What did your parents think would happen (that never did)?

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Fyrefox

Well-known Member
My parents went to the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Some very futuristic ideas were showcased there, including the notion that cars would be automatically pulled along the highways of the future without active driver attention required. What things did your parents think would happen in the future that never did? 🤔

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(The future looks…Fabulous! And we’d be wearing hats, of course…)
 

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One of my earliest memories--I think I was about 5 when it started--was my father tearfully yelling that he just knew that he was going to die painfully of cancer and that we "ungrateful kids" wouldn't take care of him in his old age. He died instead of a heart attack and one (me) of his three kids (along with a little help from one sibling) did take care of him (and which ever woman he was married to at the time) in his old age.

I don't remember ever hearing what my mom thought would happen; from the age of 8, she was mostly gone.
 
debodun said:
I don't remember if my parents ever made any predictions. They were too busy living day to day, although my mom told me once when I was whining about something, "A hundred years from now it won't make any difference."

My maternal grandparents must have gone to the 1939 World's Fair, because I inherited this shaker set:

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I never understand that phrase. Of course it won't make a difference in 100 years because you won't be alive.. but while you're alive it makes a difference..
 
My parents were worried of possible nuclear incident circa 1963. I never heard about it until 1973. I was told that it came close due to something off the borders of the United States.

They felt I'd understand better being a decade older. Freaked me out nonetheless...
 
My parents thought that robots were going to advance far more rapidly than they did, too. Robots were portrayed as part of the “World of Tomorrow” shown at the 1939 NY World’s Fair. Here is “Elektro” from that exhibit. Not exactly C-3PO, was he? And of course, they had him smoking to show how “humanoid” he was!

 
My parents thought that the hippie movement of the 1960’s was the end of civilization as we knew it. I think that they thought that I would become dangerously rebellious, or tainted by the youth movement…a worthless shirker, at the very least!

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Today, hippies are sometimes seen as misguided in some ways but lovable, relics of a more innocent age…peace, bro! ☮️
 
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hollydolly said:
The Atom Bomb would be dropped on us. My mother talked often of it when we were kids.. :oops:
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Do you remember the four minute warning? The four-minute warning was a public alert system conceived by the British Government during the Cold War. The name derived from the approximate length of time from the point at which a Soviet nuclear missile attack against the United Kingdom could be confirmed and the impact of those missiles on their targets. The population was to be notified by means of air raid sirens, television and radio and urged to seek cover immediately.

At school, we had four minute warning practice. We had to sit under our desks. Bomb proof desks, impressed huh!
 
My dad believed I would get married young for some reason and was surprised when I wanted to go to college. And not too happy about it either. :confused:
 

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