It’s no secret that many long to return to the so-called “good old days” of their youth. However, at some point or another, one begins to question just how “good” those days truly were. While an individual may have enjoyed the fashion, music, or movies of their younger years, there’s no denying that the past certainly had a dark side…
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So, a few weeks ago, we asked the older adults of the BuzzFeed Community to shed their rose-colored glasses and tell us about the negative aspects of life “back in the day” that many overlook — and they did not hold back. From prevalent sexism, racism, and anti-gay biases to environmental pollution and the ever-present threat of nuclear war — here are 17 appalling occurrences that were normalized in the past:
1.“As a woman, I had fewer rights of my own. When I was younger than 21, I could not sign for anything without my dad‘s approval. My dad even had to approve the car I was attempting to buy. After marriage (I was still under 21), my husband had to sign for everything. After I turned 21, I got a job. Of course, I later became pregnant and was forced to quit.”
“I wasn’t quite ready to quit, but I was pregnant, and the rules stated you had to quit six weeks before your due date. No maternity leave. No holding a job for you. No one wants you to return because you had an infant at home, and your place was to be home with the baby. At that time, I was actually raised to believe that stuff. So many more things I could bring up, but those two issues really stuck in my head over the years.
Now I’m 84 years old and still have lasting repercussions, such as reduced Social Security because of limited years of work. Many of you probably think you would not have put up with everything women went through back then, but believe me, you would have. I grew up in a man’s world and was repeatedly reminded of that.”
— Anonymous, age 84, Maryland,
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2.“Growing up during the Cold War, the possibility of nuclear war was ever-present. I frequently had nuclear war nightmares, which only ended after the fall of the USSR.”
“My elementary school had a fallout shelter, and when I was in third grade, the principal took my class down there and passed out small containers of water and crackers, explaining that we could live down there with our classmates if war broke out. We didn’t understand the potential horrors — just that we’d have crackers and water. Such a strange time.”
3.“We were taught to trust doctors implicitly. We were never to question or challenge a doctor because they were much smarter and knew more than we did about our own bodies, and questioning them showed disrespect. Maybe that’s because most doctors were men?”
“My mother died an early, painful death because she never questioned her doctors or spoke up when she felt they were wrong. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve received a diagnosis or recommendation from a doctor proved to be wrong, I’d be rich…”
—Anonymous, age 54
4.“Getting a college degree did NOT guarantee any job opportunities for many. As a Black man, I graduated three times from college. I earned a BS in Finance, an MBA in Finance, and an MS degree. Too many times, I was denied employment and told that I was ‘overqualified’ even for any entry-level or trainee positions.”
“How can a person be overqualified for jobs with a pay scale larger than anything they had ever been paid in their entire lives? Those were dirty little white lies invented to protect the jobs and the paychecks of white men who had been hired (all advertised prerequisites for their positions had been waived). They got hired and put into management with no college degrees, no professional training, and often very little (if any) experience. They were most likely unorganized and were totally incompetent in their jobs, yet there they were, mainly as a result of Nepotism and Cronyism. They also were afraid of eventually having to compete against people like me in the future when it came to promotions within that company. Therefore, they did everything possible to keep people like me out of that company.
This came to light years later when I filed a lawsuit for discrimination against them, and my attorneys had subpoenas issued for the certified copies of the college transcripts of four different local managers. Certified meant that it had to come directly from the Registrar’s office at the college or university where they claimed to have gone. No transcript meant either they never even attended or failed to graduate. My lawsuit was against a bank that had named four white men as individual co-defendants. Out of those four, there was only one who actually had a college degree. His degree was in ‘German Literature.’ What does that have to do with managing American money? Nothing. Whereas I had an MBA in Finance, and I was told by those managers that my degree was NOT suitable, and I was given weak excuses while they — with only high school diplomas — all enjoyed nicer paychecks in addition to other ‘perks.'”
—Ralph M. age 68, Boston, MA
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5.“Hitting kids was allowed and encouraged. Parents, other relatives, neighbors, and in certain situations, teachers and religious officials used corporal punishment to enforce rules.”
“It was nothing to see a parent haul off and smack an accompanying child in all manner of ways. And when they weren’t hitting you, they were threatening to hit you.”
— Anonymous, 45, Louisiana
6.“When my mother passed away in 1962, I tried to sign up for Home Economics but was told it was for ‘girls only.’ My dad and I ate a lot of frozen toaster waffles for some time afterward until an aunt got me a basic cookbook.”
“I also began to realize around that time that feeling different from my peers had to do with being gay. That word wasn’t popular then, but there were plenty of slurs. The American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973, and many religious institutions weren’t very welcoming either. The most difficult aspect of coming out for me was accepting where this left me.
There was no internet for researching the subject, so I looked up magazine articles at the library and came to the conclusion that if I wanted to find like-minded people, I’d have to move to New York City.
Fortunately, I lived close to Boston and found this hidden world right in front of me, and with no internet, meeting others face-to-face was thrilling in this crowded underworld!”
—LAD, age 77
7.“Growing up near three major military bases left many people, like myself, affected by trauma. Vietnam-era veterans came home wounded both physically and mentally, and their problems affected their families and community.”
“Inappropriate and often illegal behaviors — such as stalking, assault of all kinds, general theft, car theft/damage, daytime drinking, and daily drama, not to mention unemployment and poverty — ran rampant in these communities.
While my siblings and I did not go to Vietnam, we were raised to give respect and empathy to all those who did. We never thought of demeaning or spitting on men and women who served their country. We never thought of calling the police to report the bad behavior of veterans. It just was. The children in these households of veterans were traumatized by the PTSD that came home from Vietnam.
Anger issues permeated families. Learning issues permeated families. There were neighborhoods in our huge city that were far removed from the reality that existed on this particular east side of town. It was a rough neighborhood, and most of us aspired to grow up and leave these neighborhoods. I made it out, as did all my best friends, thank God.”
—Anonymous, 65, Sun Valley, Idaho.
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8.“Cops! Cops were dirty and abusive, would harass and detain people, or even go so far as to plant drugs or weapons on innocent civilians and ruin people’s whole lives. And you could never do anything about it because it was always your word against theirs.”
“Even though they would lie through their teeth, every judge or jury believed anything cops told them. Now, with cell phones and cameras everywhere, the justice system is beginning to see what many of us knew all along, and dirty and abusive cops are finally beginning to pay for their crimes. Though, if you ask me, not nearly enough of them.”
—Sunny Side Up, 60 years old
9.“Mental Health and neurodiversity weren’t taken seriously…”
“As a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman, I had to put up with decades of emotional abuse and denial from people who were neurodivergent themselves. I was called ‘lazy, flaky, an attention seeker and over-dramatic.’
Depression and anxiety didn’t ‘exist’ either. So many people were told to put up and get on with it.”
10.“In the late 1970s and early ’80s, drinking and driving was considered normal and acceptable unless you were intoxicated to the point of obvious instability; only then did anyone question your ability to drive. But, even in those instances, no one took anyone’s keys away — that just didn’t happen.”
“If we were caught drunk driving, the police would pull us over for speeding, make us throw our alcohol away (if found in the car), and tell us to go home. I’m very embarrassed now to have lived that way — drinking behind the wheel every weekend — and am most grateful that nothing bad ever happened on my account.”
— Anonymous, age 62, Richmond, Virginia
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11.“The environmental pollution: Smokestacks belching 24/7 and laundry could only be hung on the line if the wind was favorable (aka blowing the soot the other way)…”
“Catching catfish with tumors on their heads from the toxins dumped routinely in the local river by industries. Illegal dump sites that would catch fire. No swimming signs with skull and crossbones warnings. Acrid air stung the eyes and the nose. Rivers caught on fire more than once.
I’ve no interest in making America that kind of great again.”
—Anonymous, 67 years old, grew up in Akron, Ohio.
12.“Sex was taboo. An unmarried heterosexual couple would be scorned for ‘living in sin,’ and premarital sex in general was frowned on.”
“Women were ‘common’ or worse unless they waited until ‘the most wonderful night of their life.’ Meanwhile, men were allowed and even expected to have had premarital experiences with their ‘conquests.”
13.“Smoking on airplanes was normal even in the 1980s and part of the 1990s. There was a smoking section, but everyone everywhere in the plane was trapped and had to breathe that air. When you went out to eat or to a restaurant, you would come home smelling of smoke, even up until the 2000s. I was so happy when they banned smoking in these places. What a relief not to wash your hair and clothes immediately after returning home.”
—Anonymous, age 48, USA
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14.“Cars. They are so much more reliable now than when I was younger. When I was young, I remember a motor oil commercial where a car owner bragged about his car making it to 300,000 miles using a particular motor oil. That’s not an accomplishment now with a modern, reliable car — my own car is about to cross 200,000 miles, and it feels tight as a drum.”
“Cars were meant to be replaced every five years, and the build quality was just awful. It’s part of why so many guys were into working on their cars: you had to do it to keep it running. I explained to my sons that everyone my age has a story about being trapped on the side of the road because their car massively broke down (I have eight stories like that; two of them happened on vacation). My sons have never even been in a car that broke down, and they are teenagers at this point.
Cars are much safer now, too. My sons don’t know anyone personally who has been killed in a car accident. By their age, I personally knew three people who had died in car accidents.”
—Anonymous, 44, Alabama
15.“I know people want to believe that crime is out of control right now, but crime used to be worse. For example, the national murder rate when I was younger was 8.3 murders per 100,000 people.”
“Right now, it’s 7.5 per 100,000 people. We think there are more murders, but that’s just because there are more people, and we hear about every murder that happens now almost immediately in modern media.
And increased crime wasn’t just limited to murder. The other day, I saw several trucks in a restaurant parking lot with loads of unsecured items in their beds, and no one stole anything. But, I distinctly remember back in the ’80s, my Dad making us kids transfer stuff out of the truck bed and into the cab to lock up because things would be stolen even if we were just inside next to the parking lot.”
—Anonymous, 48, KY
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16.“The ways women were treated in the workplace. Rampant sexual harassment and bias occurred with no recourse.”
“I’ve worked for the butt-pinching, touchy, ‘honey’ bosses and had co-workers with nudie calendars in their cubicles and sexist jokes. You either put up with it, got fired for not putting up with it, or quit.
Not to mention the even higher wage disparity. Women couldn’t ‘do men’s jobs’ —even menial jobs that paid more. I was the assistant to the vice president of a submersible pump manufacturer. I made $7 an hour. They needed a parts washer (unskilled) in the ‘shop,’ which paid $10 an hour. When I indicated I wanted to apply for that job as it paid so much more, I was told I couldn’t because they only hired men for that job.”
—Anonymous, 62, Orange County, California
17.“While it fostered a sense of independence and self-reliance, it was also very scary for a child to be left home alone for hours, to have to walk home alone at night, etc.”
“I had friends who had to fight for themselves in the dark to not be attacked by strangers when walking home from football games.
I think it’s very important to give kids the freedom to explore and make decisions, and I know bad things happened then, too, but if you can keep your children safer than you were, do it.”
—Tracy, TX
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Did any of these negative aspects of the past surprise you? Can you remember anything that was once normalized but is now considered appalling? Let us know in the comments! (Or, if you prefer to stay anonymous, you can answer using this Google Form).
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence or harassment, you can contact the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs hotline at 1-212-714-1141.
