"This Was Considered Normal": 17 Things That Older Adults Did When They Were Younger That Seem Totally Bizarre Today
Everyday life has changed a lot in my lifetime, and I often wonder what things from my daily routine now will surprise younger people in the future. So, when I came across this Reddit thread of older adults sharing once-normal things that now seem kinda bizarre, my interest was piqued. Here's what people had to say:
1."Anytime you answered a phone, you had no idea who was calling you."
"Alternatively, if you called someone and they answered, there was no need to ask, 'Where are you?'"
2."Paper maps. You had to figure out your own route to where you wanted to go, and road trips seemed more of an adventure back then."
"Navigating by paper map wasn't all that hard.
Folding the stupid things back up was the boss fight."
3."Rampant sexism. I couldn't even open a bank account when I got married."
4."Dogs pooping everywhere. NOBODY picked up dog poop. And there were free-roaming pets, especially dogs, which are far rare now except in rural areas. It was common to have one or two neighborhood dogs that everybody knew by name, just wandering around."
5."How utterly unsupervised we were as tiny children. I remember taking care of my brother by myself for the full summer while my parents worked starting at 8; he was 4."
"Yes, and my parents would leave us four kids in the car while they stopped for groceries. It seemed like they were gone for a while, but I'm not sure now. At least long enough for everyone to be dared to honk the horn, run the windshield wipers, and, if we were really brave, get out and run in a circle around the car."
6."The Yellow Pages."
"And phone books in general. If you knew someone's name, you could find their address and phone number. And if you did not want your name and number in the book, you had to pay extra to have an 'unlisted number.'"
7."Smoking in hospitals and on airplanes."
"There was a smoking section in my high school. I remember a girl who I had a massive crush on coming back from the smoking area and thinking, 'She smokes. She's so TOUGH.'"
"I smoked at my desk at work until the early '90s."
8."When talking on the phone, you had to stay within a 6' circle."
"My wife and I bought her childhood home, and on the brick outside the back door, there are faint pencil names and numbers because they would stretch the cord out the back door to have privacy. We were having a party once, and there was a girl there whose name was on the wall. We showed her; my brother-in-law used to date her."
9."Always carrying dimes, later quarters, when on a date, in case things went sideways."
"Thought of this just the other day. My brother and I went on a miles-long bike ride when we were 8 and 10. My father gave us a dime to call if we flattened a tire or something. When we were almost home, we stopped in a corner store and bought two cokes for that one dime."
10."Arriving at the airport shortly before takeoff, checking your luggage with minimal to no hassle, and boarding your flight."
11."Job listings by gender."
"Listings were often by color as well. Newspapers had a blue line edition for Blacks."
12."As soon as I turned 13, it was assumed by the entire neighborhood that I would babysit. It was common for me to have three kids under the age of seven for hours at a time. This was considered normal for all my friends, too."
"Yes, this was me. 13, watching four kids aged five and under. I would not have had the slightest idea what to do if something had gone seriously wrong. Call my Mom, I guess, if she was home."
13."The milkman. Milk, eggs, cheese, and other dairy-adjacent items were delivered to the house weekly. And the milk and OJ were in glass, returnable bottles."
"Your mom left a note in the milk chute if she needed more or less of something.
It was the Instacart of its day."
14."Girls couldn't wear pants in elementary school. Lots of pictures of snow days, and we're wearing knee socks!"
"In Maine, we had to remove pants inside. Walking to and from school or at recess, we could wear them under our dresses. I had 2 'pantsuits' that really were dresses with matching pants!"
15."Elevator attendants. You told them what floor you wanted."
"My aunt was an elevator operator in a Seattle department store. It was so much fun to go visit her. Floor, please!"
16."Photos were expensive, more rare, and took time to even see how they turned out. You took pictures, dropped your film off (e.g., at a photo booth/stand with a person in a grocery store parking lot or at a film processing shop), then waited for the film to be developed and printed (roughly a week). It cost extra to expedite."
"I took very few photos and occasionally regret not taking pictures of certain things. Once, on a day trip, I took a lot of photos, and when I tried to rewind the film, it got chewed up. It was so upsetting that I still remember it 40 years later. My brain is weird."
17.And finally, "Putting my oldest child on the floorboards in the car. This was before car seats. She was a newborn, so it was clean; I couldn’t just put her on the seat; otherwise, when I stopped at lights, she’d roll off."
"My mom was run off the road by a drunk driver when I was 5. Both she and my brother had concussions, and both she and my sister received severe facial lacerations from broken glass. Everyone but me was in their seat. I was asleep on the floor behind her seat and wasn't injured."
