Recently, older adults of the BuzzFeed Community shared the normal but completely unique experiences from “back in the day,” and as a Gen Z’er, I’m totally fascinated. Here are some experiences from the past that, depending on your age, will either have you reminiscing or utterly perplexed:
1.“Holiday seasons were much shorter. There were no Christmas displays until after Thanksgiving, and back-to-school, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine’s Day displays ran for only about two weeks before the actual day. There weren’t any laws or rules; it was just a custom that everyone followed.”
2.“In the 1980s in Australia, even kids 10 or younger could go to the corner store and buy cigarettes for, let’s say, your mom. No one blinked an eye. Legislation started being brought in to restrict the sale of cigarettes to kids, but a lot of shopkeepers would still allow it if you brought a note from your parents. If you were lucky, you’d even be given five cents to buy a bag of loose lollies from the big tubs near the front counter.”
3.“Girls were encouraged to get married out of high school and have children! They were told that there was no need to waste money on education and that women weren’t ‘smart enough’ for a real job. This was the ’60s in Texas!”
4.“It was very unusual for a family to have more than one car. Dad drove the car to work in the morning and returned it at night. If Mom needed to go shopping or to an appointment during the day, she would either walk or take the bus. Because of this, there were very few cars on the road on weekdays, allowing the kids to play in the streets in relative safety.”
5.“When I first got my period in the mid-1980s, my mom told me to be sure I always had safety pins with me in case I ever got my period unexpectedly and needed to buy a pad from a bathroom vending machine. The machines were stocked with the old pads, which had no adhesive, just long flaps at either end. In my mid-teens, which would have been around 1990, I got my period at a church event, so I got a pad from the machine in the restroom, but it was one of the old-school ones that required a belt! And, OF COURSE, it was the one time I wasn’t carrying safety pins. I think I wrapped toilet paper around the pad to hold it in place.”
6.“When I was a kid back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I remember my mother using a curling iron that wasn’t a plug-in. She’d place it on the gas burner on top of the stove to heat it and curl my hair that way. If it was left on for too long, you could smell your hair burning.”
7.“I grew up in the ’60s in Tennessee. It wasn’t unusual for the teacher to put a kid over their knee and paddle them for misbehaving.”
—Lauren, 69, Ohio
8.“Smoking was seriously such a normal thing everywhere, even in the early ’80s, when there were more restrictions in place than in earlier decades. There were smoking sections in every restaurant and theater, and even schools had smoking lounges for teachers. Heck, even hospitals had smoking areas. My high school had a smoking area outside for students out on lunch break or off periods, and this was in the early ’90s!”
9.“Purchasing condoms was very different and challenging and was considered very shameful for teenagers. Before the AIDS crisis, condoms were sold behind the counter either at the pharmacy or cash register. And some places would ask for an ID and refuse to sell them unless you were an adult.”
—David, 62, New York
10.“One of the wildest things to think about for me about my childhood was when teachers wanted us to type things on the computer, and at least half the class said they didn’t have one at home. When I got to high school in the late 2000s, this was still the case for quite a few kids. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody without a computer or internet access.”
11.“Women’s sleepwear consisted of pastel, floor-length, over-the-head nightgowns made of uncomfortable material that showed absolutely nothing. If you had to get out of bed, you’d immediately put another nightgown over the first nightgown, which tied in the front.”
12.“I baffled my son by telling him I used to go to the library to get newspapers out of our area to look up the ‘Help Wanted’ ads, then go home and type up a resume and cover letter. I’d then put both into an envelope and mail it to a company, then a week later call the company to see if they got the resume.”
13.“I’m not that old, but my dad would tell me stories from the ’60s saying it was perfectly normal for the high schoolers who owned trucks to keep their shotguns in there so they could go hunting after school. Could you imagine if a high schooler now showed up to the school parking lot with a gun rack with a few guns on it?”
—Anonymous
14.“As a kid, I remember being able to walk into almost any barbershop, and there would be Playboy magazines there where you could look at them while you waited for your haircut, even if you were underage.”
15.“Stores were generally open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and closed on Saturdays at noon. Often, there would be one evening a week, generally Thursday, when stores would stay open until 9 p.m. They also weren’t open on Sundays or holidays.”
16.“We’d have to go through the new TV Guide each week to see what was coming up. We’d say things like, ‘Oh, if I can stay awake until midnight on Saturday, Dracula is on!’ And we’d dance to all the music shows.”
17.“I remember being in elementary school in the ’70s, even as young as fourth grade, when students could go home for lunch. I’d go home to unlocked doors with nobody home, make a sandwich, eat lunch, and walk back to school. And in the summers, my best friend and I could walk all over town and stay out all day long with the occasional trip home for lunch or a snack.”
18.“I remember walking to every one of my friends’ houses to see where everyone would be hanging out because we didn’t have cellphones. Or you could hangout at the local arcade, and eventually someone you know would show up.”
19.Lastly: “Every kid in my neighborhood rode a bike, and not one wore a helmet. Even more, my siblings and I would ride in the way back of our station wagon, just rattling around back there. It wasn’t until I was 10 that my mother decided seat belts existed for a reason. Those were simpler, wilder times.”
I genuinely couldn’t imagine needing to carry safety pins for my pads! If you’re an older adult, what common but unique everyday experiences do you remember from the past that would have younger folks completely bewildered? Let me know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your story using this form!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.