Generational differences

Green Shield Stamps? Wow. I just about old enough to remember those, they were still a thing when I was a kid in the 1970s.

I still shop around to get the best deals.

We can all get so much delievered to our doors now and we're not dependent on the club book to get clothes and stuff.

I do miss greenshield stamps though.

leveller61 said:

A few nice things I remember from my childhood. Apologies it's a bit long but I have got all nostalgic and hopefully some of it will resonate or bring a smile. 

Thank you for this list.

It did indeed raise a smile.

leveller61 said:

David Bowie doing Starman on Top of the Pops (and my parents not approving).

Never to be forgotten. 

TimC said:

My 18 year old granddaughter has recently chosen to identify as male, something that I continue to struggle with. I'll continue to love her.

Millennial here. I have a few trans friends and I do find it difficult to adhere to their preferred pronouns because I knew them before the transition. It’s not that I disrespect their new identity, it’s just that my brain can’t seem to comprehend that big of a change or something. I keep having to apologize because I let their former pronouns and names slip when I don’t mean for them to.

That’s good to hear that you’ll continue to love them. I hear too often about people rejecting LGBTQ+ family members.

B said:

I grew up without mobile phones, personal computers, Internet which have each transformed our daily lives.

That’s the stand out change for me. I’m a late boomer, a child of the 60s. I find it hard to fully appreciate the scale of difference between life growing up and life as it is now with regard to the effect of technology. The internet alone has had a huge impact on human behaviour in an assortment of ways, particularly with regard to information gathering and communication. Then there are the other technologies that have contributed to medicine, space, energy, environment, archaeology, volcanology, productivity and so on.

It concerns me that technology has enabled some countries to target others in wars without valid reason. The sheer waste of life and resources is mind boggling when technological innovation could be used in other ways. Technology could be used more widely to alleviate famine and poverty. 

I'm an early boomer who likes to think that the generational differences are mostly disappearing over time. Contrary to standard autistic characteristics, I've always embraced change. I needed to; the first 25 years of my career were in research and development!

However, some differences are less easy for me to accept. My 18 year old granddaughter has recently chosen to identify as male, something that I continue to struggle with. I'll continue to love her.

A few nice things I remember from my childhood. Apologies it's a bit long but I have got all nostalgic and hopefully some of it will resonate or bring a smile. 

1. Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and my whole family excitedly around the TV.

2. David Bowie doing Starman on Top of the Pops (and my parents not approving).

3. The Three Day Week and power cuts, sitting in candlelight eating home-made soup.

4. Home deliveries of milk, pop, coal, oil, etc. and rag & bone man, knife sharpeners, etc.

5. A neighbour being an agent for Vernon's Pools - and the forms to submit entries.

6. My dad being very happy as a supporter of Leeds United.

7. Watching uninterrupted coverage of Test Matches on the BBC. Summer bliss.

8. My dad's unreliable Hillman Imp. Replaced by a BMW 2000, which he took great care of.

9. My mum making clothes with her Singer sewing machine using Simplicity patterns.

10. The fun of Vesta meal kits and Arctic Roll whilst knowing they weren't 'proper' food.

11. My mum's canny food shopping, knowing where to get the best produce within budget.

12. My mum's Friday baking day - a counter full of savoury and sweet delights.

13. My wonderful grandmother and the simple pleasures of tea, feeding ducks and chatting.

14. The sheer joy of learning, reading and figuring things out.

15. Learning to swim and then getting lots of badges for my awful flesh-coloured trunks!

16. Collecting cards from Brooke Bond tea bag boxes - favourite was The Race for Space.

17. Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley after lunch and The Magic Roundabout later.

18. Bright colours and patterns on clothing, lino, curtains - orange, brown, purple...

19. Unusual names of cleaning products - Sqezy, Omo, Brillo, Brasso, Vim, Ajax.

20. A genuine sense of community in the streets we lived in - kids and grown-ups.

I thibk there is a massive difference between early boomers and late boomers.

In tge mid 70's the oil crisis had already put an end to the long boom period of before. By tbe late 70's the nihilism of punk had elbowed tbe hipies out if the way, tbough in the early 80's thefe will srill hippies, the oeace conviy and so on. 

And in 1979 the Thatcher years came into being. 

I read that article too and agree that we've lived through many changes, some good some bad. I also remember things like the huge fears of nuclear war and all the protest against cruise missiles, I was part of many protests.

I'm 64 and class as a boomer, I don't feel like one though, by the time I grew up those 10 years or so older than me had gobbled up all the council houses and jobs, when I left school there was a lot of unemployment, then Thatcher decimated our industries and a whole class of people suddenly became a problematic underclass.

I remember my granddad saying things like all pop music should be banned, my parents who'd missed out on the fifties cultural revolution were far more like my grand parents in atitudes than many of my friends parents who were 10 years or so younger.

I remember things like the National Anthem being played when tv ended for the night and when films at the cinema ended, there was always someone who would try and stop anyone leaving during it.

Now I'm the older generation, there are things I don't understand, like all the tech and social media stuff, but I wouldn't go as far as wanting them all banned as my grand parents did. In many things I have a very young attitude.

Thank you all for your replies which I have read with interest.

As a member of the oldest generation present on this forum I have inevitably seen many major changes in society. 

I wonder if any other generation present here has seen such drastic change. 

I grew up without mobile phones, personal computers, Internet which have each transformed our daily lives.

On a more mundane level supermarkets weren't very present when I was very young and my mother shopped in butchers, greengrocers and bakeries.

Children played much more too outside in the street.

We had a toilet at the end of the garden, coal fires and a bath in the kitchen with a geyser over.

We didn't have a TV (or telephone) until the 1970s and black and white for a long time.

I find the changes we have lived through quite astonishing especially how women's lives have thankfully been transformed.

Cinnabar_wing said:

Surely the millennium meant more to Gen X? (Actual question!)

It may well have done in sometimes anxiety inducing ways but I don't think the term is meant to define you but rather the period within which you were born. 

I am Gen X. My parents were born in 1922, and were 43 when I was born in 1966. So I can relate to the differences you mention, B whilst also noting huge changes in my own lifetime...

.

Late boomer here. I remember from s very eyrly age my mother telling me how lucky we were compared to her, havong been born in the Great Depression, then living through the war.

My parents were young during the 50s and 60s though, and never had it so good. I graduated in the Thatcher years, and graduate unemployment was hitherto unheard of..

Now I wonder, as I did in the 80's, alongside many othsrs, when the Bomb was a sword of Damocles over everyone's head, whether that sword really is poised to fall now. 

I'm GenX, but both of my parents were non-traditional and open-minded, which in turn influenced my outlook.

What has changed is the economic and social structures around us, but that's not my parents' fault and they've done what they can to support both myself and my sister over the years.

Which generation do you belong to and do you feel alienated from the ones before or after by things other than time?

I am a 'baby boomer'.

I wonder how many generations are on this forum 

When I think back to the lives my parents led and their attitudes to life I feel there was a huge gulf between us.

They were born in the 1920s.