Anyone else get the feeling...

We ALL hark for more innocent times. Westerners are Romantics by nature. However, even fifty years ago, a lot of girls got married at 16. Also, cancer was just as prevalent then. 

I think the real reason for modern problems is the way children are taught. They're encouraged to have a sense of entitlement. It's all about rights, rather than responsibilities. 

Our problems are exacerbated because we expect to live longer. A peasant from the Middle Ages would say we're doing well. 

Thank you for sharing your experiences! As you said, I'll be far more careful what I wish for!! I just thought the younger generation seemed to get a lot more freedom than my generation did. I was a late 80's child, and probably was more influenced by the fact I was an only child, and therefore found it difficult to escape my parents "attention". But to be honest I hadn't really thought through my comment. I'm glad they saved you, as otherwise you wouldn't be here to teach the lessons. I guess the alternative addage would be some version of: Lest we forget. :-)

Be careful what you wish for.

No cellphones or computers.

People died of things they don't die of now.  I was diagnosed with cancer in 1975, shortly after the technology used to save my life was developed.  I got away with it by the skin of my teeth (3-4 years).  I now have a leaking heart valve because the radiotherapy used then wasn't accurate.  I have a scar from my hip to my breast because they had to take my spleen out and other stuff, and keyhole surgery was decades away.  But ... they saved my life.  

I was diagnosed with autism late in life; if I had been diagnosed earlier, I might have gone to a Special School, at a time when no one knew anything about autism.  Believe me, that would have ruined my life.  I'm so glad I was not diagnosed as a child or a teenager.  

Gay people were discriminated against by law and ridiculed in the media and in everyday conversation; racism and other bigotries were also every day normal. 

We led less affluent lives. 

Foreign travel was far less common and holidays were shorter. Sick leave was a lot harder to get, hours were longer, bosses were more ruthless.

Employers could fire you for next-to-no-reason at all. 

The music thing was incredible but home entertainment / hi fis were crap. Eight track tape was a thing.  But concerts?  Bloody hell, the concerts.  We went all over to the places that attracted the best bands - the Hammersmith Odean, Lanchester Poly in Coventry, some place in Oxford that I can't remember the name of, and venues all over the UK.  

There was one TV station, then two, then three. 

No means of recording TV. 

Colour TV only arrived in my teens.

I had Saturday morning school and 17-18 year old prefects could beat you (not a Private School - a State selective grammar school in the provinces).  My maths teacher caned me on a Saturday morning because I had misunderstood the homework.   

New cars rotted within years because manufacturers didn't know how to purify contaminants from steel.

We had a three day week because the economy went to hell in a handbasket, and that came with reduced wages, regular power cuts and waste piling up on the streets.

My Dad worked for the Science Research Council.  On a 'take your child to work day' (very progressive, then) we "sent a message to man in America" and half an hour later a message came back.  I told my mates in school and I was ridiculed for making up stories.  

But the music was indeed fantastic(!)  

Want to swap? Haha. Tbh it was probably more that the music was a sh!t load better... Although maybe there's elements of the societal stuff that I don't know about, hence the addage: you had to be there... :-)

If it helps I was born in the 50s and find myself infuriated with my own generation; people born in the70s, 80s or later seem quite often more relatable(!)