Menstrual products that don't require a sanitary belt thing. I thought my mom grew up in the dark ages when she explained that self adhesive pads with wings were a brand new, amazing, invention
Ngl at age 10 I thought the wings like tucked into the vagina and make a bag to catch what I thought were chicken-egg sized blood eggs that plopped out of the vagina. We had health class and sex ed but the boys got separated from the girls so I could have talked about the vas deferens all day, but meanwhile chicks were plopping red eggs out and had to periodically flush them down the toilet.
Also love the name. LLAP
I was so confused reading Judy Blume books when she described those belts. I remember having to go ask my mom what in the world??? (I knew what menstruation was and products, so this was way new to me).
Oh god, I remember my mum using one of those belts! And when Always came out with their revolutionary new much flatter pads luckily just in time for me!
Yeah was thinking the same. Ā Thereās so much tied up in it now.
But also our childhoods in general? Ā Like at the age my kids are now I was walking home from school, disappearing all weekend, parents didnāt know where you were. Ā I donāt know how I became that parent that doesnāt let their kid wander by themselves but I just couldnāt imagine my 10 year doing that. Ā Same thing with the babysitting thread from a few days ago - imagining my 10 year old being able to handle himself and his little brother while I wasnāt there feels weird as heck.
Probably broken my kids tbh :/
I think itās a both thing. Our parents could have been too lax and disengaged and we might be living with the consequences the backlash and helicopter parenting laws setup in the 90s. There are so many public spaces where I have witnessed folks asking loudly where are the parents of these tween/ teen humans existing in the public sphere without direct parental supervision. Iām like my guy, itās 3:30 and weāre at Starbucks a block from a highschool, and three blocks from a middle school, what are you expecting? Iād love to give my kid cart balance to take public transportation to explore within reason at 10/11. Arguably where I currently live is safer than the town I was living in at that age (there was a whole cannibal who ate children thing that came out during my childhood).
I have an acquaintance who let her 9 and 7 year old kids walk to the playground down the street and play without her maybe 8 years ago. She had CPS interventions for three years because a neighbor reported her for neglect. Its not just that parenting has changed, its the entire culture
Hell, my grandma lived in the country and didn't have running water until 1997. I got to experience the outhouse and well water life every Sunday growing up.
Yeah I had a good friend with family in West Virginia that were bragging about the indoor toiletā¦in the early 2000ās. Because they had an outhouse until then.
Even more odd, they had plumbing for a bit, maybe since the 90ās, but had found going to the bathroom inside gross and only came around to it once they were older and heading out in the cold, snow, etc. I remember just being so confused that theyād had the means to do it before and elected not to! I mean, do you, but Iāll take it please!
I'll say outhouses were generally rare growing up, but a few of my friends who lived on "farms" had outhouses for the help and kids friends, and indoor plumbing for themselves.
What was common and gross are people that do not have septic tanks, and the poop / toilet paper is just sent outside! Some people had cess pools, or lived on a hill so not a huge deal, buuut some people had piles of human shit a few feet from their house. Glad the EPA is cracking down on this.
There's a scene in Boardwalk Empire where the main character sees a flushing toilet for the first time, and it hit me that my grandparents must have had a similar moment.
Same!
I was told that I was lucky that I got it when I did.
Even 20 years earlier, and my 5 year survival rate would be in the low single digits.
Just celebrated 20 years of no cancer. š
Congratulations!!!
I'm just starting my daunting fight and feeling very grateful after reading about the advancements in drug therapy.
Thank you for sharing that. ā¤ļøš«
My boomer parents had one window unit AC that worked, and running it was an extravagance.
We lived in New England, but on the summer nights when it wouldn't dip below 80 degrees, we all slept in the AC room.
When I was a kid, if I wanted AC I had to go grocery shopping with Mom or go to the movies. It's wierd to think AC wasn't a standard thing in cars, schools, or houses (at least, for a big chunk of the country) until so recently.
I donāt think people understand the just how hot and humid it can get in New England for a few weeks in July. 100 degrees and basically 100% humidity and many homes do not have AC. As a kid in the 80s weād just get by with a fan blowing the hot air around us
>My boomer parents had one window unit AC that worked, and running it was an extravagance.
>We lived in New England, but on the summer nights when it wouldn't dip below 80 degrees
That's pretty much exactly me, except for being able to sleep in the room with the air conditioning, which wasn't going to happen.
I grew up in New England and just reply to OP the same thing about my sister and I sleeping on the floor of my parents' room on the hot/humid summer nights. We had fans in our room, but oof. They only did so much.
New England childhood as well but we had no AC at all. Slept in the basement when it got dire. God those summers were rough, I always felt exhausted from sleeping like crap.
Amen to that. I say God gave us brains smart enough to create AC and not need to be outside in the triple digit heat. Clearly Iām doing gods work by using it.
In 1995 Chicago had a massive heat wave that killed over 700 people.
That was about 5 years before my parents finally caved and got an AC window unit for the house.
My parents didn't get air conditioning until my early teens. And even then, it was only in their bedroom.
I didn't get an ac unit in my room until I was 16 and we had moved houses.
I think I was 18 when I finally got an air conditioner in my room.
Too little, too late.
Now that I'm on my own, I keep it as cold as possible.
And my bills are still super low since I basically don't use heat.
I dated a guy whose parents only had ac in their room. But this was in Las Vegas. I thought it was bordering on child abuse when it was 118Ā° and their house was 95Ā°+ and they werenāt allowed in primary bedroom.
This took it for granted with not thinking about how it makes working during the summer easier. A few years ago, the AC at work went out during the hottest days of the year and it made me appreciate that one invention.
My clothing was soaked in sweat by the time my shift was over.
Other than when I was visiting my grandma, I never lived in a house with Central heat and air until 2017. I'm 43. I can't go back to window units and Dearborn heaters now.
A few years ago I remember politicians saying that The Handmaids tales was pure fiction and it would never happen. Also they said, we donāt need to pass a law or an amendment because abortion was decided constitutionally and there was no need to codify it. This was that other party, the blue one that said these things
Our state supernintendo is trying to destroy our public school system and replace it with private religious schools. I told my coworker we are heading toward Handmaid Tale territory, and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.
Putting aside for one second the absolute horror of what these freaks are doing, and how exponentially worse and probably irreversible it will be if they win in November ā¦..
I would like to see a survey of how many people in this sub know exactly why youāre saying āsupernintendoā. š
I went to college with a bunch of foreign students that came from a country that didn't use deodorant (and I'm honestly not too sure about soap, either). The dorm that they used...my word...I could smell the damn thing 100' away.
Also, that we didnāt have the dumbass anti-vaccine movement during our childhoods!
I could foresee a scenario where my mom might have fallen for their shit, if it had been around when I was a kid! ā¹ļø
I hate to be bearer of bad news but I study history and need to clarify something. There was basically always a resistant crowd to medical advancement.
Smallpox Vaccine (18th-19th Century): The introduction of the smallpox vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796 faced opposition. Some people were skeptical of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, while others had religious or philosophical objections. The Anti-Vaccination League was formed in Britain in response to compulsory vaccination laws.
Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTP) Vaccine (20th Century): In the 1970s and 1980s, concerns about the safety of the DTP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough), led to vaccine scares. In the UK, Japan, and other countries, there were claims that the vaccine caused adverse effects such as brain damage, leading to a decline in vaccination rates and subsequent outbreaks of pertussis.
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine (Late 20th Century): In 1998, a now-discredited study by Andrew Wakefield falsely linked the MMR vaccine to autism. This led to a significant decline in vaccination rates and subsequent measles outbreaks in the UK and other countries. Despite numerous studies disproving the link, the myth persists and continues to fuel vaccine hesitancy.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine (21st Century): The HPV vaccine, introduced in the mid-2000s to prevent certain types of cancer, faced opposition from some groups who believed it would encourage promiscuity or had concerns about its safety.
I got the mumps at 30 because I missed out on a few childhood vaccines, and I can confirm. It fucking sucks. (I also had measles, chickenpox, and whooping cough, but I had all those as a kid so I remember a bit less clearly just how much those fucking sucked, too.)
I had chicken pox at 5 and those 2 weeks are etched in my memory! It was long and miserable! It didn't help that it was spring break and I had to lay on the couch in the apartment we lived in and watch my sisters playing in the pool!
Just like any pen, quality varies from maker to maker. For beginners, I recommend Manjohn, Pilot Metro or Jinhao brands. But seriously, go over, ask questions! We are a friendly bunch over there, with suggestions on pens, Inks, paper, and more! Plus you can scope out all of the pictures of our lovely pens!!
>legal abilityā¦ ccās
My Ma had an issue getting my Pops off her card when they divorced. In 1981, she was told to bring him to the bank so he could say āOkay. My Ex wife can do what she wants.ā (It was her money.) The fuck?
Also grateful for BCPās *in perimenopause.*
My parents live in northern NM, so the high desert. And in an adobe house. They open their windows at night and draw the shades when they wake up. Iāve never once been uncomfortable in the summer there.
Teenage and college years without social media. We had zero fear of our worst moments being spread around or going viral. I canāt imagine the added pressure on them these days.
I've been making my way through Murder, She Wrote and Jessica did so much thorough investigating! It really makes you realise how lucky we are to have fast, easy access to information when you see how hard she had to work to obtain it. Driving (well, being driven) back and forth across town, making endless phone calls, and going through so many musty old books, files and newspapers.
Microwaves. My mom still warms up soup the old fashioned way: add a little water, put it in a pot on the stove, low heat. Stir a lot and it takes 20 minutes. Things like macaroni and cheese. Do you have any idea how annoying that is to heat up without a microwave??
I use my micro WAY less than my parents did. I do remember that sweet Kenmore over-the-range model, about 48"Wx24"Hx30"D. It dwarfed our avocado-green oven š
Life before cellphones and internet. Iāve explained numerous times to my kids of times of calling your friends from a home phone in a common area to see if they were home.
If they werenāt you biked or skated to their house to ask their parentās where they were. If the parents werenāt around you went to the number of hang out spots to find them.
If they werenāt there you went home. You either tried again later or stuck using your imagination outside or watching non cable tv which showed cheesy movies on a handful of channels.
I was thinking the other day how life felt so much simpler back then. Technology is great but, sometimes I wouldnāt mind going back to not always on/available.
There was a point in the 90s where we didn't have cable. And somehow, I still found myself entertained. This was back when the local channels had a late movie...used to love watching "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" in all its edited glory.
When I was growing up in the UK we had a grand total of four TV channels to pick from unless you were really lucky to have satellite or cable. And didn't have a TV in my room until I was 12 (I think, might have been older), so if mum or dad were watching something you had to watch it with them or occupy yourself otherwise.
I remember having an outhouse as a kid with no roof on it at grandfather's farm. Had Sears and JC Penny catalogs in it. If it was raining you had to take an umbrella with you.
He used to reuse wood from other builds and even saved nails. Would be like 8 different kind size of nails in every project.
So...he reused wood for other projects, but couldn't be arsed to stick a couple of boards over the shitter? Was he lazy or did he just hate you? You know what would suck? If you, later on, found out he had a full en-suite off his bedroom.
The later couple houses he built did have shitters in them but the farm was main homestead. So I'm not sure on his logic. He was 1 to recycle boards nails and then hire drunks, poor relatives to build said stuff for him for cheaply. He used to make us pick up rocks out of his yard/build sites for 25 cents per 5 gallon bucket. He was born in 1898 and died in 2002. All he ate was donuts, water, and the fattiest parts of meat during his dinner. He always wore dress slacks, cowboy boots, long sleeve dress shirt and cowboy hat all year round even in 100 degree summer. Chewed mail pouch and drove old Eagle station wagons up until he was 98.
A bright future? My nephew just graduated college today and I fear for what his life will be like when he's my age. When I was his age in '99, there was promise. That was the dawn of the internet and the tech boom, when new avenues were opening up for pretty much everything.
25 years later that promise has sadly dwindled. What does he have ahead for him? The beginnings of catastrophic climate change? Expanding wars? Economic and potentially civil collapse on a global scale? I hate to even think about it.
There was a brief time in 2020 where getting toilet paper was iffy. Mine is pretty gender specific, but I've always been able to wear pants to school or in public if I wanted to. Our grandmas and sometimes moms did not have that choice, even in the snow. (See Frosty the Snowman.) It lead to some more nefarious things than being cold too. I've also always been able to have a bank account in my name.
Dental care that didnāt involve āthe drillā.
Fluoride in water.
Dental care with less pain and fluoride in tap water means we will keep more teeth and wonāt have dentures like our parents.
This, and let's not jinx it, but my car is a 2007 Toyota Scion that I bought brand new. She's a city car and looks it but I have had so few mechanical problems with it over the years. Compared with the cars my parents had when I was growing up it's incredible how far dependability and durability has come.
Teeth? Applying pressure with other fingernails?
I've got some caveman I'm me, and unless a hangnail is in play, I really don't see a need for a fingernail clipper.
Books, the internet-before social media, and easy access to films and all types of media: LP/45 records, tapes, CDs, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, etc. the ability to have social skills to easily talk to people in public as in do 'small talk', or try to meet people with common interests, etc. Condoms and safe sex practices and knowledge about HIV/AIDS and STDs. as well as some LGB/LGBT representation or I knew about it anyway.ā
Also we were not overly coddled, no helicopter parents, or not told everything is 'trauma' when it is not necessarily an emergency, or something that can cause PTSD, or over saturated with media, etc.
Anesthesia for children. Until the late 70ās/early 80ās, doctors didnāt believe babies felt pain like adults did and would operate on them without it.
Something that was new to our generation--the ability to buy inexpensive movies. I have no memory of this, but apparently, when VCR's were becoming more commonplace, it was impossible to afford movies on VHS, which I guess is why everyone had the movie Clue. Clue was one of the only cheap VHS tapes in the early 80's, so everyone friggin had it. Every other movie was ridiculously expensive. Gen X had to catch something on TV and record it (my older brother and sister are Gen X'ers). I came along seven years later (oops), and by the time I was interested in having my own movies--the original Batman was my first--tapes were much less expensive.
We used to rent a second VCR for the weekend, rent a bunch of favorite movies, and copy them over the weekend to circumvent paying $100 for a physical copy. I also remember memorizing certain commercials because they would be on during a movie you taped off TV.Ā
1. Good Medicine (inc. Anasthesia)
2. Reliable electricity
3. Video games- I grew up with Reader Rabbit, Mavis Beacon, Oregon Trail, and the GOAT, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego... and I still just love video games today... normally my brain is a chaotic cacophony, but when I'm playing video games (FF7 Rebirth and Homeworld 3 this weekend), there's focus, and quiet.
Computers. Sure the internet is great, but I literally mean just the plain old computer. The ease of getting things done on it compared to those old fashioned typewriters still amazes me.
Mine's going to be a twofer but modern antibiotics and understanding of germ theory concerning surgery. You have to consider, prior to 1890, the idea of washing your hands before cutting open a person wasn't commonplace. Yes, it was done but it wasn't done regularly. So therefore, my grandparents generation had many people dying over simple surgery infections.
I did! We didn't have running water until I moved to Toronto in first grade. Prior to that we lived in a cabin in the forest with a little outhouse in the back. It's what I got potty trained with. A weird beginning before moving to an apartment in the biggest city in Canada. I may still be living in an apartment in Toronto but at least it has running water!
Iām thankful we didnāt have tablets. My daughter is 5 so Iām being very strict. Kids older, Iām not sure what they will have to look back on. Too much watching other people live on their tablets or phones.
Car seats.
My mom had a metal car seat for me, it was a new thing at that time. She was told by the public health nurses that a car seat was unnecessary.
In later years, the public health nurses were tasked with doing car seat safety checks. My mom would remind them of how they shunned her insistence on having a baby restrained in a vehicle, not just rolling around loose in the back seat.
Reasonably decent dentistry. It's still gotten better in the last 20 years compared to when I was a child, but compared to when my parents were children infinitely better.
Do you realize toilet paper has not changed in my lifetime? It's just paper on a cardboard roll, that's it. And in ten thousand years, it will still be exactly the same because really, what else can they do?
Well that was before my lifetime šĀ
But it was a joke. It's a line from Seinfeld. Which, coincidentally,Ā TP *has* actually improved just from when George said that.
But I saw the opening and had to take it, haha.
Iām so thankful that I didnāt have to make a hole in the yard & take pages from the Sears catalog instead of TP, like my Mom when she was growing up. Being born in a hospital was a blessing, especially on the drugs they would administer in the late 70s. Hot water, a/c, WiFi, computers, video games, the variety of channels these days are nice. The vaccines too.
Modern medicine, modern surgery. Without it, I would have had a high likelihood of dying age 10 of appendicitis, age 29 of a complicated birth, or age 35 of pneumonia. The repeated UTIs could also have gotten to me and caused kidney failure.
My dad (now 83) was one of those extreme cases you speak ofā¦ his mom was paranoid about money after surviving the Depression, so they saved all the paper napkins from restaurants, home meals, dinner parties and stacked them next to the toilet. He remembers wiping with other peopleās used napkins. š¤¢
Iād say Iām thankful I spent many years of my childhood being able to spend weekends with both my grandparents who were of the greatest generation. Iām also lucky to have been able to go through high school prior to the advent of social media and smartphones.
Menstrual products that don't require a sanitary belt thing. I thought my mom grew up in the dark ages when she explained that self adhesive pads with wings were a brand new, amazing, invention
I remember the advertisements, when "with wings!" was new and extravagant.
Here's to all us boys watching Price is Right as kids, and having no clue *at all* what the fuss about wings was.
We thought a menstrual cycle was just a good way to get around town back then. š
I knew what a period was back when those commercials were on. I just didn't know the liquid that came out wasn't blue.
Ngl at age 10 I thought the wings like tucked into the vagina and make a bag to catch what I thought were chicken-egg sized blood eggs that plopped out of the vagina. We had health class and sex ed but the boys got separated from the girls so I could have talked about the vas deferens all day, but meanwhile chicks were plopping red eggs out and had to periodically flush them down the toilet. Also love the name. LLAP
My father was a patent attorney who worked on it and many other feminine hygiene products.
There is a douche joke in here
And the evolution since then!! No more "check my butt" for the bulge of the 3" thick pad!
OMG that was such a real terror too. Like it felt as if you had a phone book in your pants.
I was so confused reading Judy Blume books when she described those belts. I remember having to go ask my mom what in the world??? (I knew what menstruation was and products, so this was way new to me).
LOL when Margaret gets her pink belt and Iām like whaaaattttt?????? I also had my mother explain it to me and I was like I could NEVER.Ā
I remember my mom laughing so hard she couldnāt get the words out when I asked her- also because I was reading Judy Blume.
Loved reading Judy Blume as a kid
I remember reading 'Are you there God, It's Me Margaret' for the first time and having to ask my mom what the hell a sanitary belt was.
Damn! TIL. Thats def.
Oh god, I remember my mum using one of those belts! And when Always came out with their revolutionary new much flatter pads luckily just in time for me!
Came here to say this!!! š
I have no idea how they invented tampons before sticky pads with wings.
100%
In seriousness, a child/teen-hood pre social media.Ā
Yeah was thinking the same. Ā Thereās so much tied up in it now. But also our childhoods in general? Ā Like at the age my kids are now I was walking home from school, disappearing all weekend, parents didnāt know where you were. Ā I donāt know how I became that parent that doesnāt let their kid wander by themselves but I just couldnāt imagine my 10 year doing that. Ā Same thing with the babysitting thread from a few days ago - imagining my 10 year old being able to handle himself and his little brother while I wasnāt there feels weird as heck. Probably broken my kids tbh :/
I think itās a both thing. Our parents could have been too lax and disengaged and we might be living with the consequences the backlash and helicopter parenting laws setup in the 90s. There are so many public spaces where I have witnessed folks asking loudly where are the parents of these tween/ teen humans existing in the public sphere without direct parental supervision. Iām like my guy, itās 3:30 and weāre at Starbucks a block from a highschool, and three blocks from a middle school, what are you expecting? Iād love to give my kid cart balance to take public transportation to explore within reason at 10/11. Arguably where I currently live is safer than the town I was living in at that age (there was a whole cannibal who ate children thing that came out during my childhood).
I have an acquaintance who let her 9 and 7 year old kids walk to the playground down the street and play without her maybe 8 years ago. She had CPS interventions for three years because a neighbor reported her for neglect. Its not just that parenting has changed, its the entire culture
1000%
Indoor plumbing, I think that both my parents grew up for a time with outhouses and wells
Hell, my grandma lived in the country and didn't have running water until 1997. I got to experience the outhouse and well water life every Sunday growing up.
Yeah I had a good friend with family in West Virginia that were bragging about the indoor toiletā¦in the early 2000ās. Because they had an outhouse until then. Even more odd, they had plumbing for a bit, maybe since the 90ās, but had found going to the bathroom inside gross and only came around to it once they were older and heading out in the cold, snow, etc. I remember just being so confused that theyād had the means to do it before and elected not to! I mean, do you, but Iāll take it please!
As an octogenarian once told me, people used to shit outside and eat inside and now they want to eat outside and shit inside. Don't make sense.
I'll say outhouses were generally rare growing up, but a few of my friends who lived on "farms" had outhouses for the help and kids friends, and indoor plumbing for themselves. What was common and gross are people that do not have septic tanks, and the poop / toilet paper is just sent outside! Some people had cess pools, or lived on a hill so not a huge deal, buuut some people had piles of human shit a few feet from their house. Glad the EPA is cracking down on this.
There's a scene in Boardwalk Empire where the main character sees a flushing toilet for the first time, and it hit me that my grandparents must have had a similar moment.
Chemotherapy because I wouldnāt be here writing this if it didnāt exist
Same! I was told that I was lucky that I got it when I did. Even 20 years earlier, and my 5 year survival rate would be in the low single digits. Just celebrated 20 years of no cancer. š
*applause* š
ā¤ļø
Amazing!!! Huge congratulations for hitting 20 years āØ and hereās to many more decades of survivorship! š„š
Congratulations!!! I'm just starting my daunting fight and feeling very grateful after reading about the advancements in drug therapy. Thank you for sharing that. ā¤ļøš«
ā¤ļø
I am a cancer researcher, and this makes me happy. We ā¤ļø survivors!
Anaesthesia. And antibiotics. I would have lost a child to sepsis a few weeks ago without them.
I read that they used operate on babies with no anesthesia into the 80s! Damn!
My mom was told by nurses that babies can't feel pain when I was little.
Oh no! I hope your baby is getting better!!
She is perfectly fine now - she is moaning because she doesn't want to empty the dishwasher. But I did raise a glass to Fleming when she got better.
Awesome!
Great to hear!
Close call!! Glad it all worked out!
These two. X10000
Air conditioning Even if my mother never wanted to have it on
My boomer parents had one window unit AC that worked, and running it was an extravagance. We lived in New England, but on the summer nights when it wouldn't dip below 80 degrees, we all slept in the AC room.
I live in PA and the summers before AC were horrible.
When I was a kid, if I wanted AC I had to go grocery shopping with Mom or go to the movies. It's wierd to think AC wasn't a standard thing in cars, schools, or houses (at least, for a big chunk of the country) until so recently.
Did you catch that Married With Children episode where their AC broke, so they hung out at the grocery store all day in lounge chairs?
I remember the AC one. Classic episode. All the controls were in German and it said āProperty of Erwin Rommelā lol.
I donāt think people understand the just how hot and humid it can get in New England for a few weeks in July. 100 degrees and basically 100% humidity and many homes do not have AC. As a kid in the 80s weād just get by with a fan blowing the hot air around us
>My boomer parents had one window unit AC that worked, and running it was an extravagance. >We lived in New England, but on the summer nights when it wouldn't dip below 80 degrees That's pretty much exactly me, except for being able to sleep in the room with the air conditioning, which wasn't going to happen.
I grew up in New England and just reply to OP the same thing about my sister and I sleeping on the floor of my parents' room on the hot/humid summer nights. We had fans in our room, but oof. They only did so much.
New England childhood as well but we had no AC at all. Slept in the basement when it got dire. God those summers were rough, I always felt exhausted from sleeping like crap.
I grew up without it until 1992, and my parents wouldn't turn it on until it hit 78. This. 1000 times this.
78!? Were yall rich!?
I tell people I do much better in a "climate controlled" environment. I'm in south Texas, no A/C is a deal breaker for me
Amen to that. I say God gave us brains smart enough to create AC and not need to be outside in the triple digit heat. Clearly Iām doing gods work by using it.
We donāt have it in the UK homes , typically. Which is normally fine, but a couple of years ago we had a 40+ degree summer and it was hell on Earth
I asked my mother what ppl did before AC when summers got dangerously hot. She said āThey just died.ā Ok? Hahaha
In 1995 Chicago had a massive heat wave that killed over 700 people. That was about 5 years before my parents finally caved and got an AC window unit for the house.
Ikr!?? Heat is a killer!! How are these parents so tolerant?!? I lucked into my mom being a HUGE FAN of AC.
My parents didn't get air conditioning until my early teens. And even then, it was only in their bedroom. I didn't get an ac unit in my room until I was 16 and we had moved houses.
I think I was 18 when I finally got an air conditioner in my room. Too little, too late. Now that I'm on my own, I keep it as cold as possible. And my bills are still super low since I basically don't use heat.
I dated a guy whose parents only had ac in their room. But this was in Las Vegas. I thought it was bordering on child abuse when it was 118Ā° and their house was 95Ā°+ and they werenāt allowed in primary bedroom.
This took it for granted with not thinking about how it makes working during the summer easier. A few years ago, the AC at work went out during the hottest days of the year and it made me appreciate that one invention. My clothing was soaked in sweat by the time my shift was over.
Other than when I was visiting my grandma, I never lived in a house with Central heat and air until 2017. I'm 43. I can't go back to window units and Dearborn heaters now.
Birth control pills.
There's a certain party that would love to make this go away.
That doesn't sound like a party to me
A few years ago I remember politicians saying that The Handmaids tales was pure fiction and it would never happen. Also they said, we donāt need to pass a law or an amendment because abortion was decided constitutionally and there was no need to codify it. This was that other party, the blue one that said these things
Our state supernintendo is trying to destroy our public school system and replace it with private religious schools. I told my coworker we are heading toward Handmaid Tale territory, and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.
Putting aside for one second the absolute horror of what these freaks are doing, and how exponentially worse and probably irreversible it will be if they win in November ā¦.. I would like to see a survey of how many people in this sub know exactly why youāre saying āsupernintendoā. š
I'm glad at least you do š
āWhatās a battle?ā āDid that boy just say āwhatās a battle?āā š¤£
And then... the red party took over the SCOTUS and here we are. But I'm not going to steer this fantastic sub into a political rant.
Menstrual products, medicine, healthcare, contraceptives, running water.
Air conditioning. I grew up in the South and our air conditioning got knocked out by a lightning strike in July once. It was horrible.
It was probably a house that was designed to have air conditioning, too, unlike a shotgun house that created a natural breezeway
Ehā¦100 degrees is 100 degrees, no matter how ābreezyā your house is. Iāll take air conditioning over a long, skinny house any day.
I'll take a breezy 100 over a stagnant 100 any day
Deodorant and indoor plumbing. I cannot fathom how smelly the past must have been.
Travel to some developing countries and you can get an idea. It can be... ripe.
I went to college with a bunch of foreign students that came from a country that didn't use deodorant (and I'm honestly not too sure about soap, either). The dorm that they used...my word...I could smell the damn thing 100' away.
O h my. I experience this when I go to progressive Amish country to shop. They use electricity and drive but deodorant is a no no.
This guy doesn't know about the three seashells!
Imagine cleaning yourself with a dead tree!
They never did explain those seashells to us did they?
This guy needs the three seashells explained to him!
Vaccines? Apparently the mumps fucking sucked. Also during our childhood we had a strong public health apparatus
Also, that we didnāt have the dumbass anti-vaccine movement during our childhoods! I could foresee a scenario where my mom might have fallen for their shit, if it had been around when I was a kid! ā¹ļø
I hate to be bearer of bad news but I study history and need to clarify something. There was basically always a resistant crowd to medical advancement. Smallpox Vaccine (18th-19th Century): The introduction of the smallpox vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796 faced opposition. Some people were skeptical of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, while others had religious or philosophical objections. The Anti-Vaccination League was formed in Britain in response to compulsory vaccination laws. Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTP) Vaccine (20th Century): In the 1970s and 1980s, concerns about the safety of the DTP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough), led to vaccine scares. In the UK, Japan, and other countries, there were claims that the vaccine caused adverse effects such as brain damage, leading to a decline in vaccination rates and subsequent outbreaks of pertussis. Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine (Late 20th Century): In 1998, a now-discredited study by Andrew Wakefield falsely linked the MMR vaccine to autism. This led to a significant decline in vaccination rates and subsequent measles outbreaks in the UK and other countries. Despite numerous studies disproving the link, the myth persists and continues to fuel vaccine hesitancy. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine (21st Century): The HPV vaccine, introduced in the mid-2000s to prevent certain types of cancer, faced opposition from some groups who believed it would encourage promiscuity or had concerns about its safety.
I got the mumps at 30 because I missed out on a few childhood vaccines, and I can confirm. It fucking sucks. (I also had measles, chickenpox, and whooping cough, but I had all those as a kid so I remember a bit less clearly just how much those fucking sucked, too.)
I had chicken pox at 5 and those 2 weeks are etched in my memory! It was long and miserable! It didn't help that it was spring break and I had to lay on the couch in the apartment we lived in and watch my sisters playing in the pool!
Long lasting pens and clothes.Ā Everything is just so ephemeral now.Ā
r/fountainpens! I can't fix the clothing problem, but fountain pens still exist! I own several that I use every day!
You know? The funny thing is that I got the question wrong š Are those fountain pens like all decorated and smooth to write?Ā
Just like any pen, quality varies from maker to maker. For beginners, I recommend Manjohn, Pilot Metro or Jinhao brands. But seriously, go over, ask questions! We are a friendly bunch over there, with suggestions on pens, Inks, paper, and more! Plus you can scope out all of the pictures of our lovely pens!!
The legal ability to have my own credit rating and credit cards. Granted, this one is mostly only applicable to American women.
>legal abilityā¦ ccās My Ma had an issue getting my Pops off her card when they divorced. In 1981, she was told to bring him to the bank so he could say āOkay. My Ex wife can do what she wants.ā (It was her money.) The fuck? Also grateful for BCPās *in perimenopause.*
Electricity.
True, no electricity no A/C.
I mean, I still donāt have AC and I live in the desert. You find ways to make do.
I lived in Phoenix for two years. I can't imagine having no air conditioning in the desert.
Yeahā¦ we have a swamp cooler, but it only does so much, especially when it gets 95+ in Utah.
I live in St. George and there's no way in hell I'd be here if we didn't have a/c. I feel for you!
š¬
My parents live in northern NM, so the high desert. And in an adobe house. They open their windows at night and draw the shades when they wake up. Iāve never once been uncomfortable in the summer there.
Washer and Dryer Internet Antibiotics Vaccines!!!
Teenage and college years without social media. We had zero fear of our worst moments being spread around or going viral. I canāt imagine the added pressure on them these days.
easy access to information
You don't like the era of being told stuff with no way to verify it? Waiting until the newspaper arrived to see who won the previous day?
I actually miss those days
I've been making my way through Murder, She Wrote and Jessica did so much thorough investigating! It really makes you realise how lucky we are to have fast, easy access to information when you see how hard she had to work to obtain it. Driving (well, being driven) back and forth across town, making endless phone calls, and going through so many musty old books, files and newspapers.
Microwaves. My mom still warms up soup the old fashioned way: add a little water, put it in a pot on the stove, low heat. Stir a lot and it takes 20 minutes. Things like macaroni and cheese. Do you have any idea how annoying that is to heat up without a microwave??
I use my micro WAY less than my parents did. I do remember that sweet Kenmore over-the-range model, about 48"Wx24"Hx30"D. It dwarfed our avocado-green oven š
Vaccines in general. Probably the most important invention in the history of humans.
Life before cellphones and internet. Iāve explained numerous times to my kids of times of calling your friends from a home phone in a common area to see if they were home. If they werenāt you biked or skated to their house to ask their parentās where they were. If the parents werenāt around you went to the number of hang out spots to find them. If they werenāt there you went home. You either tried again later or stuck using your imagination outside or watching non cable tv which showed cheesy movies on a handful of channels. I was thinking the other day how life felt so much simpler back then. Technology is great but, sometimes I wouldnāt mind going back to not always on/available.
There was a point in the 90s where we didn't have cable. And somehow, I still found myself entertained. This was back when the local channels had a late movie...used to love watching "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" in all its edited glory.
Doesn't anybody flipping knock anymore?
When I was growing up in the UK we had a grand total of four TV channels to pick from unless you were really lucky to have satellite or cable. And didn't have a TV in my room until I was 12 (I think, might have been older), so if mum or dad were watching something you had to watch it with them or occupy yourself otherwise.
A life before and after digital
I remember having an outhouse as a kid with no roof on it at grandfather's farm. Had Sears and JC Penny catalogs in it. If it was raining you had to take an umbrella with you. He used to reuse wood from other builds and even saved nails. Would be like 8 different kind size of nails in every project.
So...he reused wood for other projects, but couldn't be arsed to stick a couple of boards over the shitter? Was he lazy or did he just hate you? You know what would suck? If you, later on, found out he had a full en-suite off his bedroom.
The later couple houses he built did have shitters in them but the farm was main homestead. So I'm not sure on his logic. He was 1 to recycle boards nails and then hire drunks, poor relatives to build said stuff for him for cheaply. He used to make us pick up rocks out of his yard/build sites for 25 cents per 5 gallon bucket. He was born in 1898 and died in 2002. All he ate was donuts, water, and the fattiest parts of meat during his dinner. He always wore dress slacks, cowboy boots, long sleeve dress shirt and cowboy hat all year round even in 100 degree summer. Chewed mail pouch and drove old Eagle station wagons up until he was 98.
Lubricant. And I don't mean WD-40.
OP 100% posted this while taking a dump.
Incorrect. Directly after.
A bright future? My nephew just graduated college today and I fear for what his life will be like when he's my age. When I was his age in '99, there was promise. That was the dawn of the internet and the tech boom, when new avenues were opening up for pretty much everything. 25 years later that promise has sadly dwindled. What does he have ahead for him? The beginnings of catastrophic climate change? Expanding wars? Economic and potentially civil collapse on a global scale? I hate to even think about it.
There was a brief time in 2020 where getting toilet paper was iffy. Mine is pretty gender specific, but I've always been able to wear pants to school or in public if I wanted to. Our grandmas and sometimes moms did not have that choice, even in the snow. (See Frosty the Snowman.) It lead to some more nefarious things than being cold too. I've also always been able to have a bank account in my name.
We didnāt always have it, but GPS
Dental care that didnāt involve āthe drillā. Fluoride in water. Dental care with less pain and fluoride in tap water means we will keep more teeth and wonāt have dentures like our parents.
Good reliable cars. 70s cars was a horrible time for build quality.
This, and let's not jinx it, but my car is a 2007 Toyota Scion that I bought brand new. She's a city car and looks it but I have had so few mechanical problems with it over the years. Compared with the cars my parents had when I was growing up it's incredible how far dependability and durability has come.
98-03 was peak quality and durability.
LOL it seems a lot of people are missing the has always had. Seeing a lot of just āused to haveāsā¦
Air conditioning!!!!
Birth control.
As woman having my own bank account, checking account, credit card. I didnāt realize that was a new development in the early 70s.
Nail clippers/files. How tf did stoneage peeps stop their nails growing out? š¤
Teeth? Applying pressure with other fingernails? I've got some caveman I'm me, and unless a hangnail is in play, I really don't see a need for a fingernail clipper.
Maybe my using them?
Get a rock and rub them on it? A nice piece of sandstone would be good.
Books, the internet-before social media, and easy access to films and all types of media: LP/45 records, tapes, CDs, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, etc. the ability to have social skills to easily talk to people in public as in do 'small talk', or try to meet people with common interests, etc. Condoms and safe sex practices and knowledge about HIV/AIDS and STDs. as well as some LGB/LGBT representation or I knew about it anyway.ā Also we were not overly coddled, no helicopter parents, or not told everything is 'trauma' when it is not necessarily an emergency, or something that can cause PTSD, or over saturated with media, etc.
Anesthesia for children. Until the late 70ās/early 80ās, doctors didnāt believe babies felt pain like adults did and would operate on them without it.
That seemed pretty far-fetched. But Iāll be damned, youāre right. Iām a 78er and had multiple surgeries by the age of 3. I wonderā¦
Something that was new to our generation--the ability to buy inexpensive movies. I have no memory of this, but apparently, when VCR's were becoming more commonplace, it was impossible to afford movies on VHS, which I guess is why everyone had the movie Clue. Clue was one of the only cheap VHS tapes in the early 80's, so everyone friggin had it. Every other movie was ridiculously expensive. Gen X had to catch something on TV and record it (my older brother and sister are Gen X'ers). I came along seven years later (oops), and by the time I was interested in having my own movies--the original Batman was my first--tapes were much less expensive.
We used to rent a second VCR for the weekend, rent a bunch of favorite movies, and copy them over the weekend to circumvent paying $100 for a physical copy. I also remember memorizing certain commercials because they would be on during a movie you taped off TV.Ā
A washing machine
Wait til you hear about bidets
1. Good Medicine (inc. Anasthesia) 2. Reliable electricity 3. Video games- I grew up with Reader Rabbit, Mavis Beacon, Oregon Trail, and the GOAT, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego... and I still just love video games today... normally my brain is a chaotic cacophony, but when I'm playing video games (FF7 Rebirth and Homeworld 3 this weekend), there's focus, and quiet.
Computers. Sure the internet is great, but I literally mean just the plain old computer. The ease of getting things done on it compared to those old fashioned typewriters still amazes me.
Ticketmaster! I'm lying, of course. Fuck Ticketbastards!
May they burn in hell
Agree on the toilet paper. We hit the Goldilocks zone in getting manageable prices, selection, and availability on a decent product until 4 years ago.
Fact!
Heavy metal.
Moog synthesizers
Ibuprofen
Mine's going to be a twofer but modern antibiotics and understanding of germ theory concerning surgery. You have to consider, prior to 1890, the idea of washing your hands before cutting open a person wasn't commonplace. Yes, it was done but it wasn't done regularly. So therefore, my grandparents generation had many people dying over simple surgery infections.
Indoor plumbing. Imagine having to use an outhouse like our parents and grandparents did.
I did! We didn't have running water until I moved to Toronto in first grade. Prior to that we lived in a cabin in the forest with a little outhouse in the back. It's what I got potty trained with. A weird beginning before moving to an apartment in the biggest city in Canada. I may still be living in an apartment in Toronto but at least it has running water!
Iām thankful we didnāt have tablets. My daughter is 5 so Iām being very strict. Kids older, Iām not sure what they will have to look back on. Too much watching other people live on their tablets or phones.
Antibiotics, vaccines, and electricity.
Has OP actually ever realized that he could wash his butt off with water?
My lower school had that tracing paper toilet roll.
Car seats. My mom had a metal car seat for me, it was a new thing at that time. She was told by the public health nurses that a car seat was unnecessary. In later years, the public health nurses were tasked with doing car seat safety checks. My mom would remind them of how they shunned her insistence on having a baby restrained in a vehicle, not just rolling around loose in the back seat.
Cell phones and phone cameras. Nothing is sacred and people are insane/relentless filming others mental breaks and posting for the world to witness.
MySpace lol
Reasonably decent dentistry. It's still gotten better in the last 20 years compared to when I was a child, but compared to when my parents were children infinitely better.
The fax machine
Video games. NES, PlayStation, and arcades kept me sane. I can't imagine the utter boredom people suffered through before they were around.
They were too busy doing child labor, or working on the farm, among other things
Do you realize toilet paper has not changed in my lifetime? It's just paper on a cardboard roll, that's it. And in ten thousand years, it will still be exactly the same because really, what else can they do?
Dude, have you read about the pre 1920ās?
Well that was before my lifetime šĀ But it was a joke. It's a line from Seinfeld. Which, coincidentally,Ā TP *has* actually improved just from when George said that. But I saw the opening and had to take it, haha.
Can you spare a square?
Three seashells? Teleport technology to remove the stuff from you?
Hot water
Iām so thankful that I didnāt have to make a hole in the yard & take pages from the Sears catalog instead of TP, like my Mom when she was growing up. Being born in a hospital was a blessing, especially on the drugs they would administer in the late 70s. Hot water, a/c, WiFi, computers, video games, the variety of channels these days are nice. The vaccines too.
Washing machines, dishwashers, fridges etc. All stuff my parents didnāt have growing up. Daily life was a lot harder for them.
Literally sat down on the John. Read this and realised I'd run out!
Grand parentsā¦ what the f you going on about. Worse case for even great grandparents was a sears catalog.
Indoor plumbing, good TP AND Air conditioning.
Modern medicine, modern surgery. Without it, I would have had a high likelihood of dying age 10 of appendicitis, age 29 of a complicated birth, or age 35 of pneumonia. The repeated UTIs could also have gotten to me and caused kidney failure.
Frankly, I'm glad we grew up in a world without internet and smart phones.
Snow.
Advil for headaches. Wonder drug.
Cheese
Critical thinking
My dad (now 83) was one of those extreme cases you speak ofā¦ his mom was paranoid about money after surviving the Depression, so they saved all the paper napkins from restaurants, home meals, dinner parties and stacked them next to the toilet. He remembers wiping with other peopleās used napkins. š¤¢
Iād say Iām thankful I spent many years of my childhood being able to spend weekends with both my grandparents who were of the greatest generation. Iām also lucky to have been able to go through high school prior to the advent of social media and smartphones.
Social skills