When I was growing up, my friends and I used to run wild in the streets with no supervision and the only rule our parents had was that we had to be home when it got dark outside.
Do kids still do that these days?
Maybe it was a simpler time or maybe things were safer back then?
I’m not sure, but I don’t see a whole lot of it…
What was normal 20-30 years ago but is considered a luxury today?
Check out how AskReddit users answered that question.
A lot of them are gone.
“A company-funded pension plan in the private sector.
My wife’s grandmother retired from one of our local health insurance companies over 30 years ago with a full pension.
She’s 91 and still receives her pension, although the insurance company was acquired by a larger organization a few years back. It’s a modest pension, but it allows her to live a comfortable and independent life.
Nowadays, companies only offer 401k or similar retirement plans. Outside of education/government, very few private sector companies offer pension. I’m fortunate enough to be employed by one that still does.”
Obnoxious.
“It used to be you could buy software and it was yours forever.
Now, it’s a subscription model, with constant updates, some of which remove capabilities, to force you to buy the new version.”
Times have changed.
“Being able to afford having only one person working in a relationship.
Yeah my dad as a college dropout restaurant manager made six figures, had two houses and two new cars in the 1980s. Mom just raised us kids.
35 years later my wife and I have two bachelor’s and a masters between us, three jobs and can just barely afford a house that’s 50% the size of one of my parents’ houses from the ‘80s. We make less combined than our dads did alone with no degrees.”
Gone downhill.
“New furniture made out of real wood.
Nothing angers me more than paying luxury prices for fiberboard framed garbage.”
Stylin’.
“The quality of clothes.
When my grandpa d**d I inherited a lot of his clothes.
I wear so much of his LLBean clothes from the late 90s/2000s, they hold up better than most things I could buy.”
A sad one.
“Family vacations.
I remember going on road trips regularly and even flying once or twice as a kid.
Now that I have kids there’s no way I can afford a week-long trip to the Badlands, Grand Canyon, Disney/Universal Studios etc.
Best I can do is a day trip to the Dells maybe once a year.”
It’s over.
“Pork Belly.
Used to be a bad cut of meat that was disposed of or given to the poor for dirt cheap prices.
Then rich people realized that the poor made it delicious, which then caused prices to skyrocket.”
I like this one.
“Boredom.
There’s always something to take your attention nowadays. There’s literal lifetimes of entertainment on a single streaming service. Phones. There’s tons of free and cheap games that can just eat hours of your time. Social media. YouTube, etc etc etc.
20-30 years ago, if there was nothing you wanted to watch on TV, you either sat through it or found something else to do. Games had to be bought in stores, so it was more of a process buying them. Once you had them, you committed to it or bought a new game. Sometimes there was just legitimately nothing to do.
You had to get creative with your downtime. Make your own fun.”
Please leave me alone.
“Avoiding people by simply not answering the landline phone, this would make the person calling assume you are just not home.
We introverts no longer have this luxury with cell phones, texting, “online” status when logged into a PC so co-workers can IM you, etc.”
Not worth it.
“Going to the doctor.
I’m 28 but even when I was a kid you could go to the doctor when you were sick or hurt.
Now I won’t go to the doctor unless I’m d**d.”
Now it’s your turn.
Tell us what you think about this.
Do it in the comments!
