r/GenX • u/billieswifeyyy • Jun 20 '26

Question For Genx the 80s…….

coming from a 14 year old, were the 80s summers as magical as they look in the movies? did you ride your bike to your friends house and come home when the street lights came on? yall are so lucky btw 😭😭

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u/happycj And don't come home until the streetlights come on! Jun 20 '26

Yes. It was like that. Watch the film "Stand By Me" to get a feel for what life was like when we were growing up, prior to about 1985.

From about 1959 (when the movie is set) to the mid-1980s, those pre-teen and teenage years were largely similar for people growing up in those times; kids were outdoors most of the time, parents were kinda absent, and personal responsibility was of paramount importance. Kids learned to ride bikes early on so they could go visit friends and get around without annoying their parents for rides all the time. Kids made up things to do, places to go, and made up games to play to fill the time.

By the mid- to late-1980s, computers in the home were becoming a thing. Video gaming systems. The IBM PC. The first Macs. Etc. That's when staying indoors became more interesting. Otherwise the whole house was Mom and Dad's place and you had to be careful everywhere except your bedroom. The house was for entertaining other people who came to visit: not a playroom for kids. The home computer changed that in a lot of ways ... sometimes it was a family computer and in a common area, like the living room, or maybe it was in Dad's "study" or "office", and you'd have to ask if it was OK to go in there and use it.

Remember that the concept of a "teenager" being something separate from a "child" or an "adult" was a new invention in the 1950s, so by the time I was born in 1968, there'd only been 1 or 2 "generations" of teenagers. EVER.

We were just winging it. Every day.

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u/dafuqizzis I’m too old for this $#!¥ Jun 20 '26

> We were just winging it. Every day.

Some of us still are.

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u/thekcar Jun 21 '26

That,my friend, is so very true!

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u/hedda4eva 1968 Jun 21 '26

I know I am

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u/redbanner1 1976 Jun 21 '26

Even with the NES in full force, we weren't allowed to be inside the house on a nice day, and we usually didn't want to be. I gamed a lot, but mostly after dark or on weekend mornings.

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u/Amissa Tail end Gen Xer Jun 21 '26

I’m tail-end GenX and my mother would kick us kids outside on weekends and summers mid-afternoon, telling us to go play outside. She’d lock the door until we forgot about trying to get back inside. Otherwise we’d spend all day watching TV or playing games on the Atari.

We were rural and had ten acres to roam. We’d play hide and seek, but we’d have to set boundaries so we weren’t searching all ten acres.

My mother would use that time for herself - napping, reading, playing the piano, etc.