Has the world changed since you were a kid, or is it just more of the same?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Well, if your happy being in the Senior's Forum, you've got a few decades under your belt. Considering how the world was when you were a kid, do you think the world has changed, or really more of the same-only with better technology? Bear in mind that we all think our childhoods were all warm and fuzzy., but there were people fighting and dying all over the world.
 

Oh my yes the world has changed! IMHO the only things better today are dentistry and some medical procedures.

That of course is not true as many racial issues are much better today for example but on the larger scale most things are worse now than they were in the 50's.
 

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The world has definitely changed.

  • Weekends actually stood for something when I was growing up as a young child. Weekends meant family time, neighbourhood time (get-togethers, barbecues, parties).
  • Sundays were a day of rest, nothing was open. Gosh, what I'd give to go back to those days.
  • People were more friendly, more open to helping others and one another.
  • Kids were allowed to be kids. We ran, we roamed, we explored, we lived, I mean we truly lived.
  • There was less pollution... less waste.
  • People possessed better morals and standards.
  • People had nothing to prove. Today, YouTube (in addition to other sites) is the magnet that attracts some of the highest levels of stupidity I have ever seen, and all for attention, nothing more.
  • When I was a young child, worldly travel was (for the most part) safe. Well, news flash, not anymore.
  • Back in the day people worked to live... today people live to work.
  • Back in the day family-time actually stood for something. For instance, families gathered around the table for meals.
  • Back in the day people were real, today, people have fake butts, fake boobs, fake this, fake that. What a put-on this world is, and how shallow and small-minded it's become.
  • Yesteryear, people lived within their means, today, it's all about greed and materialism. Bigger and better and more, more, more... and at any cost... beg, steal, or borrow, whatever it takes to call out to the world, look at me!
  • Today, it's as if people today have turned into children, so many looking for attention.
 
Aunt Marg said:
The world has definitely changed.

  • Weekends actually stood for something when I was growing up as a young child. Weekends meant family time, neighbourhood time (get-togethers, barbecues, parties).
  • Sundays were a day of rest, nothing was open. Gosh, what I'd give to go back to those days.
  • People were more friendly, more open to helping others and one another.
  • Kids were allowed to be kids. We ran, we roamed, we explored, we lived, I mean we truly lived.
  • There was less pollution... less waste.
  • People possessed better morals and standards.
  • People had nothing to prove. Today, YouTube (in addition to other sites) is the magnet that attracts some of the highest levels of stupidity I have ever seen, and all for attention, nothing more.
  • When I was a young child, worldly travel was (for the most part) safe. Well, news flash, not anymore.
  • Back in the day people worked to live... today people live to work.
  • Back in the day family-time actually stood for something. For instance, families gathered around the table for meals.
  • Back in the day people were real, today, people have fake butts, fake boobs, fake this, fake that. What a put-on this world is, and how shallow and small-minded it's become.
  • Yesteryear, people lived within their means, today, it's all about greed and materialism. Bigger and better and more, more, more... and at any cost... beg, steal, or borrow, whatever it takes to call out to the world, look at me!
  • Today, it's as if people today have turned into children, so many looking for attention.
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Wow Marg, You really gave a lot of thought to this! Life was so sweet and simple then, wasn't it?

While technology soars, religions have lost the spiritual and are devoid of fulfillment. Without a spiritual rejuvination for mankind, systematic knowledge has no base. The life of mankind suffers and the eternal freedom in the fullness of all values in all existence is diminished.
Religions and one's moral code and belief systems are now like a corpse of a man without a man. Multiply this and you'll see the deplorable state of mankind.

We had freedom of speech or action. Communist China was not at war with us. The Constitution and Bill of Rights stood tall!
 
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I think we lived in a safer world where we could roam and explore, but it wasn't warm and furry. I've got too many bad memories from those days and they shaped the person I am now.
I hated being dragged to church and soon rejected religion. One of the great improvements of today's world is that we're much more secular and the realise that we have to solve problems ourselves.

Yes, things have changed massively, but it's going to happen whether we like it or not, so we have to make the best of it.
 
Gaer said:
Wow Marg, You really gave a lot of thought to this! Life was so sweet and simple then, wasn't it?

While technology soars, religions have lost the spiritual and are devoid of fulfillment. Without a spiritual rejuvination for mankind, systematic knowledge has no base. The life of mankind suffers and the eternal freedom in the fullness of all values in all existence is diminished.
Religions and one's moral code and belief systems are now like a corpse of a man without a man. Multiply this and you'll see the deplorable state of mankind.

We had freedom of speech or action. Communist China was not at war with us. The Constitution and Bill of Rights stood tall!
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Believe it or not, Gaer, I spit that list out as fast as I could type.

So fresh in my mind the past is. :)
 
The world hasn't changed. We still have conflicts. What has changed is what they are about. The climate has changed. People are the same only there are more of them and they argue about new stuff.
 
I don't think that the world has changed but technology has made it seem like a much smaller and scarier place to be than it was when I was a kid.

families-helicopter_parents-helicopter_parenting-overprotective_parent-baby_monitor-family_life-mcan1898_low.jpg
 
Feels pretty much the same to me: everybody around me (including my huzz) trying to keep up with the Joneses (remember that old saying?), trying to be one of the "haves" and not the "have nots", worrying about money and appearances; it wore me out back then and *really* does now.
 
officerripley said:
Feels pretty much the same to me: everybody around me (including my huzz) trying to keep up with the Joneses (remember that old saying?), trying to be one of the "haves" and not the "have nots", worrying about money and appearances; it wore me out back then and *really* does now.
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I never try and keep up with the joneses.. everyone tries to keep up with me, and my last name isn't even Jones...:ROFLMAO:
 
"Has the world changed" is too general to answer. Of course, technology has changed, a lot. It's changed the way most people live their lives.

But human nature remains the same. It was never warm and fuzzy. Anyone who remembers their childhood that way is probably thinking about their happy childhood, being loved and protected. (Not that everyone had that, either.) But the warm and fuzzy feelings came from their personal experiences in their little corner of the world. It doesn't mean the world as a whole was any better.

Just a look at the newspaper headlines of our childhood days should be enough to convince us. In my own childhood (which was personally a happy one), the world was experiencing the Holocaust, WW2, lynchings, zero civil rights in this country for anyone other than White males, kidnappings, sex slavery, horrendous punishments for kids, polio and other horrible diseases that are gone now, and a recent Depression that ruined millions of lives and brought many people to the brink of starvation.

IMO, anyone who thinks everything was hunky-dory back in the days when they were children is looking through rose-colored glasses. Maybe I'm a pollyanna, but I think that in general, "the world" has slightly improved. It's two steps forward, one step back.
 
One thing that is better in today's world is that abuses that were once dark, hidden secrets, are now brought into the light of day. Think of all those decades or possibly centuries that priests had their way with young boys while preaching against such things on Sundays, or child abuse in homes that, from the outside, looked like your average suburban family.

So, while it is an easy target to point out those things that we old farts feel have changed for the worse (and I agree with many of these), there are some things that are definitely better.

Tony
 
How the world (and people) have changed today, as compared to what I remember when I was young and growing...

  • People have truly lost their way today, with many having become almost stooge-like, and you don't have to look long and hard to find them. Before Covid hit, you just had to sit yourself down in any restaurant and watch the show. Groups of people... entire family units being seated, and not a word spoken between any of them, because why? Because they all have their noses glued in their electronic devices, lost in their own small-minded little dream worlds.
  • The new-wave of today... dig yourself in as deep as you can into debt, because the more toys you have, and the fancier auto and home you have, the cooler you are. You groovin' when you're one paycheck away from the soup-line.
  • Going back to those who have their noses glued in the electronic devices. When I was a kid, people watched and waited for street lights to guide them, nowadays, we have droves of dummies that are so wrapped up in the personal electronic devices they have glued to the tips of their noses, they're falling into construction holes at work sites, getting hit by cars, walking into people, and the list goes on, and why is this happening? Because todays generation has allowed their electronic devices to run, dictate, and mold and shape their lives into something that their lives are not.
  • Then there's the wives and mothers who call my husbands office from day-to-day, crying, complaining, and telling of how hard life is, how they're having a hard time controlling little Johnny, and how little Janie, is misbehaving, and then comes the question... what's for supper tonight, because the woman of the house can't pull herself, her kids, or the house together long enough to figure it out.
  • Marriages and relationships folding and crumbling at a staggering rate. Why? Because work takes precedence today, and why does work take precedence today? Because people are in deep debt, and why are people in deep debt? Because people today live WAY beyond their means. Then there are those who enter marriage with the idea or prospect that their life will be graced with grandeur, full of worldly travel, unlimited bundles of cash, nannies to take care of their children while they're out parading and gallivanting around and shopping each day, new vehicles every other month when the carpeted floor mats become soiled, along with mansions and castles, and whatever other tainted dreams and visions their personal electronic devices have twisted their minds into believing.
  • Let it ALL HANG OUT seems to be the way of the day today, and to really get yourself noticed, spend THOUSANDS on plastering yourself with tattoos from head to toe so you look like some freak, because that's cool. LOOK AT ME EVERYBODY!
  • Don't pull yourself together when leaving the home, just go as you are, unshaven (is there anything more slob-like in appearance?)... hair looking like a birds-nest, sweat pants that look as though they haven't been washed in days, maybe even weeks, butts sticking out, yoga pants up your wahoo, boobs hanging out, I mean really... show some class.
  • "Yo", "hey", "ugh", "grunt", seems to be all that many of todays generation knows as far as addressing people goes. Actual names of others, well that seems to either A, escape todays generation, or B, today's generation failed to be raised with proper morals and standards in that department, or C, referring to others by name is un-cool, or D, all the above.
  • Don't hold a door open for someone, and by all means DO NOT say please or thank you for anything, because that's just uncivilized.
  • Don't like someone or something, pull your gun or knife out, yeah, that'll solve the problem.
  • Everything nowadays is disposable, human life included.
  • Pollution at an all-time high.
  • Our food filled with more chemicals and garbage than ever before.
  • Money doesn't go anywhere near as far today as it once used to. The buying power of the working class has greatly diminished.
  • Middle class has all but evaporated.

Typically, I wouldn't be quite so pointed in my observation and opinion related to today, but seeing how common courtesy along with proper morals and standards seems to have gone by wayside nowadays, I don't feel one iota of guilt slamming this topic with this entry.

As for war crimes, horrendous punishments of children, rapes, murders, kidnappings, illness, diseases, economies that fall flat, all the above has always existed, and all the above will continue to exist.

IMO all the above has only worsened with our now almost 8 Billion people on the face of this planet, and not about to get better anytime soon.

Speaking of children, given the choice between sending my little ones out the door to attend elementary school on their own, all by themselves, give me back the 1970's to do that, because I wouldn't dream of even thinking of doing such in today's upside-down day and age.
 
This question is interesting because most of you on here are American, just a few are British, so life for you might not have changed as much as it has for us.
 
Sunny said:
"Has the world changed" is too general to answer. Of course, technology has changed, a lot. It's changed the way most people live their lives.

But human nature remains the same. It was never warm and fuzzy. Anyone who remembers their childhood that way is probably thinking about their happy childhood, being loved and protected. (Not that everyone had that, either.) But the warm and fuzzy feelings came from their personal experiences in their little corner of the world. It doesn't mean the world as a whole was any better.

Just a look at the newspaper headlines of our childhood days should be enough to convince us. In my own childhood (which was personally a happy one), the world was experiencing the Holocaust, WW2, lynchings, zero civil rights in this country for anyone other than White males, kidnappings, sex slavery, horrendous punishments for kids, polio and other horrible diseases that are gone now, and a recent Depression that ruined millions of lives and brought many people to the brink of starvation.

IMO, anyone who thinks everything was hunky-dory back in the days when they were children is looking through rose-colored glasses. Maybe I'm a pollyanna, but I think that in general, "the world" has slightly improved. It's two steps forward, one step back.
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My theory (not fact) on why our distant past looks so rosy is that we now know what was going to happen - and we survived it. Whatever current time we live in, we don't yet know what is going to happen. I recall in the 1960s how scary it was for adults then, when the country was coming apart with rampant civil disobedience, riots on college campuses, and major cultural upheaval everywhere you turned.

Every generation has had its issues, worries, etc. Yet, every generation, later in life, seems to look back on past times with a fondness and nostalgia - even those who lived through the Depression seem to look back on the good parts in which apparently neighbor helped neighbor, though during those times, people committed suicide, had to move across country to find even menial work, and there was apparently a general harshness to life.

This nostalgia for past times seems to be an aspect of human nature and most of us seem to participate. I am not saying there weren't good times, but instead that we tend to gloss over the bad times when looking back, but when living through those times, they could be mighty stressful too.

Tony
 
Every second is change and those that don't move with the flow will be left behind. Was my childhood warm and fuzzy? - well, yes, at times as I was ignorant of the what was happening all around me. I was brought up to enjoy what was around me and never question much of anything. Technology has advanced so rapidly that there is no point in trying to keep up but this has helped us see how others deal with things and hopwfully we will open our hearts to learn to respect others more.

I have no regrets (well, at least not much) except that I would have paid more attention to the people that crossed my path including family. I strive to do unto others...etc. and try to accept most things as "this is part of life" and hopefully it will get better. Whining about how much has changed since you were young gets old and just makes most people bitter. Change what you can and accept what you can't change. It would be a better place if we were all kinder to each other.
 
One thing which has changed drastically is the way people dress. Everyone used to take much more pride in how they looked. Even during the 60s and 70s, there was a great interest in the new fashions. Now, nearly everyone looks scruffy...and those leggings don't look nice on anyone, even young, slim girls.
 
Rosemarie said:
One thing which has changed drastically is the way people dress. Everyone used to take much more pride in how they looked. Even during the 60s and 70s, there was a great interest in the new fashions. Now, nearly everyone looks scruffy...and those leggings don't look nice on anyone, even young, slim girls.
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Boy, you said it.

I've always gravitated towards those who know how to dress and present themselves.

Our very own, Horseless (and his wife), are fitting examples of an era gone by where people took pride in their appearance and dress, and IMO, it's refreshing to see, especially in todays day and age where unkempt seems to be the new-wave style in which to present oneself.
 

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