" What I miss is this being NORMAL for all people . "
Since it feels like time is moving at the speed of light, it’s natural to forget what used to happen way back when. So when Reddit userlewisSharon7x8asked: “What’s something that used to be normal but would shock people today?” in ther/AskOldPeoplesubbreddit, over two thousand people delivered some nostalgic answers. Here’s what they said below.
1.“The amount of kids who could fit in the back of a station wagon.”
2.“Free-range kids with no tracking. I left home on Saturdays after the last good cartoon, and my family didn’t see me again until dinner. I was in the woods fighting imaginary Russians or having bottle rocket wars with kids on the block.”
— BrooklynDoug
" This ! My mom kicked us outside when we get rowdy and tell us to come back when she whistled ! We knew not to launch the stop sign at one final stage of the route and the mailbox on the other . We had treehouses made from random shit we found in the woods and would combat each other . Man , my kids now could never . "
— sheburns17
3.“Smoking on airplanes.”
4.“I was babysitting an infant and a four-year-old when I was 11. These days, a lot of 11-year-olds have sitters or nannies.”
— hissyfit64
5.“Latchkey kids. Kids finished school at 2:30 p.m., and parents didn’t get home until 5:30. Kids were home alone and had to entertain themselves. No internet, no cell phones, only landlines, their friends, and their homework. If they were lucky, they’d have bicycles or a nearby playground to shoot hoops at.”
6.“People being completely unreachable, even children, for multiple days. Not in a ‘they aren’t answering work emails on purpose, but are posting on Instagram’ kind of way — but truly, no one knows where the hell this person is or how to get in touch with them… oh well, ok. Carry on.”
— Potential_Grape_5837
" God , I soooooo lack this . Not just for myself , because it ’s potential to still drop off the planet for a while , but what I miss is this being NORMAL for all people . Like in the before cell phone , before answering political machine twenty-four hours . Call and give a message with someone who answer . Or not .
' Where is Jake ? ' ' Oh , he run down South for a few day . Check back next week . ' "
— nysflyboy
7.“Walking to airline gates without a ticket or TSA. When I was a kid, my mom would take me to BWI airport, and we would watch the planes from the pier.”
8.“If I was fussy in the grocery store, my mom would make me go out and sit in the car by myself. (Age 5-8.)”
— Superb - Charge6779
9.“Resistance to seat belts. Some people kept their seat belts connected and sat on them, so they could bypass the alarm system. It took a long time for people to get adjusted to using them.”
10.“Stores were closed on Sundays.”
— stevensoncrazy
" close for the holidays , too . Actually , fully close for Thanksgiving through the week . Christmas is often the whole calendar week . Lots of folks talk about ' great again , ' but they got ta store , shop class , shop class , or work , study , crop through every holiday . And draw a blank federal holiday . slow down , being shut , allowing for reset prison term . This is why people are unmanageable now . Everyone is beat . "
— KimVG73
11.“Not being able to access an ATM any time you need money.”
12.“Corporal punishment. It was very much fading out by my time, but strapping/paddling kids at school did happen.”
— zxcvbn113
" This dead still went on in my public elementary schoolhouse through the ' 70 . By the time I was in 3rd gradation , it was hold for the head teacher , but it still happened at times . And it happened at home plate for virtually every Thomas Kyd I know ( including me ) until at least the early ' LXXX or after . "
13.“Walking to and from school, alone, for over a half-mile. I was about four blocks from my middle school bus distance (the school was about a mile and a half away, and bus routes started two miles from school), so while my mom would drive me to school, I would either take the public transit bus or walk home. It was about a 30-minute walk home.”
14.“Rotary dialing a phone number. The idea of long-distance toll charges on phone calls; dialing 0 for an operator (always a lady); 411 for information; white pages, yellow pages, even blue pages in a phone book sent out yearly by ATT, GTE.”
15.“No sunscreen when on the beach or out in the sun. Or worse: using baby oil and laying out in the sun.”
— mauiprana
" Baby crude , a reflector , and iodine . "
— Habibti143
16.“Layaway… this was a big thing!”
17.“When I was a teenager, I used to cycle around, and if I had to telephone someone, I would just knock on some (random) person’s door, asking politely if I could make a call — or even go to the toilet sometimes. Most people would be ok with it.”
— TenaStelin
18.“My sister wasn’t allowed to get credit in her own name. She had to apply for a credit card as ‘Mrs (husband’s first name, last name).'”
19.“Television stations going off the air around midnight along with a patriotic song, followed by a test pattern that remained until morning.”
— aav_meganuke
20.“Phone calls with your friends… from the house phone.”
Is there something that was considered normal back in the day that would shock people today? Tell us
