5 better, 5 worse from when you were a child

Better:
1/ Everyone was more polite, respectful and friendly
2/ No knife crime, gangs and drugs
3/ No smartphones and computer games
4/ Better music and movies
5/ Better transport

Worse:
1/ No computers
2/ Cars
3/ Food
4/ Medical treatments
5/ Smoking in public places

Sorry Mistake in Better:
5/ Better clothes!

Better
Freedom to play outside from morning to night
No tv or computers, so read a lot
Extended family all relatively close by
Many shops on high streets doing good business

Worse
Outside loo
11plus
Dentistry
Harsh teaching

Missed out two 🙄
Better
Christmas not so commercialised

Worse
Too many obese people

aren't there more obese people now ?

I think people are getting better and worse mixed up here. Surely if it was better to be able to tell jokes without offence then that was worse surely - was it really better to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic etc? ( if that’s what the op means). Plus there certainly was knife crime, gangs etc back in the day - it’s not new.

I agree coolcoco I was getting muddled up here
I grew up in the 60 s there were always fights and casualties look at the mod and rocker fights and later the awful football troubles
Hollysteers we don’t have outside loos and 11pluses now this is really muddled

Now I m getting muddled is it now and then or all then

Just to clarify ‘5 good things and 5 bad things from the PAST’ when you were young.

5 things that were better when I was a child in the 1940s and 50s:

Family life was more stable
Clothes were prettier (for girls)
More unspoilt countryside
Better public transport
Less commercial junk food and music

5 things that were worse:

Attitudes towards minorities of all sorts
Death penalty was still legal
Beating children was still legal
Rigid concepts of gender (how males and females ought to be behave).
Home heating!
Less social mobility

(Sorry, that’s six.)

5 better
1 Smaller school …loved it
2 more shops could spend hours wandering round
3 cooked dinner (at dinner time)
4 less traffic, more cycles
5 less plastic

5 worse
1 no knowledge of accepting differences
2 dogs wandering in packs
3 little mental health help
4 no phones difficult communication queuing at phone box
5 no soft toilet rolls

Better
Levels of respect for other people and professions
Proper school lunches
Use of public transport
Quality of clothes
Levels of aspiration

Worse
Pollution from coal
Shorter life expectancy
Pension poverty
Housing quality
Coffee 🙂

Better:
1. All the kids walking to local schools
2. Freedom to play outdoors and roam unsupervised.
3. Local markets with local produce
4. Children not sent to breakfast clubs, after school clubs and holiday clubs but actually looked after by their parents.
5. Proper pubs

Worse:
1. Cold homes in Winter
2. More pressure to conform
3. Little access to reliable contraception
4. Outside toilet, bath in kitchen
5. Everything closed on Sunday

Mamissimo- my Mum was a ‘coffee snob’ and used to get blue mountain coffee and go to a place in Bromley that sold proper coffee- late 1950s! I know what you mean, though- nasty fake coffee still around ( chicory) then.

Housing- mostly affordable on one wage and perhaps one part time wage, or council housing.

Jobs seemed plentiful.

Lots of local produce.

Meadows and unspoilt countryside.

School milk

But worse-

Racist and homophobic 'banter' acceptable.(delighted in by many)

'Shame' felt by many people who had mental health problems

Corporal punishment.

Vile ready made freezer food.

Lack of children's helplines/ safe spaces.

Better:
Close community, everybody knew each other
Healthy, home cooked food
Playing outside without safety worries
Simpler life not dominated by media
Education

Worse
Transport and road systems
No central heating
Easy to lose touch with people
People dying or disabled by preventable diseases which are now curable
Low expectations for girls careers

Worse: Capital punishment, I was very young when the last hanging took place, but the thought of state sanctioned murder makes me shudder.

Appalling judgemental attitudes towards pregnancy before marriage and the heartbreaking forced adoptions that often followed. How many of those women suffered.

Relating to school days, the way children were punished at school or not listened to, or not allowed to have an opinion. I hated school milk, there was no get out, it was foisted upon us all, similarly hated some of the vile dinners, rice pudding, lumps in it the size of planets. Forced to eat until you gagged, and still had to keep going. Something I vowed I'd never do my children. On the other hand the teaching of basic arithmetic was far more thorough, boring it might have been but I think it's fair to say most of us can multiply by say 5 for example without grabbing a phone to work it out, something I've witnessed being served recently plus similar examples of how subsequent generations appear to grapple with mental arithmetic and I was far from gifted in that respect, but we spent ages on the different concepts.

Lack of central heating, it was f f freezing in the rooms that didn't have a fire.

Intolerance around differences pertaing to race and sexuality.

Better:

Freedom to rome around as a child, no helicopter parenting.

No such thing as a keyboard warrior, those who hide behind their anonymity to threaten others.

Bland food consigned to the past the fact that we've embraced international cuisines from around the world. Much better coffee.

No reality stars then a modicum of talent was required unlike reality stars of today.

Information and the ability to self educate far easier these days. There were limits to the best of encyclopedias

Better years ago:
Childhood freedom - I would not have missed that for the world
More pride - people dressed smartly when they went out and kept their homes cleaner than today on the whole. Hospital staff were immaculately dressed and hospitals so clean you could have eaten off the floor.
A slower pace of life - women at home knowing their neighbours and few people where I lived ever locked their doors
A smaller population with more room to move and quieter roads
Pubs with pianos and singsongs

Worse years ago:
Dentistry - remember those drills and the pain!
Gossiping - everyone used to gossip about everyone else
Food - some was just awful especially cheap meat full of gristle
Lack of communication (no mobiles or hardly any house phones) meant people often did not talk to one another for long periods.
Televisions - black and white which had to warm up
Home interiors - lino, coconut matting, no central heating, and in my first childhood home there was no bathroom and no real kitchen - only a scullery.

Better -More sense of community and as most mums stayed at home there was always someone around for a child in difficulty.
Freedom. Wandering around the fields and woods with friends.
Very few cars. Nobody owned a car in my close so safe to play.
Smaller meals with home grown veg. You rarely saw an overweight child.
Just more peaceful. No TV, phone or technology to spoil the tranquility.

Worse. Women mostly having menial jobs and as there was little childcare many stayed at home.
Awful food at school.
Teachers allowed to demean pupils.
Treats were few and far between. We had a small bag of sweets on a Friday.
No heating except in one room where a fire was lit. The bedroom windows had icicles on the inside!

Better:
Less traffic
More wildlife of all kinds, including the vital insects which are endangered now
Lower population so less pressure on nature and less danger of pandemics due to transferred viruses
Fewer plastic toys
Less ultra-processed food

Worse:
More inequality for women, including both the attitude to those pregnant out of wedlock and not being able to get a mortgage in your own name, just for a start
Smog
Having to wear skirts or dresses most of the time ( I live in trousers now)
No fluoride toothpaste so more tooth decay
Hard toilet paper

Better then:

1. Freedom for children to play outside
2. Lower crime
3. More sense of community
4. Less traffic. I could safely cycle to secondary school. There were hardly any cars along the route, apart from on one road I had to cross
5. Less plastic

Worse then:

1. Dentistry
2. Medical treatment
3. Racism and anti-gay prejudice were more socially acceptable
4. Cold houses. I remember the frost on the inside of windows
5. Food. Actually this is mixed. There was more freshly cooked food and fewer UPFs, but on the other hand fruit and veg are sold fresher now, there is much more variety of ingredients and meals, and coffee in cafés is better. Food hygiene is probably better now

I also agree with points made by PPs. Especially about hard toilet paper!

And smoking in public. So glad that went.

Better:
Friendly neighbours
Playing outside
Mums stayed home
Fresh food cooked from scratch.
Families/relatives lived close by
Worse:
Lack of vaccines for serious illnesses
The terrible smogs/fogs
Homes were cold with ice on inside of windows
Dentistry
Health and safety

Better

Family life and mums at home for their kids (not sent to clubs)
No distracting mobile phones
Lovely school and teaching
Nicer accessible holidays
Air con

Worse

Attitudes towards non-white people
Attitudes towards gay people
Poor dental care
Worse health care than currently (seems impossible)
Deaths/horrible injuries in the wars (one RAF pilot uncle was shot down, other came home shell shocked, grandmother never recovered)