What did we have in the 1980's?

[mom2scouts]

9 hours ago, SKL said:

 

I will say that my friend who is most into all that "mindfulness" stuff is the biggest hoarder I know.  And she is constantly buying new stuff.

Not that mindfulness really has anything to do with how much stuff you have, but ....

This reminds me of a woman I knew in the 80's. After showing us her large 4 bedroom house (2 people) with excessive Christmas decorations in every room and on evey single surface and space in the house, she had a sign on her wall that said, "Live simply so others may simply live." ?

[gardenmom5]

10 hours ago, SKL said:

 

I will say that my friend who is most into all that "mindfulness" stuff is the biggest hoarder I know.  And she is constantly buying new stuff.

Not that mindfulness really has anything to do with how much stuff you have, but ....

isn't mindfulness supposed to be about "mental well-being/balance"?   hoarding is often related to depression - something very unbalanced.   (dh has hoarders in his family).  they hoard for emotional security.  that she's "doing mindfulness" indicates she realizes she has a problem, but it needs medical care.

[LucyStoner]

Homelessness dramatically increased in the 1980s, visible and otherwise.  As a child, I was part of the increase.  We were outright homeless for short spurts on and off until 1992 and we lived in a shelter motel for a chunk of 1984 and most of 1985.  The data shows that over the 1980s as the federal HUD budget dropped as a percentage of GDP, the number of people experiencing homelessness climbed.  The shuttering of mental institutions without funding their intended replacements also took a toll.  

[LucyStoner]

It was still legal to discriminate against people on the basis of disability.  Special education laws were first passed in 1975 and were being strengthened all through the 1980s.  A lot of people's jaws drop when they hear what schools would try to do with my disabled brother in the 1980s and that the state we used to live in wanted my parents to commit my brother with mild CP to a residential facility. 

Frankly, a big part of my family's economic woes were compounded by the fact it was totally legal for employers to refuse to hire or to fire my mom because of her disability.  She was fired or not hired at all so many times and yes, it was because of a disability that now most similar employers would easily accommodate.  A lot of it wasn't anything to do with her work performance, but rather the stereotypes and fears people had about her condition.  The passage of the ADA in 1990 was a big deal.  

In the mid-80s a friend of mine opted to homeschool because the school wanted to essentially build a crate-like a barrier around her 5-year-old son's desk.  Her son hadn't started school yet, wasn't violent. He is autistic, level 1-2 supports back then probably but when she went to enroll him, they saw his stimming and she was told they would have to have him in this enclosure in the classroom "for the safety of the other students". 

The 80s were a time when that stuff was changing rapidly, for the better.  

[Lang Syne Boardie]

15 hours ago, Farrar said:

In terms of spiritual type movements ... the 80's gave us EST and the Moonies, I guess.

I think it was a sort of material decade. Then again, my parents basically decided to drop out and homestead (though before the term was big), so I didn't necessarily get to participate in all the excesses until the end.

 

I was going to mention that a lot of people were still into the "back to the land" movement. Mother Earth News was thriving in the 80s. 

[scholastica]

18 hours ago, Garga said:

(I was 8-18 in the 1980s and I think that 80's music stinks.  Sorry.)

Preach it sister! So many one hit wonders. I'm just a smidge older than you and I totally agree with this assessment. There are a few bands that stand out, but most of it was synth garbage.

[Ellie]

9 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

The 80s were about ignoring reality.  We had the AIDS epidemic and a government that turned their backs on them.  We had a poor financial system and a push away from cash to credit.  It was about appearances of excess - clothes were larger, hair was larger, and people bought more and treated more things as disposable. 

Huh. I didn't think I was ignoring reality. I didn't think I was treating more things as disposable (my friends weren't, either).

Apparently, there was a whole world going on that I was unaware of. I started hsing my 7yo in 1982. I was just trying to do that.

[LucyStoner]

57 minutes ago, Ellie said:

Huh. I didn't think I was ignoring reality. I didn't think I was treating more things as disposable (my friends weren't, either).

Apparently, there was a whole world going on that I was unaware of. I started hsing my 7yo in 1982. I was just trying to do that.

Individually, people's actions vary quite a bit.  That doesn't negate overall cultural trends.  Big bangs were super popular.  I never wore them.  Doesn't mean I don't associate the look with the decade.  My mother tore shoulder pads out of all of her shirts in the 80s, doesn't mean a great many shirts sold in the eighties didn't have shoulder pads.  This also goes for larger issues like values and economic policies.  

[LucyStoner]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

How anyone can say an era which had Prince in it had no good music, I do not know.

 

Word.  

[Acadie]

We had combs in our back pockets and washed down Chicken in a Bisket crackers with Tab.

[plansrme]

I don’t understand the implication that big hair and Wham! music videos were not enough to fill a decade.

[Bluegoat]

2 hours ago, StellaM said:

Perms. 

I will admit that 80's fashion was lame. So lame. And the perms were awful.

Fashion got way better in the 90's.

 

80's clothes are really in here at the moment.  I went to Old Navy to try and buy shorts for dd13 last week, it was like walking into my tween years.

[SquirrellyMama]

We had the Smurfs.

And, The Karate Kid. ? Ralph Macchio

[Bluegoat]

31 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Shoulder pads ? Neon t-shirts ? Telll more ?

 

Lots of acid wash jeans - and a similar cut, high waisted and skinny like stirrup pants.  Crop tops.  Jelli shoes.  Rompers.  Denim overall shorts.  Those short shorts with the white stripe down the side.  Cropped denim jackets.  Jeans worn with denim shirts.

The colours seem less loud, but some very tropical sorts of prints, and kind of slightly more pastel versions of similar colours.

I've seen some pretty boxy shoulders around too:

[Bootsie]

"Where's the Beef?"

DS came in and asked me "Where's the beef?" today; he was looking in the fridge for leftovers; I started laughing and he had no idea why.

 

[Ausmumof3]

On 6/7/2018 at 12:14 AM, gardenmom5 said:

as high as 21% in the very early 80's.   then they started coming down.  that's why they came out with ARMs, and we refi'd several times in the 80's.  one year - we paid an extra $100 a month on our mortgage.  dh's goal was to have it all paid off.   a year later when we refi'd - it was as if we'd been paying on it for seven years - our equity was that much higher, just from paying a bit extra.   it's more effective early in the life of a loan when most of the payment is going towards interest.

I wonder if this is where so much of the financial advice we received starting out came from... pay down your mortgage as fast as possible etc etc

[LMD]

On 6/6/2018 at 9:28 PM, Ktgrok said:

The 90's is when I switched to country music, because all that alternative stuff was depressing me, lol. Even my husband, when he listens to 90's music now, is like "OMG why weren't we all catatonic with depression from listening to all this?"

But was also into hair bands like Poison and Warrant so my taste is obviously not high brow lol. 

Well, I dunno, we also had bands like Spice Girls and Hanson...

Just realised I missed the word 'alternative' in your post. Okay, you've got me there. ?

RATM were very social justice focussed, and rap really became more mainstream. I don't know that I'd say it was less depressing though, I remember hearing about Tupac and Kurt on the radio.

[LMD]

On 6/7/2018 at 12:21 AM, Bluegoat said:

 

I was thinking of pop/rock music.  The whole grunge trend didn't produce much that was lasting.  There was some ok R&B though - I think that has actually gone downhill in the 2000.

I can't listen to pop country, but there has been some good alt country in the last few decades.

 

A pox on you! ?

90s grunge is awesome *sob*

[Bluegoat]

21 minutes ago, LMD said:

 

A pox on you! ?

90s grunge is awesome *sob*

 

I just never got the appeal, and I was totally a child of the grunge era.  It was big here too, our city was called the Seattle of the North.  Everyone in my high school wore at least one flannel shirt at all times.

There are a few of the bands that were popular in my city then which are still around, or parts of them are, and I do like some of those - their music seems mature, or layered, maybe?  

I've never been able to put my finger on what it is I think is lacking, especially since I like punk, which in some ways is similar in its philosophy.  The closest I get is to say I find it boring.

[laundrycrisis]

Teens had hair bands, mousse, spiked cuts, dippity do gel, and all those teen movies.  Adult women were dressing for success. Concerns were the USSR, AIDS and apartheid.  New age philosophy was somewhat a thing.  That and aerobics ! 

[LMD]

2 hours ago, StellaM said:

I couldn't like grunge because my sister liked grunge, lol

You missed out, but I totally understand music based tribalism... ?