The 60s Were Very Different
The Sixties were without doubt an interesting time to be alive. But there’s a reason “May you live in interesting times” is considered a curse. The era saw everything from the first moon landing to the assassination of JFK, and many people lived hard lives in between all the historical events. Would today’s kids have even survived it?
Higher Rates of Smoking
Smoking is decidedly out of fashion today, but back in the 60s everyone smoked… even pregnant women. Now, of course, we know that smoking causes cancer, but they didn’t then. Many lives were ended or ruined because of addiction to smoking.
Traveling Was Dangerous
Cars for the 60s were very different to the ones of today. Not only did they not have airbags, some of them didn’t even have seatbelts. Yep, seatbelts weren’t even a requirement, despite the amount of lives they’ve saved. And the rates of drunk driving were higher.
Medical Care Was Poorer
People these days take it for granted just how good medical care is. In the 60s there weren’t anywhere near as many vaccines and antibiotics, and diseases like polio could easily cripple a person. Also, the vast majority of doctors were male, and many didn’t understand female healthcare.
Not as Many Holidays
These days, air travel is actually quite cheap. Not so for families in the 60s. To go abroad for a holiday meant years of saving up, and then it required hours in an uncomfortable airplane. And people would be smoking there too!
No Quick Communication
Today there are all sorts of ways to get in touch with someone. Text message, email, you name it. But back in the day, there was none of that. If you wanted to communicate with someone who lived far away, a phone call was your best option. But of course you couldn’t guarantee they’d be in.
Lots of Sexism
One of the worst things about the 60s was the treatment of women. They were expected to wear skirts, look flawless, and do all the housework. Female doctors or bankers were almost unheard of. And a married woman couldn’t even open a bank account without her husband’s signature.
Endless Pollution
Although climate change is still an issue, at least pollution isn’t as bad as it was in the 60s. Care for the environment was very low on the priority list for governments, and air pollution was so bad sometimes that people would have breathing difficulties.
Information Was Hard to Find
These days, if you want to know any obscure bit of trivia, you can simply look it up on the internet. But in the 60s, information was much harder to come by. You had to go the library, but if the information in the books was out of date, you simply would have no way of knowing.
No Streaming Services
Most people nowadays have one or two streaming services so they can watch their favorite TV shows whenever they like. If they want to watch a whole show in one go, no-one’s stopping them. But such a thing would have been unimaginable back in the 60s.
Homophobia Everywhere
It was very hard indeed to be gay in the 60s. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 1973, believe it or not. “Coming out” meant you risked job loss, violence, or imprisonment. And the idea of same-sex marriage was a distant dream.
Little Job Mobility
When you got a job in the 60s, you pretty much had it for life. This was good in its own way, but it meant you were pretty much stuck. If you didn’t get promoted, you just languished, and if you hated your job you had little option but to tough it out.
Limited Global Awareness
These days, it’s easy to find out what’s happening in different countries and how that affects your own country. But in the past, you only had newspapers to go on and chances are you didn’t know anyone at all who lived overseas.
No Online Shopping
Online shopping is second nature to most people now. If they want something, anything at all, they just have to find it online and put it in their shopping cart. There was no such convenience in the 1960s. If you wanted something, you had to go to a physical store.
Lots of Racism
The 1960s was the civil rights era, and it was a painful time to be any color other than white. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in parts of America up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and interracial relationships were very difficult indeed.
There Was so Little Free Time
Women in the 60s were expected to spend all their free time maintaining the household, and that was a lot harder than it is now. Dishwashers hadn’t been invented yet, so dishes needed to be washed by hand. Laundry could sometimes take an entire day. It was rough.
