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

hollydolly said:
didn't everyone's father ?....lol..my father would stop and pick up a piece of stick just in case it came in handy ...
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I think that came of them living through the depression. My father had cans that saved every little thing out in his workshed just in case he needed it. When I inherited all that I threw away the one that said "used nails".

My parents were afraid the communists would take over.
 
AnneTeak said:
My father saved broken and obsolete items thinking he would use them again. A basement full of useless junk.
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My father would rather glue a cup together than buy a new one. He glues cups and plates back together again and uses them.
He hated throwing anything out. My mom had to sneak stuff out of the house.
For a while I was a bit of a hoarder but when we moved I somehow lost it all. I’ve no longer any real collections of things and im ok with that.
 
It was probably the “Red scare” and Cuban missile thing, but I think my father in particular thought that nuclear war with the Soviets was imminent. He had a bomb shelter of sorts in the basement, complete with numerous gallon jugs of water and canned goods. When the anticipated war came, young me figured we’d play board games in the cellar, perhaps while fighting off mutant insects turned gigantic by all the radiation that would be around. We saw such creatures in B-grade syfy movies that I overdosed on back then… 🙀
 
officerripley said:
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.
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OMG, I'm so sorry. Sounds like my mother. She literally called me to her bed one day. I was probably 9 or 10. She announced she'd be "dead by morning." She was up in a few hours after being tired of lying in bed in the middle of the day and lived to 90. It took me years to realize that was psychological abuse. I'm sorry you experienced it also.
 
My parents, especially mother, probably thought (or at least hoped) I would be a nice ordinary, church going, T total, short haired, well educated guy. Well, she was mostly wrong. I grew up to be a rebellious long haired atheist who liked a pint of ale and smoked a pipe. But I did go to university.
 
My mom had high hopes for me. I was "encouraged" to be the best. School grades and Baseball. I was being groomed to be a very successful Architect! 🥱 But in my case the dreams of the future died when she did when I was 13. Many thought it was a very sad story. I don't. I like the person I am, or at least he's tolerable...sometimes. :)

My parents were weird. They were both Dems, but my Dad was an iron worker. He was not into politics and shied away from the well to do crowd. My Mom was gregarious and ambitious...kind like the Truman's wife..."The Truman Show" movie. My Mom wanted success. My Dad wanted peace and quiet.
 
I strongly disagree with this statement from your article @Paco Dennis
"Instead of curing cancer, we have a constantly mutating virus that — if it doesn’t kill you outright — slowly murders you by compromising every system in your body, including your brain. And no one seems to give a shit about even slowing it down."

My father had cancer in '81. Since this new century I have had cancer twice. They definitely "give a shit" those wonderful professionals working in the field. Absolutely they care. Cancer used to be a death sentence. It isn't, anymore, even with the hardest cancers like lung. Admittedly we are far from making it a chronic disease like we have, remarkably, with AIDS, but
there has been amazing progress.
 
Yes, I'm not inclined to think the prognosticators were, in every case, "liars". I think many were simply Pollyannas... and not everything went the way they expected (and hoped). Which is why I don't accept Elon Musk's vision of a completely utopian future based on AI.

I doubt my parents thought the Jetsons was anything more than fun animated entertainment. Some kids & teenagers might have accepted the stuff in that show as a genuine window into the future.

I do think that some aspects in society & life in general have been better in recent decades than when I was a kid. Doesn't mean I don't tune in to the news channels & feeds sometimes.
 
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Paco Dennis said:
My mom had high hopes for me. I was "encouraged" to be the best. School grades and Baseball. I was being groomed to be a very successful Architect! 🥱 But in my case the dreams of the future died when she did when I was 13. Many thought it was a very sad story. I don't. I like the person I am, or at least he's tolerable...sometimes. :)

My parents were weird. They were both Dems, but my Dad was an iron worker. He was not into politics and shied away from the well to do crowd. My Mom was gregarious and ambitious...kind like the Truman's wife..."The Truman Show" movie. My Mom wanted success. My Dad wanted peace and quiet.
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What are DEMS?
Pepper said:
Or........maybe you just didn't want kids!
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I didn’t. I was terrified of having kids. It’s certainly not a regret.
 
Growing up in the 50’s, we had all of the cold war warnings about a possible nuclear attack, and there were articles on what to do if America was bombed, in the papers. My mom saved all of the articles in case we ever needed them, but we lived our life without much concern about that happening.

When we went to Spokane (the nearest larger city from our little town) there were buildings with the nuclear emblem on them to let people know that there was a basement shelter where everyone was supposed to go if we were attacked.
I have wondered what they ever did with those unused bomb shelters ?

Another thing that my mom read about was predictions of a huge earthquake along the west coast, and some people thought that the whole area around Seattle would fall into the ocean if that happened.
When I moved to that area after getting married, I think that my mom was still a little concerned that the earthquake could happen, and by then, there were some quakes on the west coast; but nothing as bad as the predictions my mom had read about.

The other thing that my mom thought affected me greatly.
She was a devout Christian, and she firmly believed that we were in the last days, and read all of the books about the end times prophecies. She believed that we would be alive to see Jesus return; so I grew up thinking that was true, and that my mother would never die.
It was a horrible and unbelievable shock to me when she did die, because somewhere inside of me, was still that belief that she was going to be alive to see Jesus return.
My mom and dad both lived into their 80’s; so logically, I knew when she was dying; but the little girl inside of me didn’t know that.
 
Fyrefox said:
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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Smoking would stunt my growth (I grew to 6'3", I'm now 6'1" (age 69).
 
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