How were children raised in the 50s and 60s?

[Blackhawk]

And that's the hard part of the question. Those who didn't survive and their families would probably say that it wasn't worth it, and the parents back then weren't going far enough. Those who watch our kids grow up without the kind of freedoms we had wonder if we've gone too far.

[GreenGoo]

And that's the hard part of the question. Those who didn't survive and their families would probably say that it wasn't worth it, and the parents back then weren't going far enough. Those who watch our kids grow up without the kind of freedoms we had wonder if we've gone too far.

+1.

[Lorini]

I grew up as the one of three African American kids in a white K-6 elementary school and it was not pretty.

[dbt1949]

I grew up in Orange county and from 7-12 grades I never saw a black kid. I thought they were a myth.

[Default]

Dogshit everywhere. Everywhere. Exhaust fumes and cigarrette smoke everywhere.

[dbt1949]

You were kept in a kennel?

[GreenGoo]

I grew up as the one of three African American kids in a white K-6 elementary school and it was not pretty.

The only black kid in my grade school in the 70's was my best friend and we had sleep overs at each other's houses and birthday parties attended by many of our classmates, until he moved away and I was sad.

My kids' elementary school has so many different cultures that I don't even recognize 1/2 of them.

With that said, Lawbeef pointed out that Canada is 85+% caucasian. I think that makes a difference. People start getting a lot more racist when the numbers are closer. I know multiple completely unapologetic (for Canadians) racists. So that's not so good.

[Kraken]

I grew up in Orange county and from 7-12 grades I never saw a black kid. I thought they were a myth.

My parents freaked out when busing came to our school district while I was in grade school. I was too young to understand why black people were scary, and they freaked even worse when I made friends with a kid named Nate. We were never able to pal around after school, though, because at the end of the day he got back on that bus.

[gameoverman]

Dogshit everywhere. Everywhere. Exhaust fumes and cigarrette smoke everywhere.

One of the things I marvel at is that I remember when I was a kid, smoking cigarettes was so common it was everywhere. My parents didn't smoke but we had ashtrays all throughout our home because various relatives or friends of my parents might come over on any given day and almost all of them smoked. No smoker was without an ashtray. And people smoked at the dinner table, while people were eating, and everyone acted like it was the most normal thing because it was!

Now? I honestly can't remember the last time I saw anyone smoke a cigarette inside someone's home, even their own home. I do not know one person who smokes cigarettes. The only smokers I see anymore are people on the street, which makes sense since if you're going to smoke around here it has to be outside. Most businesses and people don't welcome smokers.

That's a pretty big cultural shift and it happened in what seems to me to be a short time, less than one lifetime.

[Isgrimnur]

That's a pretty big cultural shift and it happened in what seems to me to be a short time, less than one lifetime.

Some lifetimes are longer than others.

[Jeff V]

That's a pretty big cultural shift and it happened in what seems to me to be a short time, less than one lifetime.

When everyone was doing it, it was pretty invisible. I at least never noticed it because my parents smoked, then me and my siblings all did. I do recall though in college, the class convinced our non-smoking teacher to let us smoke during a 3 hour final exam. Everyone in the class chain smoked, the teacher turned green.

Fast forward and having long quit and been out of any smoking environments, I went to a bar in Indiana which, at the time, still hadn't banned smoking. Not only could I not stand being inside, but the smell on my coat turned me green while driving. On a cold winter day, I had to take it off and put it in the trunk of the car, it was literally making me nauseous.

[Holman]

My 9th-grade Biology teacher smoked in his room between classes and chain-smoked all through his free period.

After lunch he would unlock the door and you could watch a massive cloud of Marlboro just kind of roll out into the hallway.

I think it was as late as the early 90s that it was affirmed unacceptable to smoke in people's houses/apartments. People smoked indoors during late-80s college parties; by grad school, they had to go outside.

[GreenGoo]

I grew up with an ashtray in my room. Like, when I was 4 or 5 onward (probably earlier but that's as early as I remember). It had a little pregnant woman on it with the caption "I should have danced all night". I asked my mom (she was the smoker) what it meant and she said the woman had swallowed a bowling ball. We weren't very progressive or open about such things.

It just now occurs to me that my mom put an ashtray in her youngest kid's room with a woman who regretted getting pregnant on it. So...that's not great. We never did get along once I hit puberty and she's dead now so it's all water under the bridge. Still, what a thing to realize.

In any case, I was an athlete with a flemy hack whenever I exercised despite never having smoked. Thanks, mom.

[Scuzz]

And you forgot asbestos.

There was a sheet of asbestos behind a stove pipe in our garage growing up. We used to marvel at its properties by taking a propane torch to it and observing it not burning. The stove pipe was never connected to anything, it was a relic of time long passed.

If you grew up in the 50s and 60s you had asbestos in all your linoleum flooring (still do probably), in your plumbing lines and insulation. I think it was in the drywall as well.

[Scuzz]

I grew up as the one of three African American kids in a white K-6 elementary school and it was not pretty.

I think my little league had one black kid in it, and he was on my team. I don't remember any black kids in my elementary school. But my junior high and high school were well represented. That high school is now the most ethnically diverse in the school district.

[Jeff V]

If you grew up in the 50s and 60s you had asbestos in all your linoleum flooring (still do probably), in your plumbing lines and insulation. I think it was in the drywall as well.

Drywall? We has plaster walls.

I actually did install some drywall when I moved into the basement of that house, but that was 80's-era US Gypsum.

[em2nought]

I grew up with an ashtray in my room. Like, when I was 4 or 5 onward (probably earlier but that's as early as I remember). It had a little pregnant woman on it with the caption "I should have danced all night". I asked my mom (she was the smoker) what it meant and she said the woman had swallowed a bowling ball. We weren't very progressive or open about such things.

It just now occurs to me that my mom put an ashtray in her youngest kid's room with a woman who regretted getting pregnant on it.

Now that's funny!

[coopasonic]

Buncha old farts.

Both of my parents (and all of their siblings) smoked. Of the three kids only my older brother took it up. I am pretty sure there was never an ashtray in the kids' rooms though. There was also only exceedingly rarely a parent in the kids' rooms.

[Scuzz]

Today’s drywall sheets, tape and joint compounds are also safe to work with. That wasn’t the case with earlier drywall products. Until the 1980s, practically all drywall building components contained asbestos. Originally, manufacturers added asbestos fibers into drywall materials to make them lighter, stronger and more fire resistant.

I remember in the 2000s I think how some Chinese imported drywall was found to have asbestos in it.

[Blackhawk]

I do worry about the lack of diversity my kids are exposed to. The town where they go to school has an African-American population: 0.1%. White is at 98%. I've raised them to be tolerant, but when it comes to minorities, all they really know is stories.

[Holman]

I fear this will sound like bragging WRT diversity, but my kids just hosted a D&D session involving five players: 2 white, 1 latino, 1 black, and 1 asian.

D&D aside, this mix of friends was probably mostly unheard-of prior to 2000 or so.

[Jeff V]

When I picked up my half-Asian kid from preschool today, a black boy gave him a hug. This made me so happy. I did not encounter a black classmate myself until college.

[Lorini]

Just saw the movie The Green Book yesterday and it seemed like everyone was smoking. And as an ex smoker and now suffering from emphysema, it just made me feel bad. Yeah my parents both smoked, in the car, in hospitals, threw lit cigarette butts out the window, all the stuff we recoil from now. Which is a good thing.

I think now there's much more of an awareness of the importance of exposing your kids to diverse populations, no matter how you do it. Which is also a good thing .

[Unagi]

When I was a child I had a recurring dream/nightmare... (sorta both).

It would always begin with me sitting on some kitchen floor with 2 other kids sitting opposite me, we formed three points of a triangle.
One kid was Asian, the other was African American... I didn't know these 2 kids in real life, they were just my partners in this dream.
In the dream, we played with a ball... rolling it to each other. The game's rule was that if you rolled it and it went outside our triangle, you had to retrieve it.... and if it went down the staircase into the basement..... well sucks to be you, because that is where the kidnapper was, and you still needed to go down there and get it. I always rolled the ball out of the triangle and down the stairs - the two boys would look at me with a scared face - and there the dream would begin. The two other boys would be with me throughout the rest of the dream, we would always work out an escape together and it would be epic. Often it involved making a break for it when the kidnapper went inside a McDonalds to grab something to eat. The kidnapper, by the way, was always movie reviewer: Gene Shalit.

[Blackhawk]

I hate when that happens.

[Scuzz]

Gene Shalit was kinda freaky looking.

[Daehawk]

50s and 60s had it easy.

[Scuzz]

An elementary school near my parents old hous, where I went school, remodeled the playground several years ago adding many swingsets and changing some other stuff out. Those swingsets lasted only a few weeks before they were removed because the school district was afraid of being sued because of injuries.

[GreenGoo]

When I was a kid, we had this rope climbing net, but instead of hanging vertically, the bottom was moved away from the base and raised a little, creating a little hammock at the bottom. We used to just fling ourselves off and drop/roll down the net into the hammock without a care in the world. It wasn't ramp-like, the angle was probably less than 10 degrees off the vertical, so it was (almost) a straight drop. Making matters worse, the structure holding the end of the net making the hammock were 4x4's or maybe 6x6's standing straight up, like piles (the pile driver kind of pile, not a random group of things type pile) and we'd just drop into the hammock mere inches from those piles. Every movie ever made where a guy falls and breaks his head/neck on something was what we were in danger of every single day.

When they removed it (I was a teenager by then) I thought it was lame and ridiculous that someone would consider it a risk. Now that I'm old, fragile and mortal, not to mention a parent, that thing was a death trap waiting to weed out the young via random luck. It's a miracle no one died (that I can remember anyway).

It was also my favourite public play structure ever.

[dbt1949]

Two of the grade schools I attended no longer exist. One was built back in the 30s or 40s and the other was brand new (at the time) built in the late 50s.
Slowly I'm losing my existence.
I started off in a new high school too.(1964) To this day they still don't have a football stadium.

[GreenGoo]

Two of the grade schools I attended no longer exist. One was built back in the 30s or 40s and the other was brand new (at the time) built in the late 50s.
Slowly I'm losing my existence.
I started off in a new high school too.(1964) To this day they still don't have a football stadium.

My high school closed about 7 years after I graduated. I absolutely felt like a part of me was being removed from existence. The buildings still stand, but they are repurposed.

[dbt1949]

Almost all of the military bases I was stationed at no longer exist either.

[Isgrimnur]

My sister graduated from her HS in 1989. It opened in 1953. In 2006, they bulldozed it and the football field, swapped locations, and rebuilt them. It went from an outdoor-entry buildings separated by walkways to an indoor school. Nothing beats walking outside between classes in 100-degree heat.

My HS building was opened in 1931 and is on the registry of historic places. We didn't get air conditioning until my senior year.

[Kraken]

We used to swing as hard as we could, and then launch at the top of the arc. The objective was to clear the chain-link fence. Hundreds of us were killed trying, their bodies left moldering on the spikes atop the fence. In fact, the best strategy was to land on a fresh corpse and tumble over to the other side. You just couldn't get enough momentum to clear that fence.

Don't even ask about the teeter-totter.