"Mom, What Was it Like in the 1900s?"

[Hockey Mom]

This conversation took place a few weeks ago:

 

Ty: Mom, when were you born?

Me: October 1970

Ty: Whoa....

Cam: Yeah, Mom was born in the 1900s!!

 

Me: The last HALF of the 1900s!! That doesn't mean I'm OLD!

 

Fast-forward to today.

 

Cam: Mom, did they have electricity when you were a little girl?

Mom: Yes, of course they did.

Cam: Did they have Wii?

Mom: Well, I remember we had an Atari when I was a little girl. I used to play 'Pong' on it with my brother.

Cam: What is 'Pong'?!

Mom: 'Pong' was a little bit like tennis. You had to hit this little white dot with a stick back to the other stick on the other side of the screen. We didn't really play a lot of video games when I was little. We played outside. *me, smiling*

Cam: Wow...what did you do when it rained?

Mom: I read really cool books.

Cam: Aren't you glad you don't live in the 1900s anymore?

 

Isn't funny how kids perceive your childhood? My kids are gobsmacked that we didn't have a computer in our house when we were growing up. It cracks me up.

[Georgiana Daniels]

LOL!!!! Hilarious! I'd never really thought of it THAT way--I was born in the 1900's too....

 

 

My kids are surprised that phones used to be attached to walls.

[Guest inoubliable]

LOL. My kids were shocked to find that My Little Ponies were actually from *my* childhood. And my middle kiddo said, "Wow, aren't you glad they're cool again?" I guess? LOL. Now I can get out that MLP sleeping bag with no shame!

[Guest inoubliable]

LOL!!!! Hilarious! I'd never really thought of it THAT way--I was born in the 1900's too....

 

 

My kids are surprised that phones used to be attached to walls.

 

Bwaha! We have an old rotary phone! Still working, too - until Comcast gets around to unbundling us.

[Georgiana Daniels]

 

Bwaha! We have an old rotary phone! Still working, too - until Comcast gets around to unbundling us.

 

 

No way! Wow. You must treat your belongings gently :)

[Jeannie in NJ]

I was born in the 50's so I love to tell my kids:

 

about the first time I saw color tv, it was at a friends house

we only got 3 channels, CBS< ABC and NBC and you better watch the show when it was on as there was not recording it as there were no vcrs. On and the channels shut off at night and you just got the "off the air" signal whatever that was

 

I worked for a large medical company and their computer took up an entire large room and you better wear a coat in there as it was freezing and it used punch cards

 

first cell phones were about the size of a brick and only lasted for a few hours before needing charging

 

we we went to visit my great grandmother she did not have indoor plumbing, we had to use an outhouse

 

no bookbags , you just had to carry all your schoolbooks in your arms

 

had to always carry dimes in case I had to use a pay phone to call home

 

I'll try and think of some more

[TranquilMind]

This conversation took place a few weeks ago:

 

Ty: Mom, when were you born?

Me: October 1970

Ty: Whoa....

Cam: Yeah, Mom was born in the 1900s!!

 

Me: The last HALF of the 1900s!! That doesn't mean I'm OLD!

 

Fast-forward to today.

 

Cam: Mom, did they have electricity when you were a little girl?

Mom: Yes, of course they did.

Cam: Did they have Wii?

Mom: Well, I remember we had an Atari when I was a little girl. I used to play 'Pong' on it with my brother.

Cam: What is 'Pong'?!

Mom: 'Pong' was a little bit like tennis. You had to hit this little white dot with a stick back to the other stick on the other side of the screen. We didn't really play a lot of video games when I was little. We played outside. *me, smiling*

Cam: Wow...what did you do when it rained?

Mom: I read really cool books.

Cam: Aren't you glad you don't live in the 1900s anymore?

 

Isn't funny how kids perceive your childhood? My kids are gobsmacked that we didn't have a computer in our house when we were growing up. It cracks me up.

 

 

Lol.

 

Oh yeah... I was born much earlier than you, and have actually been asked things like, "What was President Lincoln like?" (when they were younger).

 

I feel like I'm my Mom. I used to have fun telling them things like, "Yes, we had to walk across the room to change the TV channel, and we didn't even have a TV until I was about 10!"

 

"I had to talk to my friends standing in the kitchen using a corded telephone attached to the wall!" (Gasps all around)

 

"We didn't have texting. You had to actually dial - not push buttons - a phone number that you had to remember in order to talk to your friend. If your parents wanted to use the phone or were expecting a call, they would tell you to get off."

 

"You used to be able to walk right through the airport all the way to the gate, where your relative or friend would emerge directly from the plane. You got to see people being reunited. It was great"

[Jeannie in NJ]

oh I forgot walking to the tv to change the channel, but since we only got 3 channels there was not much changing of them.

 

I would take the phone (as far as the cord would stretch) into a closet to talk in private with my friends

[Guest inoubliable]

 

No way! Wow. You must treat your belongings gently :)

 

 

I rescued it from my parents' house. LOL.

[TranquilMind]

I was born in the 50's so I love to tell my kids:

 

about the first time I saw color tv, it was at a friends house

we only got 3 channels, CBS< ABC and NBC and you better watch the show when it was on as there was not recording it as there were no vcrs. On and the channels shut off at night and you just got the "off the air" signal whatever that was

 

I worked for a large medical company and their computer took up an entire large room and you better wear a coat in there as it was freezing and it used punch cards

 

first cell phones were about the size of a brick and only lasted for a few hours before needing charging

 

we we went to visit my great grandmother she did not have indoor plumbing, we had to use an outhouse

 

no bookbags , you just had to carry all your schoolbooks in your arms

 

had to always carry dimes in case I had to use a pay phone to call home

 

I'll try and think of some more

 

 

YES! All of this. I remember.

 

My Mom grew up with an outhouse. Their house was cool, apparently, because it had a two-holer in the outhouse. Nothing like carrying on a conversation ...then.

[TranquilMind]

 

No way! Wow. You must treat your belongings gently :)

 

 

Those old rotary phones were built like iron. They will outlast you and me, sitting somewhere on a shelf in a museum, I guess.

[catz]

I was born in 1970 also. My daughter is fascinated by Julie (the 70's American Girl). She has a bike with a banana seat and I used to have a bike just like that. AND a canopy bed. We had an Atari too - good times!

[Orthodox6]

I love fun threads such as this one! When one is born strongly influences how one views earlier historical time periods. It is fascinating to gather other people's perspectives! For example, I was born in 1955; therefore, I think of the Civil War as not having been all that "long ago". Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood felt "recent" when I read her books.

 

My earliest memory of television is of seeing President Eisenhower on the screen. (Why this sticks out, I have NO idea!) Of course this was B&W television.

 

I learned computer programming in the eighth grade, using computer punch cards and a mainframe somewhere hidden in our junior high school.

 

When we would take family vacations, especially in the small(er) towns, I would notice signs hanging in store and restaurant windows advertising that it was air conditioned within. Signs typically read, "Come on in. It's COOL inside!"

 

Burma Shave signs still lined the rural highways.

 

Soft drinks were a treat, rather than ubiquitous. One put the nickel into the machine and listened to the gears grind as the products moved around then one plopped down the chute.

 

Electric ovens and stoves came into vogue, destroying kitchens. (Gas cooks better. I won't budge on that one.)

 

Vinyl records. Even 78 rpm!

 

(and so on . . .)

[AndyJoy]

"You used to be able to walk right through the airport all the way to the gate, where your relative or friend would emerge directly from the plane. You got to see people being reunited. It was great"

 

I was only born in 1980s, but I remember this! When I was ten it was still possible to just call up the airline and switch your ticket to a different person as well. My mom got the flu right before a Washington D.C. trip for my dad's work, and almost sent me instead!

 

I used to wow my jr. high students (who were only 10-15 years younger than me) when I teased them for their cell phone "growths" on their hands. I didn't know a single minor with a cell phone when I was in high school, and we all survived entire school days without calling or texting anyone!

 

I'm sure my son will get a shock out of dial-up Internet with limited minutes or free Juno email where I had to wait ages for my few emails to come through. We haven't had a land line since we were first married nearly 10 years ago.

 

I was always fascinated with my great-grandma's life in the early 1900s (born in 1902). Technology jumps so much I don't think I'll have to wait for great-grandkids to shock!

[kewb]

My kids are quite fascinated that there was no internet when I was growing up. You either owned a set of encylopedias or you had to go the library to look stuff up. There was no googling it.

[aggieamy]

DD asked me once if I remember when TV's were invented. :glare: I'm only 30! I don't remember not having a computer.

 

We have some friends that are older (75+) and were raised by grandparents way out in the country in Kansas and they have some interesting stories. One room cabins with only gas lights and an outhouse. I thought that was pretty cool that I'd know anyone that grew up like Little House on the Prairie.

[caroljenn]

Hahahaha!! This is hilarious! My dd is now 15, and I have been telling and showing her for a while what we used to have and what we used to listen to.

 

It's really funny now that 80s clothes are back in style. I took my dd shopping and I am putting all of these outfits together with ease, and dd comes out of the dressing room looking cute and I say, "you know, I think I had that same outfit once!" We didn't get the outfit, but I still have my shopping skills! Woo hoo!

[RoughCollie]

When I used to ground my kids, they called it "sending us back to the 70s". The really sad part is that it was true.

 

When I was little, we used to frequently ask my mom to tell us stories about her childhood, which we called "the olden days". She had me when she was 21, so it wasn't like she was ancient back then. She was 29 when I got glasses, and I didn't tell her (thank heavens), but the first time I looked at her with glasses on, I was amazed at how old she looked! Photographs verify that this was not actually the case.

[Dandelion]

LOL, this thread is great! :lol: I was born in '71, so I lived through those dark ages. :p

 

My Mom grew up with an outhouse. Their house was cool, apparently, because it had a two-holer in the outhouse. Nothing like carrying on a conversation ...then.

 

That must have been where the tradition started of girls always wanting to go to the bathroom together to catch up on the latest gossip. :lol:

 

 

It's really funny now that 80s clothes are back in style. I took my dd shopping and I am putting all of these outfits together with ease, and dd comes out of the dressing room looking cute and I say, "you know, I think I had that same outfit once!" We didn't get the outfit, but I still have my shopping skills! Woo hoo!

 

I still fondly remember my mint-green pants with mint-pink-babyblue leg warmers. And the hair! The HAIR!! :smilielol5:

 

"You used to be able to walk right through the airport all the way to the gate, where your relative or friend would emerge directly from the plane. You got to see people being reunited. It was great"

 

Man, I miss the good old days!

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

LOL!!!! Hilarious! I'd never really thought of it THAT way--I was born in the 1900's too....

 

 

My kids are surprised that phones used to be attached to walls.

 

 

 

Mine, too. They can't believe you had to be in one place to talk on the phone. It's funny.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Did any of you have the Adam computer? It took cassette tapes to run the programs and took FOREVER to load anything. I remember a typing program my mom made us do, and playing Centipede on that thing.

[Jennifer3141]

My parents were techies from way back. My dad had the first calculator at the Goodyear Tire company. It took half his desk and people thought he was nuts. Their first computer system was this GIANT black console with a teeny, tiny orange screen with a dot matrix printer. It took about 3 minutes more to print an invoice that way than to hand write it. I remember when they put the computer down, my Dad was worried I'd be trapped under it because it took three grown men to lift it onto the counter. :laugh:

[Amber in SJ]

My grandparents owned a Montgomery Wards store in their tiny town back in the late 70's. They had a little storefront with a few items in it for display. People would peruse their catalog at home then come in and order at the store. My grandma and I would enter all the invoices by teletype. I can still remember the ka-chunk, ka-chunk sound of the teletype machine. You actually dialed on the phone and then put the phone receiver into the machine. My grandpa was Mister Technology. He had one of the very first laser disc players. The movies were on huge platters like vinyl records and had to be flipped over halfway through the movie.

 

My MIL taught history at the high school and at the end of the year she would always bring in things and try to stump the kids with what they were. Some items the kids don't recognize are 8-track tapes, phone cords and the handle that rolls up the window in the car.

 

Funny things

 

Amber in SJ

[I.Dup.]

How did we SURVIVE?! :laugh:

 

It is crazy how different things were, and I was born in the 80's so not ALL that long ago, lol. It really hit me hard when I realized my dh's parents were born in the 50s...that seems like a really long time ago. I always have thought of them as young-ish (they are 10 years younger than my parents) and to think that my grandfather was the same age as the people in Downton Abbey when that period of time was going on was really crazy. That was just my grandfather!!

[vonfirmath]

"You used to be able to walk right through the airport all the way to the gate, where your relative or friend would emerge directly from the plane. You got to see people being reunited. It was great"

*whimper*

[aggieamy]

How did we SURVIVE?! :laugh:

 

It is crazy how different things were, and I was born in the 80's so not ALL that long ago, lol. It really hit me hard when I realized my dh's parents were born in the 50s...that seems like a really long time ago. I always have thought of them as young-ish (they are 10 years younger than my parents) and to think that my grandfather was the same age as the people in Downton Abbey when that period of time was going on was really crazy. That was just my grandfather!!

 

 

My grandfather was 50+ when my dad was born and my dad was in his late 40's when my brother was born in 1993. So it works out that my class of 2012 brother had a grandfather that fought in WWI. DB had a teacher that didn't believe him when mentioned that during history class once and brought in something my dad had to prove it wasn't his GREAT-grandfather he was talking about.

[Jaybee]

I was born in 1960. When ds12 was small, he asked, "Did you live back when things were black and white?"

 

I guess he thought it wasn't the TV that made things color or black and white, but the world itself was that way. It took me a bit to figure that one out, coming out of the blue like it did. :001_huh:

[Jeannie in NJ]

my dd says that she can't tell the actors apart in black and white movies

[chiguirre]

My kids couldn't believe we lived without microwaves. OTOH, Trinqueta realized that there were no Ipads a few short years ago and said that made her feel really old.

[Pod's mum]

I lived in Alice Springs for the first few years and then on a station for a bit, so I grew up with a lot of museum items. (Heck we still have and USE a few museum items). There was no TV at all in Alice Springs until a few years after we left, they got one afternoon only, B+W channel.

On the station, mobile phones where a big "Flying Doctor" radio, that we used for a short school-of-the-air lesson each day etc.

We also did 'computing' at high school with those cards, except we had to colour in ovals on a stack of cards and send them away to get a calender, that was printed only if you got everything in order. Our school bought its first computer my last year there and we knew NO ONE with one at home. That was about the time that they upgraded the telephone exchange and we lost the old black bakelite phone that you wound the handle round and round and asked the exchange operator to connect you. (Some of my class-mates worked on smaller exchanges on weekends and listened in on the calls.)

Flash forwar to my first job, post school, back to another station, back to the big radio instead of phone, one water tap near the door, no other plumbing etc.

Fast forward to now where we nick off to the country as often as we can to a caravan, with a short drop toilet and carting buckets of water etc.

(But we also now take a mobile phone, computer, internet 'dongle' and a recent little generator.)

 

So I did live back in the 1900's I guess, but I was born only a few years before the OP.

But so does my dd a bit and loves it.

[Dana]

I was born in 1960. When ds12 was small, he asked, "Did you live back when things were black and white?"

 

I guess he thought it wasn't the TV that made things color or black and white, but the world itself was that way. It took me a bit to figure that one out, coming out of the blue like it did. :001_huh:

 

 

Show him Pleasantville :)

 

I remember pull-tabs for aluminum cans & when the bottles were glass with that styrofoam around them instead of plastic.

 

We got an early VCR back in 1980 & I remember explaining to kids at school what it did.

 

We don't have a rotary phone, but we do have two corded phones at the house still. Useful in case of power outages.

[Orthodox6]

My grandfather was 50+ when my dad was born and my dad was in his late 40's when my brother was born in 1993. So it works out that my class of 2012 brother had a grandfather that fought in WWI. DB had a teacher that didn't believe him when mentioned that during history class once and brought in something my dad had to prove it wasn't his GREAT-grandfather he was talking about.

 

 

I can relate to this, via my husband. Owing to large families, and also to the men sometimes marrying very late in life, my husband had two first cousins both of whom were a full fifty years his senior. (DH's father was 64 when DH was born.)

[TechWife]

When he was little my son thought my husband and I were born in "the olden days," which were immediately preceded by "ancient times."

[Lara in Colo]

I was telling the children about using a card catalogue at the library.

I remember using them, but I cannot remember how anymore.

I also remember paying .10 a page to use the library's typewriter.

[Jeannie in NJ]

I was mad about 12 years ago or so when they took out the card catalog from my local library. You then had to have the librarian look up books for you on their sole computer. That was a pain. Even now, there are only 3 computers that are available for patrons to use to look up books. I try to do my searching at home before I go there.

[Plink]

Great thread!

 

My kids are fascinated by the fact that when I first used the internet we had to push the handset of the telephone into suction-cups.

 

That and we reheated food without the use of a microwave. *Gasp!*

[Jan in SC]

I was born in 1970 and until I was about 20, my grandparents shared a party telephone line with 6-8 families, depending on the year. This was in rural SC.

I remember that my grandmother was furious when someone bought her a microwave for Christmas one year. She was terrified of it.

[zillymom]

Did any of you have the Adam computer? It took cassette tapes to run the programs and took FOREVER to load anything. I remember a typing program my mom made us do, and playing Centipede on that thing.

 

 

YES!!! I liked playing the Buck Rogers game. And I got some magazine-like thing in the mail, more like a newsletter. it was for kids, and it would have simple programs to type in (I think SmartBasic?) and run. I learned to be very, very, very careful that I typed everything exactly as printed. Gosh that was a long time ago. I think I was maybe 8 or 9.

[Orthodox6]

I was mad about 12 years ago or so when they took out the card catalog from my local library. You then had to have the librarian look up books for you on their sole computer. That was a pain. Even now, there are only 3 computers that are available for patrons to use to look up books. I try to do my searching at home before I go there.

 

 

I remember having to type those catalogue cards!

[Laura Corin]

no bookbags , you just had to carry all your schoolbooks in your arms

 

 

 

Why no bookbags? I've noticed this in American films about high schools - why did no one have bags? I was born in the early 60s and used some kind of shoulder bag/satchel for school in the UK.

 

Laura

[vonfirmath]

Why no bookbags? I've noticed this in American films about high schools - why did no-one have bags? I was born in the early 60s and used some kind of shoulder bag/satchel for school in the UK.

 

Laura

 

 

Could it have been a fashion thing? Because even when I first started going to school in the late 70s, I had a backpack.

[Jeannie in NJ]

Laura, I just goggled this and it said that the school backpack was "invented" in 1971 (which just happens to be the year I graduated from high school) .The article then said that it took about a decade for them to become really popular in schools. Don't know how accurate this is, being on the internet and all lol. I was in college from 71 to 75 and no one used backpacks at the college I was at.

[Orthodox6]

I never thought about it! I was graduated from high school in 1973 (large urban high school). No backpacks seen in hs or in college. I wish that they had been available. Walking home from HS with french horn and many textbooks was hard!

 

Laura, I just goggled this and it said that the school backpack was "invented" in 1971 (which just happens to be the year I graduated from high school) .The article then said that it took about a decade for them to become really popular in schools. Don't know how accurate this is, being on the internet and all lol. I was in college from 71 to 75 and no one used backpacks at the college I was at.

 

[Amy in TX]

My kids were staggered to learn that we didn't have color tv until I was 10, and that I came home from college on some break or other to find that we had cable tv and a microwave. Oh, and that malls were a brand new concept when I was a kid. :)

[Laura Corin]

I never thought about it! I was graduated from high school in 1973 (large urban high school). No backpacks seen in hs or in college. I wish that they had been available. Walking home from HS with french horn and many textbooks was hard!

 

Surely there were other bags? I know that when I went to senior school in 1974 I had a satchel and a tote. Schoolboys in Shakespeare have satchels. It just seems so strange to me to use... nothing.

 

Laura

[Jeannie in NJ]

nope, Laura, everyone just carried their books, paper, etc in their arms. No one ever thought about it, it was just the was it was.

 

oh I had forgot that my dd was shocked a couple of weeks ago when I told her we did not have malls. We went downtown and would go to Sears and then walk a block or so to another dept store (maybe Penny's, don't remember) and so on to any stores we wanted to go to. I remember Sears because it was the tallest building in town,a beautiful blue color and had the only escalators in town. My brother and I would beg my mom to go there and we would ride the escalators up and down all day. Also all these stores had counters to order a wonderful lunch, sort of like a smaller diner. I then told dd about getting the first strip malls, which might be 3 or 4 businesses together (we thought that was a wonder). The first actual mall I remember was when I was with future dh at Texas A & M and the new mall there was THE PLACE to go on dates.

[Laura Corin]

nope, Laura, everyone just carried their books, paper, etc in their arms. No one ever thought about it, it was just the was it was.

 

 

 

And I always thought of the US as the land of convenience....

 

Laura

[vonfirmath]

diner. I then told dd about getting the first strip malls, which might be 3 or 4 businesses together (we thought that was a wonder). The first actual mall I remember was when I was with future dh at Texas A & M and the new mall there was THE PLACE to go on dates.

 

You mean Post Oak Mall? It was still the place to go on dates when I was in HS (late 80s to '91). BUT... it was considered kind of rinky dink even so.

[Lara in Colo]

 

You mean Post Oak Mall? It was still the place to go on dates when I was in HS (late 80s to '91). BUT... it was considered kind of rinky dink even so.

 

 

I remember begging my mother to drive me to the mall!! (We lived in Wimberley) It was where all the cool kids went.

[Cinder]

What a fun thread!

 

I was born in the 50's so I love to tell my kids:

 

we only got 3 channels, CBS< ABC and NBC and you better watch the show when it was on as there was not recording it as there were no vcrs. On and the channels shut off at night and you just got the "off the air" signal whatever that was

 

 

Well I was born in the 60's and we got 5 channels! One was PBS and the other had Japanese programming. (I grew up in HI.) Every kid watched Kikaida back then. And when it came out we got cable. No longer did we have to get up and change the channel on the tv. We could stretch out the cord on the brown cable box and press the button for the channel we wanted. Remember that? The number of cable channels we could get was limited by the number of buttons on the box. :laugh:

 

We had an Atari too - good times!

 

 

We had an Atari system. My brother won it in one of the earliest McDonalds Monopoly games!

 

nope, Laura, everyone just carried their books, paper, etc in their arms. No one ever thought about it, it was just the was it was.

 

 

Same for us. A few people carried their books in duffel bags. That was the big thing when I was in school: duffel bags. But they're round and the books slide around too much and it was very awkward. Mostly those bags were used to carry athletic gear and books were just carried in arms. I caught the city bus to/from school and sometimes going home it was a very long trip to stand on the bus for 30-45 mins carrying a stack of school books in one arm and holding on to the rail with the other.