The Pain of Nostalgia

[AmateisGal]

But i can't make everyone else and the world around me more closely reflect those values..and maybe that's what we really mean when we long for the past.

Well said.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

You are so right, I know it first hand as well. I'm a factory worker, union Teamster and very proud of it. I didn't go to college, but I make a good living, better than most 19 year old guys. I've managed to have a nice home, 4 cars, and all the conveniences. I may not have a piece of paper, but I'm doing what many men like me did in the golden era. Punching the time clock at the plant every day.

The supreme irony, though, is that life for the working class today is actually quite a bit worse than it was then -- there are fewer jobs, fewer opportunities, and much more social prejudice against those who are not college-educated. I know this from first-hand experience.

 

[Kiri]

Originally Posted by swinggal
I certainly have no mis-givings about how difficult the 20s, 30s and 40s were for many people. I would love to go back for a visit now and again (maybe buy lots of clothes to bring back and go to all the jazz clubs I've drooled over forever) but I would not want to stay. I like modern technology and many of todays mod cons.

The things that I wish we still had now are a better sense of community where everyone in the street knew one another, better manners, a sense of pride in how one dressed, a less wasteful society where things lasted forever and could be reused - I HATE the throw-a-way society we have now...I could go on.

The things I would not want to be a part of would be sexism and very few rights for women and racial predjudice on a major scale. I know we still have this now but nowhere near the scale that it was.

I completely agree with you.

 

[kyda]

After reading all responses and weighing my words carefully I am going to dip my toe in here. Yes women were given choices to either stay at home with the children and keep house or to go out to work and have a career. But with those choices came the guilt, if we decide to be a SAHM we are made to feel guilty because we are not working and if we decide to be a working mother we are made to feel guilty as we are not at home looking after our children.
Women still earn less than a man in the workforce and there are not many women CEO's of major companies, or in senior executive roles.

Yes we have made great leaps in medicine and technology, but some times the amount of technology we have has become a bad thing - cyber bullying, child predators etc:

Looking into the pas, well we take the best bits and decide that it would be good to be there. Myself personally I don't think that it would have been so bad to live in the past because I know that as Humans we are trying to improve ourselves and make our lives better, so with that knowledge if you could send me back I would go, because the best is yet to come.

 

[LarryRalp]

I'm a boomer. I was born in 1947 and grew up on a farm in Ohio during the 1950's. My parents worked hard on the farm and when I got older I too worked hard. It taught responsibility. My parent's goal was always that we ( me and my sister) would have a better life than they did growing up in the 20's, 30's and 40's.

We had one car until I was 18. The TV had very limited channels and when it broke down, you maybe had to wait for a few months before you could afford to call the TV repair man.

Our fast food of the day was cold meat - I will not even consider eating it today. My mother did not have time to cook since she was helping my dad farm. In my early years - 9 to 13 - I took care of my sister, cleaned house and learned to cook and do laundry. This did prepare me for later in life and my wife loves it!

As my parents long for, I did go to college and graduate in 1968. I went to a local college and commuted from home and still helped with the farming and had a part time job at a gas station where I pumped the gas and washed the windshield for about $.30 a gallon - "give me a dollars worth" was very common request.

Life back then was simpler, but we had a lot less. Kids my age if they had a car was a junker - something older than 10 years, we had respect for our teachers, who did paddle and our entertainment was the movies, sports and school activities.

Life is more complecated to day because we make it that way. Having kids is like buying a boat - can we afford the payments. Mom and dad both work away from the home either to make ends meet or to afford a better life style. Kids grow up with a baby sister or daycare - never heard of that when I grew up. I sometimes wonder how kids manage this!

Enough said, this was life in the 1950's. Oh, my nick name is LarryRalph. I missed the "h" when I signed up and I don't know how to fix it. I have 2 master degrees, but I'm still learning about computers and the internet. We didn't have that when I grew up.

 

[Jasmine Jolene]

I am very nostalgic for the life that, specifically, my grandparents lived. my grandad was in the RAF and he married my nanny, his sweetheart at age 20. they lived in a council-owned maisonette until the late 80s when my nanny died, then grandad moved.

i think the way i look at it, yes there are bad things and good things about every era, that doesn't stop me wishing i could turn back the clock and experience first-hand the things i really enjoy about bygone times.

 

[Honey Bee]

As for nostalgia, I'm currently "notalgizing" the 80s. It was great, more carefree, the music was the best, and I had lots of vivid thoughts and memories the time. BUT IN REALITY I was horribly picked on, fashionably inept, insecure and so shy my parents tooK me to a shrink, and I was, uh, UGLY lol

My hubby liked the "big hair" of the 80's :eusa_doh:
I told him I didn't wear it then and I am certainly not wearing it now!
When I read your post, I had to think a minute...the 80's..nostalgic? Well, I guess it is now. I was married and having children back then. I thought we were so grown up at 20!!

The plastic, throw away society of today does not interest me and I think that has only occured for me as I have gotten older. My grandma would not make something from scratch if you could buy it from the store as she grew up in that era of having to make it and she would rather spend her time doing other things...like watching "Mike Douglas" or "The Doctor's on the TV! Now I make almost everything from scratch.

I agree that I would like to pick and choose the memories, culture and history of days past, but I do like the time now of being able to gather so much info on what interests me via the internet, like vintage living!

 

[Sweet Caroline]

Fascinating thread!

Quote:
"I suspect kids today live in much a greater sense of day-to-day anxiety than we did -- I honestly can't imagine what it must be like to grow up a child today in the post school-massacre/post-9/11 world. The idea of having to flash an ID card and pass a security guard to get into our school would have been incomprehensible."

I have to say that as a 15 year old, there are sometimes when I wish for and wonder about "simpler days" pertaining to society and safety. People nowadays seem so tightly wound and on edge about everything (and with good reason in many cases.) My dad tells me about how when he was a kid, children just decided to walked to their friends houses and ask to play. I never had this luxury. Now get togethers are often ordeals that are planned far in advance. There was no such things as lockdowns when my parents were in highschool but we had 3 at my school this past year and there is always a police officer on campus. I guess a lot of this has to do with what town or country you live in. So are people more dangerous these days or is society just paranoid?

On a completly differant note, I love living in 2010. As others have said, we have all the modern conveniences but I can look back at history and enjoy other generations music, fashions, literature, film... all depending on what I'm in the mood for

 

[Emer]

The things that I wish we still had now are a better sense of community where everyone in the street knew one another, better manners, a sense of pride in how one dressed, a less wasteful society where things lasted forever and could be reused - I HATE the throw-a-way society we have now...I could go on.

:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Lately I have really been wishing we still had finishing schools or that etiquette courses were still popular. I can't believe how foul and ill-behaved some women are today (sorry for such harsh words, but that's how I feel). I'm all for a little naughtiness, but there's a limit!

 

[Honey Bee]

Enough said, this was life in the 1950's. Oh, my nick name is LarryRalph. I missed the "h" when I signed up and I don't know how to fix it. I have 2 master degrees, but I'm still learning about computers and the internet. We didn't have that when I grew up.

Welcome, LarryRalp! I rather like it without the "h'...makes u very unique indeed!
Also nice to know I am not the only one who is tech challenged!!

What actually stuck with me from your post (other than "give me a dollar's worth!!") was that you said,

Life back then was simpler, but we had a lot less.

I really think that is the key, at least mine anyway, to the 'why' I dream of days gone by....I can't see that having more (and almost instantly at that!) makes one happier. I have a son who makes and spends money on things and that's his business, but he works his tail off in a high stress job and when he says he has a migraine, I know why! How do you get off that merry-go-round?! I am thankful we have lived paycheck to paycheck for 30 years....I DO have stuff (and The Mister will tell you I have too much stuff, albeit mostly thrifted!) but I don't desire 'things'...I just want to stay home and make this a nice place for the family....a nice shelter for the weary...maybe some of it will rub off on them. [huh]

 

[CherryWry]

Very thought-provoking discussion. Every time period and every generation has its own unique triumphs and failures. Different eras have benefitted different groups of people: no matter what timeframe you investigate, you'll discover some populations doing extremely well and others suffering greatly. Some groups have a longer history of suffering than others.

Though there are many cultural phenomena today many of us find abhorent, such as scantily-clad adolescents, an emphasis on material wealth, and an insane clamoring for instant gratification and magic fix-it pills, look in the right places and you'll find people who choose to make their own dinners, value quality over quantity, and appreciate relationships and experiences more than material posessions.

Some would call that nostalgic. I call it seeking out the things that matter to me.

 

[Foofoogal]

We have had several discussions like this one on the FL over time.

I am most nostalgic for laughing children playing outside freely, women singing and men whistling.

I have lived the traditional marriage for 35 years. We have a simple technique. I take care of the inside and he takes care of the outside. lol

Jobs and people having to move to find them has had a huge effect on lifestyles IMHO.

I personally would loved to of been a teen about 1957 but would not go back to one single year before antibiotics were invented which would be around 1945.

 

[BoPeep]

I have lived the traditional marriage for 35 years. We have a simple technique. I take care of the inside and he takes care of the outside. lol

My mother always says that she is the "Department of the Interior" while Dad is the "Dept of the Exterior." It is a nice arrangement.

 

[Foofoogal]

I have to state after reading this thread that my Father yearned for the good ole days.

He was a teen during the depression, went to work for the CCC at a camp to help support the family. Lived in tents in West Texas as it was new territory.
He passed at 72 in 1987. It was a very hard life back then and he prided himself that he had survived that and WW11.
I am a product of this earlier mindset though most people my age had younger parents.
I do believe though that it is much harder now. All across the board except medical.
We no longer have stuff, our stuff has us IMHO.

 

[JoeNiblick]

Interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/books/23green.html?_r=4

 

[Grant Fan]

I cling to it for many reasons as a child I used to think how romantic it would have been to be a woman left on the home front waiting for the man she loved working to support herself. It always looked to easy and so gratifying. But i think my longing to have a life like that has given me one. I have spent the better part of 3 years now separated from the service man I love, we have occasional visits as brief as a weekend and never longer than a week. Like the women I modeled myself after I have lived through many big events in my life without him and have had to take photos and rely on letters and e-mail (so glad we have computers now) to keep our relationship going. I have like those women also had to move to find work and find myself frequently longing for home, though I have the support of my family no matter how far I am from them.I feel like I live so many aspects of the life back then, I don't know I suppose I feel that like anything else if you make it what you want then you will have the vintage life you crave.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Ahhh, 2010...the good ole days!

 

[LizzieMaine]

You know, you ain't half right on that. When I think about some of the things I've seen happen over the past two years to people I care about -- due to a great extent to certain modern attitudes and social customs -- 2010 seems like the Good Ole Days by comparison.

And I still can't stand to look at the magazines in the checkout line. I was visiting my mother today and noticed a stack of celebrity tabloids left by my sister, and all I wanted to do was cry.

 

[Stormy]

Each time I watch an episode of I Love Lucy, I just can't help wishing I had a friendship and life style such as the Ricardos and Mertzes.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

You know, you ain't half right on that. When I think about some of the things I've seen happen over the past two years to people I care about -- due to a great extent to certain modern attitudes and social customs -- 2010 seems like the Good Ole Days by comparison.

And I still can't stand to look at the magazines in the checkout line. I was visiting my mother today and noticed a stack of celebrity tabloids left by my sister, and all I wanted to do was cry.

LOL! I'm just about sick of the celebrity worship that goes on nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I have my own favorite celebs that I like but it's now to the point that celebrity gossip gets more coverage over political news. I would bet more people know about the details of Kimye's wedding that just took place a few days ago than events are currently taking place in the Ukraine, Nigeria and other countries in a state of chaos. And if I hear the term "selfie" one more time!