Psychology says people who grew up in the 1960s and 70s learned 9 life lessons that are rarely taught today

Global English Editing ^ | January 25, 2026 | Farley Ledgerwood

[MayflowerMadam]

I was the middle child of five, growing up in Ohio during the 1960s. My father worked double shifts at the factory. My mother stretched every dollar until it squeaked. And most afternoons, my brothers and I roamed the neighborhood unsupervised until the streetlights flickered on.

Looking back, I realize our childhoods looked nothing like what kids experience today. There were no smartphones, no helicopter parents, no curated activities designed to optimize our development. There was just life, unfiltered and unscheduled.

[PeterPrinciple]

Tough times is the cure for what ails society now. How do we make that happen?

[fidelis]

The transformation of sexual morays

I think you mean, "sexual mores'. "Morays" are a type of eel. Still your point is well taken.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

One lesson that I learned growing up as a kid in the 1970s - hide all the pictures of you in bell bottoms from your kids or else be prepared to be ridiculed mercilessly.

[Reily]

And that’s A Moray!

Apologies to Dean Martin, Tony Bennett or any other Italian nightclub crooner!

[Sequoyah101]

I can’t recall a single time in my life when I was bored. I can always read if nothing else. I have been a library regular from an early age. As a kid I read the World Book cover to cover. If I was not reading I was outside at my paper route, mowing lawns, scouts, playing with friends or something else.

[EnderWiggin1970]

Shoot, I remember wiping out on my bike and having to pull gravel out of my knee.

Same here, staying out past sunset under the lights at the local schoolyard or just riding around the neighborhood. I wiped out in the school parking lot one time; a small pebble drove a furrow up along the bone in my forearm and lodged under the skin near my elbow. I had a translucent scar and could see/feel the pebble for a couple decades after that until it finally absorbed.

Somehow we survived.

[MayflowerMadam]

“40’s, 50’s, 60’s?”

Yeah; maybe this author will write a similar article focusing on those decades. Those are my years — born in the ‘40s, and left college in the ‘60s.

Most of the nine topics in the article really are pertinent to earlier decades, because I can relate to all of them.

[Jamestown1630]

The local library was a big deal in my childhood, too.

[PGR88]

I was a child and young teen in the 1970s in NY, not too far from NYC.

At 11-12 years old (about 1979), we would load my classmate’s father’s guns into their family car, and my classmate’s older brother (who was 16) would drive us out to some empty land and woods he knew of in the suburbs

We would set up targets, cans, bottles. Have competitions and generally blast-away.

Once, a cop drove by. He simply said: “I heard some shooting. Who owns these guns, boys?”

Reply: “Sammy’s Dad sir!” pointing at Sammy

Cop: looking us over... “He knows you are out here?”

Reply: “Yes, sir.”

Cop: “OK boys, just be careful.”

Drives away.

And that was in “liberal” NY State. Makes me realize how perverted our marxist society is now.

[Jamestown1630]

They’re wearing really wide-legged jeans now; not too different from our bell bottoms. I was surprised when I saw the Sydney Sweeney ads.

Fashions never really come back, but certain references to them do.

[wasmv80]

You respected rules, boundaries, and other people’s property and space.

Correct; and there was a proper way to approach, and be, on somebody else's property.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

When you swim in the creek
And an eel bites your cheek
That’s a moray...

(from one of the Freak Brothers comics by Gilbert Shelton)

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

I seem to have a better memory than a number of my Cousins and friends of our childhood. We were all over town and by our early teens, bike riding trips to different counties more than 20 miles one way. I agree completely with the author's observations of those years, but I disagree with his take on self-checkout lanes in stores, I like the way I pack my stuff.

Now on the pineapple pizza, similar to fruits in beer. I regard that as communistic.

[Carry_Okie]

It was the birth control pill that changed thing.

Both were financed by the same people.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve noticed that the longest lived people are often the ones who maintain great curiosity and involvement in life.

And people who allow themselves to become too rigid or set in their ways don’t seem to do as well mentally or physically.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Now on the pineapple pizza, .... I regard that as communistic.”

Gross beyond belief.

[MikelTackNailer]

thus making it a Sexual Moray. I always check the internet now before dismissing the seemingly preposterous.

Seriously though, it's no wonder current generations have maturity development problems. They're hovered over during their early years only to be handed over to "the system" of pseudo-parenting called schools, screen entertainment, social media immersion and a government that never stops limiting freedoms in the name of safety and advancement.

Add how lawyers have transformed America into a landscape of litigation and settlements where foolishness is too-often rewarded compared to when we learned to be better from our mistakes...

[dljordan]

“1) Boredom was the birthplace of creativity”

Unfortunately sometimes I got a little too creative.

[NavyShoe]

And when we got in trouble, boy did we get in trouble.

[Jamestown1630]

It sounds weird, but I’d be willing to try it...once.