Even Gen Alpha has Slip N Slides, but you guys did get to them first
Falling of bikes, skateboards, trees, fences, roofs, hit with darts, golf balls, footballs, baseballs, softballs (which are not soft!), frisbees, crashed a horse once even, hit head on side of pool after not clearing a backflip, sliding down flood control channels, exploring flood drains, trespassing pretty much everywhere. I was definitely the most careful and risk adverse person in the 80s I knew!
Born in 1968. Don't forget that the media industry used child labor. Got my first paper route when I was 9 years old. Made about $1 a day delivering 50 newspapers in my neighborhood. Rain, snow, heat, whatever. And I was glad for that $1 because I didn't have to ask my single mom for money to go to the arcade to play Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Broke my arm in 1st grade on a totally unsafe skateboard. My mom told me to put ice on it. Took me to the doctor three days later. And she was a nurse!
The good old days that we all need to go back to.
i think those days are gone forever, unfortunately.
Hahaha how many of us were left alone at home, and when our parent left, the only instructions were, don't answer the phone, don't go outside and don't burn down the house 😂😂😂
I remember being left alone at home at night when I was about 5 or 6 years old, with my 7 or 8 year old brother. We crank called every phone number we could come up with then put ourselves to bed. My mom wasn’t too far away: just down the street and around the corner at our friends’ place. No one cared and no one called child services. We were just fine cause we had common sense. 😊
ROFL
I spent most of that time trying to prevent my little brothers from burning down the house or hurting themselves. Smh. But we’re all still here, right? Those were some really interesting times. Nothing like today.
Latch key kids
Geeze ! And I thought I was neglected.
Now I'm finding out I'm normal.
The "shut up or I'll give you something to cry about" generation. Those were the best days of our lives, and now we're on the downhill side picking up speed.
“You’re going to enjoy this as a family wether you like it or not”
Or "Boys, don't let me get up from this chair'"
Dad would take off his black leather belt known as black beauty and snap it together,it worked for a little while anyways😂
@@Toni-zp1cs "Keep it up and you'll talk to Mister 5."
And remember the classic "Don't make me pull this car over!? "LOL!
1970's was the best decade ever. What an era to be brought up in. We actually listened to am/radio and loved it. Bell bottoms, butterfly collars, and wallaby shoes. The best time to be alive!!! 😊✌🏻
Growing up in the 70s was the best!!!! The times were great, and so was the music!!!👍
Anyone remember “Click-Clacks”? Two hard plastic balls on a double string with a loop you held, and you had to make them hit together up and down. Fast. I can’t believe we never knocked our eyes out with them
Oh, I remember those!
And when they broke it like a piece of volcanic glass.
probably an illegal weapon now, i assume. gawd, I loved those things 😊
HAHAHAHAHAH….death on two strings….MAN! Those were the days huh?
@@arogue1519 absolutely! Good description!
Born in 1960. Spent most of my time alone or with friends running the woods and rivers. Snow skiing, skating and biking with no helmet or pads. Swimming in rivers and lakes with no floats. Riding in the back of the pick-up truck. Climbing trees as high as we could. The whole world's gone soft.
Riding in the back of pickups, climbing trees, rode bikes everyday but we had no helmets. I remember people Rebelling because they were making seat belt laws.
Soft is not the first word I would choose but I pretty much grew up the same way.
right there with ya. at age 4, my charming, social butterfly little brother would head out in the morning and spend all day... somewhere... till dinnertime. unless he already ate dinner, in which case when the streetlights came on.
oh, it's not as 'child neglect' as it sounds, youngsters! back then, there was a mom in every house in the neighborhood, casting an eagle eye on every kid in the neighborhood. the worst thing that ever happened to a kid in our neighborhood was getting smacked by their own parent for mischief another parent told on them for.
6-26. The best year to be born!
Hahaha, seat belts. We were in the back of an open pickup truck. We weren't even inside the vehicle. Nothing like a good pot hole to nearly bounce someone out.
We had a huge maple tree perfectly branched for climbing. I climbed to the very top. Got a little windy. I was afraid to come down. Not sure how dad had the courage to get as high as he did on little bitty branches to talk me down. Life was so much fun.😊😊😊
As a Gen-Xer kid who jump ramps with a bike and crashed without a helmet, had kite fights at close range with razor blades attached to them, had dirt-bomb fights which was basically hard clay which exploded on impact to the body, head included, got on a roof in the rain to adjust the antennae, went fishing and swam in ponds surrounded by poisonous snakes....I died many times. And each time my parents brought me back to cut the lawn grass with a push mower under a hot and humid Sun. Earning a dollar for the labor, we rode our bikes for miles to go to an arcade that had seven machines, which we mastered because we only had several quarters. On our way back, we would stop at a stranger's house to get permission to drink from the water hose because we had miles to go. Sometimes we would stop to see the Sun setting behind us. We were bruised, hungry, cut up, adaptable, tough...we were and still are Generation X.
"I don't want to do that."
"You don't have to WANT to do it. You just have to do it."
Yes, I drank water from a green garden hose, and I waited for it to cool down, too. Still here.
It’s a miracle!!
And it tasted real good!!! 😂
I got giardia from drinking outta the hose. You know who cared? Nobody.
you would burn your lips on the hot metal screw
We had a nice lady in our neighborhood who put out a metal community cup on her spigot. The school was next door so we’d play there and grab a lukewarm drink of water and share germs with everyone when it got hot. Good times.
I learned to never say "I'm bored!" Cause they would give you something to do, usually cleaning something.
Yes. My husband I were just discussing that. If you ever dared to say, "I'm bored," then you were in for a full weekend of chores. "Oh you're bored. Well, the garage needs to be cleaned out..." Oooof.
🤣🤣🤣 yep!
Soooo true, we read a lot of books and were forced to clean our rooms 😂
Yeah... Like....
"Go read the encyclopedia !"
I don't ever remember being bored as a kid. If anything there wasn't enough time in the day to get it all done. Once we dug out a tunnel fort, timber reenforced of course. I'm talking underground maze of tunnels and rooms over built over one summer. It took us weeks of digging, and building. All from scrap wood we scavenged from the woods. Our plan was to live there. Some proto-Karen reported it and the authorities decided it wasn't "safe" for a bunch of 12 year old kids to be building an underground fortress where we might one day launch our attack from. So they decided to destroy it. But it was so large and so deep they had to bring out heavy earth moving equipment to destroy it. ...we were pissed.
Dirt bikes and 22s were part of my middle school years. We looked like some sort Jr Mad Max gang heading out to the woods to raid it for scraps of porn magazines and other useful items.
That's right, we didn't have internet porn. We had to scavenge that too. Strangely you could find little pieces of weathered and torn up scraps of Playboy magazine in the woods, that some other unknown kids had probably liberated from their fathers collection. It all ended up in the woods, like mana from perdition.
But it was never complete porn. You might get a boob, half a butt, or strike gold and get some bush. Then you'd have to use your imagination to fill in the blanks. We launched rockers, flew gas powered model airplanes on a string, made explosives, and different pyrotechnics. It was crazy fun.
One winter we went down a snowy road in laundry baskets.
Our parents certainly cared about that... We broke the baskets.
We went down the steps in laundry baskets as our parents watched TV.
We used to get high and tie the toboggan up behind my friend's horse. It was a blast!
Zero parental supervision.
And a savory treat was that water from the garden hose when you’re outside all day. No smart phones, no internet, no social media. Just outside and actually using our imagination when playing with GI Joe or Evil Kanevil motorcycle.
The excitement of waiting for those photographs to get developed so you can see what it looked like. Saturday morning cartoons, Atari 2600, and playing with He-Man action figures.
Being born in GENERATION X, I remember...
- It took time to write a letter and excitedly check the mailbox every afternoon for a week for a reply.
- Playing with other kids outside who we didn't know.
- Sending text messages to friends in class written on a tiny piece of paper and passed down the line by classmates.
- Making personalised mix-tapes by recording songs off the radio as gifts for our friend's birthdays.
- When drinking beer dregs with cigarette butts in them after a party didn't send us to the emergency room.
- Peanuts were a snack, not a death sentence.
- The only “safe space” we knew was a bomb shelter.
- Rewinding the mix-tapes on the end of a pencil to save battery power on our Walkman.
- Watching Greatest American Hero every week to find out if he will ever learn to land.
- Working summer jobs to earn money to buy what we wanted.
- Asking a person out on a date in person.
- Having to line up against the wall with our siblings so our mother could snap the last two photos so she can develop the roll of film.
- Waiting until the next day for the roll of film to be developed.
- Fast food was a treat, not a lifestyle.
- A bag of chips was full.
- Board games were fun.
- Dial the radio station on a rotary phone to be the first caller with the correct answer to win pizza.
- There was no redial on a rotary phone.
- When left at home alone, parents would call home on the landline, hang up after two rings, then call again as a code to answer the phone.
- Things would be repaired, not replaced.
- A hiding was warranted for misbehaviour.
- Kids learning basic survival skills.
- Boy Scouts was a thing to envy.
- Chores around the house was a requirement for living under your parent's roof.
- Farting on your sibling's head was funny, not assault.
- Parents telling kids to "Go play on the road" wasn't deemed as parental negligence.
- Falling off the jungle gym was usually our own fault, not the fault of the manufacturer.
- Music was music.
- Getting a Penthouse magazine created instant friends.
- "Snake" was the best video game ever!
- "Aqua Rings" kept us entertained for hours.
- Rolling down the car window was air conditioning.
- The three things in a First-Aid kit were Band-aids, Mercurochrome, and Dettol.
- Finding a book at a library to study was like searching for lost treasure.
- Being on a phone call and stretching to reach for something but can't quite get it because the phone's curly cord wasn't quite long enough.
- Bad actions had consequences.
- Losing a competition meant no medal.
- Constantly calling the video store to find out whether anyone has returned a copy of the latest release of the film that was completely rented out.
- Browsing at the video store.
- A dollar bought a full bag of candy.
- The family ate dinner together in the same room.
- Slamming down the phone was the most satisfying way to end an argument.
- "Trick-or-Treating" with no fear.
- MTV had music.
The best time to grow up.
-Telling someone you liked something they did instead using an emoji
👍btw
lol, my first aid kit still only contains band aids, paracetamol and dettol!
Well done.
Great list.
I played with lawn darts.
Jarts!
And they were awesome! Getting rid of stuff like that just feeds into the pussification of America!
I still have them!
lawn darts were the BEST!! AKA JARTS. lol
@@debiboyd364 mine are long gone. Likely 20 years and 15 garage sales ago. My mom definitely did not hang onto that stuff, and if she did, my son would have found them when he was a kid. Between my siblings kids and mine, not too much of our youth survived. Though, like I said, some our kids have some of it.
Gen-X here: Never had time for homework, felt ashamed when caught by teacher, promised myself to start doing homework. When the last bell rang, everything was forgotten, and freedom until dark left no time for homework. Had nightmares until my mid-50s about being late for school and not being able to "find my class" when I was late.
If the 70's weren't dangerous enough as a kid, they invented lawn darts.
😆😅🤣
I still have a set in my garage and introduced my kids to them!!! Seriously my kids said and I quote "really we can throw these things". LOL
I was born in 1972 and grew up as a feral child in a semi-rural town in southern Illinois. We were allowed to run free with no way to contact our parents. Just me, my bike, and some loose change in my pocket in case I found a vending machine somewhere The number of situations I found myself in - and never told my parents about - would have sent them to an early grave.
I was one of those parents and just now finding out alot of stuff
I remember coming home after school every day for 3 hours I was the only one there. You'd be called a latchkey kid nowadays. Don't even get me started on lawn Jarts.
72 model here, rode bikes everywhere, through drains you name it. Played in cubby houses, girls and boys played you show me yours I'll show you mine. Smoked cigarettes we found lying around. Lot's of fun, harmless exploring and only went home when it got dark.
All the kids everywhere walking around with a cast or splint on some body part and proud of it. Hard whíte casts on their arm, wrist or leg that everyone signed. Arms in a sling, broken fingers in splints😂😂. You see no kids in casts now ever. It’s pretty hard to break your leg on your smartphone all day. And if you saw half the kids in school in a cast now, you’d be sure there was a child abuse epidemic. 😂😂
Trips to the hospital/ER...
...those were the days
I’m still trying to figure out where all the child kìdnappers and ne’er-do-wellers were. There were AMPLE opportunities then but it didn’t happen much. What a time to be free
I wouldn't change any of this for a minute. Kids today don't know what they have missed. Having your own cell phone is not the answer.
frfr...U AINT LYIN'
💯💯💯💯💯💯
I hate cell phones and I still carry my old flip phone. Once I retire that son of a bitch is going into the garbage can. Still have my computer though ;)
@@troynov1965 fact!
@@cAlmliKeAboMb2023 I remember in the early mid 70s we lived out in a real rural area. My father was working on a ranch. We still had a party line lol.
@@cAlmliKeAboMb2023 FACT !!! 💯🎯👍
I'm a latch-key kid here and Gen-X. And boy do I remember those hard rubber balls at school.
I am a Gen Xer and proud of it! Loved growing up in the 70's and 80's had a blast! Miss it!
1975 here, Poland. When I was 9 years old, I walked 5 km to school through a secret hole in the fence through a Russian military base. When a large road was being built near my city near the lake, I built a raft from construction boards and sailed out on it, and 100 meters from the shore it fell apart. But I was already a great swimmer then. I made fireworks from scratch when I was 12. Today, my parents would probably go to prison for what I did and not taking care of me. I had a wonderful, adventurous childhood and today I am happy and I don't know what stress is.
That is hardcore..Poland was part of the Soviet empire then!
@@wendyflatt39 sort of, but we never gave up, not even the kids. And my parents taught me real history
Clearly ur a Genius.. esp with the firecracker .. 🤩
Okay, you WIN! Most neglected (and happy) childhood certificate of completion.
Wow! That's badass!! Also, love that your username has Makowiec in it!! My family is American, but we have kept the tradition of making Makowiec for Easter and Christmas every year for over 100 years. It has a special place in my heart 🥰
You haven't seen pain until you have experienced MERCURACHROME.
When mom got that out u knew u fed up bad. That was only when the insides were showing. But u never had an infection after that.
😂 lol.I had forgotten about that mercurochrome..
Ahh, that takes me back! 😃
Ha Ha! With the light saber applicator! That stuff was painful but magic. I miss it.
I loved the way it smelled though. And the pain told you it was working! 😆
This is gold. Laughed my ass off while feeling nostalgic the whole time.
As a kid, I can't count how many times my brother and I knocked our breath out climbing trees and falling , then climbing back up the tree. We didn't tell our parents, we didn't CRY, they thought it was fine anyway.
That woman on Romper Room never said my name either! I'm 52 and still pissed.
Me neither
I didnt like that show after Kaptain Kangaroo went off and Romper Room came on i was ready to go find something else to do.
Never heard my name either!
Omg my father ran a TV station. He'd pull me out of school to be ON romper roo.
lol
Our parents were helicopter parents. They flew us in dropped us off and flew away. Kinda like Special Forces team in the jungle
lol
That's a great analogy. We are the true survivors.
@stvargas69 Yeeessss!!!! 😂❤❤❤
Ha! Yes!
Nailed it 😂
I remember my mom yelling my name every evening telling me suppers ready. I sure miss those days and my family.
Like the Prince spaghetti commercial: "Anthony!!!" 😂
My dad would so a fog horn so the whole neighborhood would her it. We went running!
"ITS 10PM,DO YOU KNOW WERE YOUR KIDS ARE??"
LOL man I remember pounding each other with dodge balls. The teachers didnt care they were out in the smoking area tending to their hangovers. Class of 84
On certain days I can still smell that rubber ball.
I can still hear the sounds they made when they hit someone.
😂😂❤ All this!
I have dodge ball PTSD.
Where I grew up (70s central Illinois), _dodgeball_ was the game where kids lined up along the wall while another kid threw the ball at them. _Bombardment_ was played with two teams throwing the balls at each other.
But then we also called Duck, Duck, Goose . . . Duck, Duck, _Grey Duck._
In truth, we were as feral as children could be without someone going to jail because of it.
Feral is a good way to put it. I allowed my kids to be a bit feral too and they turned out fine.
@@DAJ2000 I truly believe that being too sheltered can be just as detrimental to development as allowing a kid to run completely wild. Other end of the scale, to be sure, but a life devoid of living is not a book that anyone would want to read.
isnt that the truth. We neighborhood kids called it "Exploring", and had places already named like "the hills of America". ps your comment brings back a whole lotta good memories.
@@GizziiusaWe called it going on an adventure, but it was the same thing. Great for bonding with friends.
@@Gizziiusa Me, Beeve, and Wally, called it, "Going out to mess around". Maybe there'd be some drying cement we could write our names into, or a dog fight, or a staggering drunk, or some bottles we could break, or an abandoned car we could vandalize, or some nut job pulling out his wang.
My car seat was the city phone book with no seat belt. The simple times 😅
I was born in the late 70s in Southern California. The one thing I remember like it was yesterday was if there was no school you won’t be aloud to be inside the house…unless it was to clean or something like that. Going out in your neighborhood to make friends was essential. We moved around a lot as kids so I had to constantly make new friends. Thirsty while out there in the wild? Drink from a hose of course! I’m certain that kids don’t grow up like that anymore. Also essential things were skateboards, bicycles, or scooters. You don’t want to be the kid having to walk when everyone else had wheels.
Who remembers "Clackers"? That defines 70's kids. You could be playing alone with them and knock yourself out!
Yes!!
But I could never do them in a complete circle😅
My husband still has his from back in the day👍😄😄💫✌️
CLACKERS!!! Haven't thought about those in decades! They were popular after marbles but before cabbage patch dolls & cabbage pail kids!
I have purple clackers.
It required strength, rhythm, and bravery to kick em into high gear.
Mine were lime green and I beat the @#$& out of my own self daily trying to master it 😂😂
Remember buying Levi jeans & they were so dark & thick, took 3 years to break them in. Then cut them off for shorts.
Pinched the back of your knee when you sat down, too
Born in 1962, grew up in the 70's............what a magical time to be a kid, and especially a teenager !
If we weren't in the yard when the streetlights came on, the wooden spoon would be the greeting.
Yes,the Wooden spoon was always hanging on Grandma's wall ,
She would always let us know that it was there!
Sometimes it did come off the wall!
That meant business!!!!
The wooden spoon!! Can you imagine that today? My parents would have been jailed 😂
Gen X is okay being forgotten. Happened all the time growing up and that made us tough and resilient.
That’s true! We were latch key kids. Sent ourselves to school. Played outside past dawn. No one cared for us then and they don’t now!
We did thead the fine line.
The ones that are alive.
No way Gen X should be patting themselves on the shoulder too much. After all, Gen Z is YOUR KIDS, Xers!
@@christopherwarren4293 what's wrong with Gen Z?
Who put cards in their bike’s wheel spokes with laundry pins 😎
And now we cry, thinking what those cards would be worth now! First year GenX, so all my cards were from the '70s.
Momma with 3 boys here and I taught every single one of them that trick. I gave my boys a taste of my childhood every chance I could. They loved it. 😊
Remember Spokies? Beads for the spokes?
I never had any but some kids did and they looked and sounded awesome
We would have 3 or 4 of us on either side of the street, and the bike rider had to zoom by. . . We all had Frisbee's.. . . . .Ricky took one in the front spokes. . . Needless to say he went head over the Handel bars.. . Cried for a bit , didn't break anything. . . Scraped up, see in school on Monday.
Everyone :)
Free Range kids! I was one too...
No curfew, no bike helmets, baby oil laying out at the beach all summer!
Great times❤
I know 4 women born in 1971. They always leave me in awe of their street smarts, book smarts, quick thinking, business acumen and multitasking abilities.
an we dont have premium youtube cause we're 70s kids , adverts dont bother us😂😂😂😂
Oh crap you’re right !! Keep trying CZcams marketing !!!
*sticks out tongue *
good one
What? Ads piss me off to no end. AdBlock is a necessity.
Speak 4 yerself 😊
TRUTH!!!
I’m sick of you kids being underfoot - get outside and don’t come back until dinner time!
Yep, that was the norm.
Children were to be seen & not heard
or when the street lights came on.
....but it's rainin' and hailin' ma! Tiny rock hail. Quit you're complainin' and git. 🎉
And locked the door, had to knock to get a drink of water, playing all day in 100 degree heat..then it was there's a water hose outside 😂hot water coming out of the hose and tasted like rubber 😅those were the days..born in 66
My parent's said this, "don't burn the house down!" Then out the door they went, we were our own babysitter. No blood, no pain was my father mantra. Coddling? Not a chance, suck it up buttercup, nobody cared.🤕😂🤗
I am gen x, 1971. I haven't thought about those things in decades. You are hilariously accurate!!
“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”
*..said by every parent at least once.*
Let's not forget "Children should be seen and not heard". We learned to push our emotions, feelings, and comments way down.
Heard that phrase I don't know how many times. Or even better: 'fine, the more you cry the less you'll pee"😂
“ I’ll turn this car around right now “
I heard "because I said so" a lot.
The street lights were our universal sign that when they turned on at night, it was time to go home.
Hell no. We stayed out collecting all the traffic cones and making road blocks in our friends streets
Living in the country, no streetlights, we just went home when it got dark.
Absolutely. Indeed, if we were inside we'd be told go out and play. Except the bookworms and budding musicians!
You had streetlights?😂
@@hoonaticbloggs5402 🤣😂🤣😂
Proud to be a part of Gen X!!!! Wish I could go back in time to it. Would stay there forever.
We made a zipline in the woods with a rope, a pulley, and a chain swing from a swingset between two trees on a steep slope. After crashing into the downhill tree a couple of times, we "borrowed" a garden hose and tied it to the uphill tree and the pulley... Just enough stretch to slow down enough to dive off before the tree. Good times!
Gen X here ......we got the last of the good old days .....mom n pop shops , businesses closed on sunday / holidays, community closeness ......sure miss it all !!!
so do I. Those really were the good days
Absolutely
Blue book laws, open houses
Yep. Days when there was actually nothing to do!
most stores were closed on Sundays
Everyone forgets Gen X. But we like it that way.
Yep, leave us alone!
yep (check out the first part of the video) we are the secret dive bar that only the locals no about
That's right? To be forgotten is also to be safe from peering eyes.
We do our own thing.
I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time! All of this was spot on with my childhood 😂 still here at 67. lol. Rock on ✌️
Remember riding a “Big Wheel”? There was this lever on the right or left side you would pull on to make it stop or spin depending on how fast we would go. I also remember the “Hoppity Hop” big rubber balls we would sit on and bounce as we held on tight? I often played with a kaleidoscope, played with metal Jacks, and I also had Mexican jumping beans!!! (Just to name a few)
Those were the fancy big wheels, the originals had no hand brake on the side, I was jealous and it still hurts!
Playground injuries were badges of honor.
Grated kneecaps and ankles anyone?
10- 4 and bare feet all summer.
I describe it as a time before the word "parent" became a verb.
i bet lots of younger people wouldnt even get the joke.
...because they don't know the difference between a noun and a verb@@ice-iu3vv?
@@orphafrank1024right. and, if you had them pick apart the phrase "my parents have parenting skills", or "my parent really knows how to parent", i dont think most younger folks would even know where to begin, or what exactly is being discussed.
😂
😂😂🤣🎯✨
1963 kid here. 70's teenager. Looking back I wouldn't change a thing. I'd love to put a kid today in Sherman and Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and watch him try to function. Would be VERY entertaining.
We had nothing handed to us, and in fact, were constantly dodging being debased by elders.
Our grade school playground and monkey bars were on CONCRETE!! It was great !
Inremember fall off those and having a goose egg so big i looked like Wiley coyote and the play ground "mom" told me to put snow on it and id be fine
I remember doing sport's day on concrete.
Yes, back then when broken arms were considered a normal part of childhood. I was a parent in the 80's and I was so proud that none of my kids ever broke anything.
My elementary school was coddling us when they gave us bare dirt with a light scattering of gravel for the monkey bars, swings and seesaws. The basketball area was asphalt, though- blacktop, as we called it then.
Asphalt, but otherwise same
Adults smoking in the car with the windows rolled up🚬😤 Yup🤪
40 years later as my mother suffered with COPD she realized how terrible that was and apologized for that.
I was a virtual chain smoker as a kid.
i thought that was just my mom!
That's exactly what turned me into a non-smoker. On longer rides, my sister and I always got so sick we had to puke.
You could smoke just about anywhere back in the day. Even hospitals, the only place in the hospitals you we're allowed to smoke was the ICU and anyone with an oxygen tank. Parents would smoke in front of babies and children. Cigarettes were 40 cents a pack back then. They would hand out cigars when baby was born.
This was an unexpected heartwarming thing to come across as a gen X myself.
Babysitting & housekeeping at age 9 to buy my own school clothes if I wanted any.
Outside dawn to dusk.
Missed 1 day of school weekly.
Rode without seat belts & in back of pickup truck.
A moment of silence for the dozens of kids who didn’t make it through the self raising experience 🙈🙈
True! True! True! When I was seven years old, I told my mum "we need to go to the hospital. My leg is broken." She told me it wasn't because I'd be crying if it was broken. So I cried. And that didn't help because she said I was only crying because she said I'd be crying. Blah, blah, blah .... and It took me three days to convince a grown up to take me to the hospital, where a doctor looked at my leg with his eyes and said it wasn't broken and he wasn't going to waste x-rays. My friend's mother insisted so they could prove to me I was wrong and I would shut up about it! So, anyway, ..... my leg was broken
That is child neglect!
@@samanthab1923 Or also known as Gen X upbringing...
Yeah, same reason I walked around with a broken wrist for a week...
Similar thing happened to me. Broke & dislocated my ankle, torn ligaments as well. Lay on the the couch for 3 days crying in pain. Called a sook (Aussie for cry baby) before mum relented and took to me to see the orthopedic surgeon, he took one look at my ankle and said "Yep, that's a plaster job."
Yikes!
I remember riding 50 miles in the back of a El Camino, along with 6 other siblings to watch a Friday night football game 😂😂😂 no seatbelts, nothing just huddling to stay warm. It rained on the way back home 😂😂😂😂...good times!!🤘🏾
The same. We would ride in the back of the truck. It wasn’t until the early 90s that the parents started becoming more aware that this was probably not a good idea. I think it was all the seatbelt ad campaigns they ran on tv.