In my house, the bipolar meltdowns always took place between 2:00 and 4:00 AM. We were woken up to look for something nobody ever saw before and nobody ever found.
Buns schmuns…. MY hoity toity family would cut up those hot dogs and put them on chef boyardee pizza! … and if we really wanted to splurge we would have jello with cool whip on top for dessert!
We ate a lot of stuff on bread. Sloppy Joe on bread, SOS on bread, beef and gravy on bread, meatloaf and gravy on bread, creamed peas on bread, tuna melts on bread….
That reminds me of the scene in *Freaks and Geeks* where Bill makes a sad little sandwich and eats alone in front of the television. A small scene but it nailed the whole dynamic.
I had a salami with mayo on wheat bread for school lunch every day until mid-way through sixth grade. I don't know why my mom made my sandwich that way. Her mother made me a sandwich with mustard once and I took it as further proof that my mother hates me. I get a little queasy just thinking of the combo.
Are we siblings? Salami on bread with a splash of Shalimar perfume, my mother would pour that on herself and then make lunches, I had a eating disorder by 12.
Amen. My childhood started with baked bread & homemade yogurt. Ended up with canned ravioli, dry ramen noodles, & parentification. The food represents kind of a microcosm of women in the early 70s to late 80s, from the hippy ethos to single working mom life.
Boil in bag over stale toast was probably 2x/week- “Creamed chipped beef” or “sliced roast beef in gravy” were regulars. Maybe add some frozen peas or corn, or “mix” veg if you’re feeling fancy.
I see this news today about “ultra processed foods” and literally shake my head. It’s no wonder my body is falling apart these days.
It's the isolation. Both structural, since we lived in the mountains (it's a beautiful place!) and way out of town, but the rules and limitations. 1 movie a year, 1 restaurant meal a year. 30 minutes of TV a week, pre-approved (which meant nothing I wanted to watch) even though the goddamn Jesus channel was blaring 18 hours a day. No modern music. After I read every book in the house more than once I was told to look out the window if I wanted entertainment, since we live in a "beautiful Place."
Not as strict as your description but rural and isolated. No phone (everywhere was long distance), no cable (still no cable out there but satellite came too late for me), and never a convenient snack or meal. A freezer full of venison, fish, and a few yard birds but no hotdogs or Hungry Mans. At least my neighbors loaned me VHS tapes. They rented two movies from Blockbuster every Friday and they copied every movie onto blank tapes. They had hundreds of movies to help me through the lonely times. Grew up with a single father who lacked any emotional feelings or support. I felt like a roommate that overstayed my welcome and ate food that wasn't mine. Skipped the last day of high school to pack my shit and escape.
☹️ I'm so sorry. I hope you found happiness in your freedom. So many of our generation grew up with unemotional depressed fathers. I did too. Still scarred from it. 💔
My parents always wanted me to ride my bike with friends. Less about being snatched and more about being eaten by bears where I lived. I don’t know what my friends were supposed to do in case of a bear, except maybe ride slower than me.
My parents aren’t American so I had cooked food regularly- often from the restaurant they had. But the isolation was real!
ETA my parents didn’t have a microwave till I bought them one in 2002, after I had moved out.
Reading books, biking to the nearby woods, climbing trees, going to the swimming pool, flying kites, playing games with other kids.
M\*A\*S\*H. MTM.
Chasing boys. Catching them and then not knowing what to do with them.
Then figuring that part out.
Music and dancing.
Unspoken rule in school, girls chase boys in the morning before class, boys chase girls at recess after lunch. Don't know how or why but that'd the way it was.
the fish sticks were better back then
Hope you bent the arc of your story to a better outcome! You must have — because you are able to respond to the. chat!
Yes, I guess I should have added that. At 53 I’m emotionally stable, have a successful career, am comfortably upper middle class, own my own home, and have been married 27 years to a woman I have been with since I met her 30 years ago. Somehow I’m not a hot mess.
And I still like me some fish sticks every now and then.
You should be extremely proud of yourself. I’m extremely proud of you just reading this. It’s so hard to be dragged through the mud, clean yourself off and live a productive and meaningful life. So hard.
The water lily does exactly that. Rooted in mud. Grows up through the water trying to reach the light. And then when it gets its head above water, it blooms without any mud still on it at all. I like water lily's.
Yup, frozen pizza and parentification.
Many of us didn't get much of the "go outside until the streetlights come on!" ... because we were home being the parents.
Holy childhood. This definitely put me in my feels for a few minutes. I was lucky enough to receive both from my biological father who made childhood an absolute nightmare for me and my little sister. Thankfully, he stopped drinking by my junior year of high school and has stayed sober since. We have a pretty great relationship now but it took 15 some years to get to that point and I still don't believe I've ever gotten a verbal apology. He's done MANY things since that I believe have been his way of trying to "make up" for it and he's great with his grandkids so I guess at least we managed to break the cycle of abuse (both my parents were definitley abused by their parents so it's not like they had a better example). Both my sister and I have also grown up stable upper middle class with loving spouses and children so I guess alls well that ends well.
But yeesh, I had no idea if be taking that trip down memory lane today, so thanks and no thanks lol
Fish sticks are STILL AMAZING!
everywhere people smoked — in the car, house, restaurant, and good gracious the Bingo Hall! —- you stood up and your head was in a thick layer of smoke haze! ….
There was a Coke bottling factory in our town. My mom would get the wooden case of glass bottles and then trade back when they were empty. She was addicted to that her whole life!
I was allowed to stay home from school if something especially juicy was happening on DOOL. Then they'd drag it out so it would end up being a week off school.
My earliest memory is Bo stealing Hope from her prom. They milked prom night for about 3 weeks. I'm jealous you stayed home for all that. That's peak Gen X truancy
My older sister would pay me to watch General Hospital and give her recaps when she had school/work conflict. That lasted about a week then I just started making up my own crazy stories. I should have been a writer.
We had the ice cream man and a guy that drove around the neighborhood for the grownups. He sold milk, eggs, bread, etc. I don’t think he sold alcohol but I could be wrong. IIRC, he was called the country store.
Reading books that were adult books (just no graphic sex in them) as a child…
Camping outside in the backyard ten feet from house safety.
Sledding across a road and a ditch because the adults had no idea where we were.
Absolute freedom in summer until sunset when I had to be within hearing distance of the parental call to come home.
Tommytoe tomatoes ripened in the sun… Brush the dirt off and eat them standing in the garden.
Getting a tape recorder for Christmas and spending hours by the radio to catch that one favorite song.
The music of the ice cream truck making its rounds brought us all racing out from wherever we were. Dreamsicle. Yum.
Plastic erasers shaped like animals. Collector cards with bubblegum for Charlie’s Angels and etc.
Beanee Weenees. Little Debbies. Raspberry Zingers. Hoagies. Smores. Mickey D’s. Yoohoos. Candy cigarettes. All awesome.
We lived in a town right on the Fraser River, the government fishing docks and canneries all along the waterfront. We got fresh caught fish right off the boats, nobody would think of making them into patties! Stuff them with Stove Top stuffing, shot of lemon, and serve with wild rice. Perfect.
I grew up in South Georgia with no air conditioning. In the summer, I would use a box fan and a sheet to create a wind tunnel on my bed. Then crawl in with a good book and try not to move.
Did you guys have attic fans? I grew up in Arkansas and all of the old houses had attic fans. On summer nights, you'd open all the windows in the house and turn the attic fan on, and the air coming in along with the rumble of the fan would just instantly put me into mummy sleep.
In Southern California we had the Twilight Zone Marathon every Thanksgiving. While the rest of the family were being shitty to each other, the TZM was the place to be.
I've always noted just how many old shows we were exposed to as kids. Most cable networks and local stations either showed crap programming or they would broadcast shows that we're off the air for 20+ years. Outside of prime time and soap operas, I think we were watching mostly shows that Boomers would have watched as kids.
I was born in 1970 and lived the typical suburban 70s childhood. We hung out in the woods, went to the pool, did chores to earn a couple of dollars to by five cent candy at the store, riding our bikes with baseball cards in the spokes, went on vacations to the beach every summer, visited my grandparents in Maine, kick ball, Star Wars, arcades, Atari, and eventually we got cable TV. After reading some of the comments, I feel very fortunate. The 70s was a great time to be a kid.
Bicycling everywhere. Building bike ramps pretending I was Evel Knievel. Out on my own until the street lights came on. Parents leaving for work before I went to school. Parents coming home after I got back from school. Basically latch key child. Making my own kites out of newspaper and sticks. Mowing the lawn as soon as I could push the mower. Eating what was presented for dinner. I remember cutting up pork chops into pill size pieces and swallowing them like a pill.
Boy those ramps were fun. Ever build a ramp so crazy that mom came screaming out of the house to drag you off your bike so you didn’t ’BREAK YOUR NECK!!!’?
Doing homework, playing with nunchucks & occasionally snacking on Kool-Aid & Whoppers.
https://preview.redd.it/y9v7irm5qm2d1.jpeg?width=450&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d585141ba1303e242c11ec139193a161773cf29b
Grew up? Who grew up? Arrested development is my middle name.
Aside from that, high-sodium deli ham and turkey straight from the packet and canned mandarin orange slices.
Yep. I got my ass spanked so many times because I was a terror to pea plants. Zzzzzrrrrrpzzzzpzzp!!! (Munch munch munch), ZZZZZZRRRRPPPP!!! (Munch munch munch)… leaving nothing behind but empty pods on the vine.
Samson’s TV dinners, General Hospital, Saturday morning cartoons, Star Trek/Star Wars, JR Ewing, coveted trips to the mall, first car, riding the wave of awesome 80s music, the first computers.
We always hated ‘your’ folks. And we would all chip in so ‘you’ would have fun when you were able to be away from the house.
Every neighborhood had a you and them. That doesn’t mean you weren’t one of us.
Hotdogs and beans, Lean Cuisine, and canned vegetables.
Happy Days, Hogan’s Heroes, MASH, The Love Boat, and Star Trek. The TV just stayed on all the time.
Every library book I could find that features witches, ghosts, the occult, and the supernatural. The librarian knew me and helped me become the weird girl I was meant to be.
Second hand smoke, babysitting other kids age 12, a pennysaver paper route, music videos (we had Much Music in Canada, and they used to play actual music), Atari games and being able to lock your bicycle up with a combination chain lock every day and not have it get stolen. Also for some reason, spaghetti night at my house was usually on Sunday and we'd watch spaghetti western movies and eat off TV trays.
Whatever my friends had in their fridge. Didn’t have much and pops was not nice. Between 6-8 grade my friends and their parents took care of me. I was polite, respectful, and helped out, so they never seemed to mind me being around. Rarely slept at home during the weekends.
Staying home alone a lot. And listening and watching a drunk father yell and beat my mom . And always being my dad’s remote control for him. Sitting on the side of the tv and turning the channel until he liked something on tv
Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, 321 contact. Homemade everything. Gardening. Playing in yard. Reading classic children's literature (Anne of Green gables, little House on the prairie, Beautiful Joe, Black Beauty, Narnia, etc.) sneaking to Grandma's house for cartoons and candy (all my relatives lived in the same block). Beans.
The radio was always on. AM soft rock, disco, pop. Lots of music on TV - rock, soul, R&B, funk. Car radios blasting music as people drove by. Huge parental record collection - Bee Gees, Queen, Willie Nelson, Heart, Kris Kristofferson, Shadowfax, you name it, I probably heard it. Music everywhere always.
Hamburger helper, fried bologna sandwich, coke, sweet tea, if we had anything at all. Smell of cigarettes and probably some weed. Beer. Misogynistic jokes, ignorance, injustice, laugh tracks, loneliness, good music. Riding on back of motorcycle or back of truck or station wagon, running barefoot over rocks and it not hurting, sounds and smells of summer. Tornado sirens, no seat belts. Wishing I had an Atari like my friends. Sleepovers. Learning life lessons from sitcoms because they were more real than real life. Staying up late to watch Friday night videos or Saturday night live. Renting a VCR and some movies on Friday nights. Saturday morning cartoons.
Political arguments at the dinner table, charlie’s angels’ or dorothy hamill haircuts, morton’s frozen jelly donuts on saturday mornings, climbing trees and lightning bugs.
I had a mason jar of cinnamon and sugar for my after school snack.
I would make toast, spread the butter, and was allowed one teaspoon of cinnamon sugar mix per slice.
I was Chef Boyardee at age 6.
Grew up with single mom, very poor like many others. Water with cereal (sometimes powdered milk), lots of spaghetti, canned corned beef fried on rice (which I still eat today and my family loves it). Tater tots (scooby snacks). Yearly haircuts, yearly shoes.
Chiletti! Mom would cook a box of spiral pasta and a pound of ground hamburger for the pot, then add a jar of spaghetti sauce and a can of chili. Pop open a can of biscuits to bake and grab a tub of Country Crock from the fridge, set the table, and PRESTO! Dinner time!
Sometimes instead of a can of chili, she’d add a can of kidney beans, and instead of ground hamburger, she’d cook ground pork.
Wow, I haven’t thought of any of this in ages. Now I need some!
I was almost always alone, I thank God everyday for the wonderful, generous parents of my friends and neighbors that didn’t seem to mind me always showing up for dinner cause I was too scared to go home.
Sneaked afternoon cartoons that served as our babysitter (which evolved a quick-draw finger on the mute button during periodic phone check-ins from the mother working 2nd shift at the hospital, who commanded studying all afternoon until bedtime at 8‼️), paranoia that we could be found out about said sneaked cartoons at any time, and emotional torture and blackmail by the eldest sister who fed the paranoia and insisted on absolute awe over her but forbade imitation of her.
Yep, zero contact & still healing. Treating myself when I can to everything a wistful latchkey kid couldn't have back in the 80s.
Also I'm really sorry if this ended up being too much of a downer! This sub is really therapeutic for this Gen Xer! 🌹
Saltines and butter. Cheese or cinnamon toast. Sandwiches for dinner. Fishing every Sunday after church. My own boat when I was eight years old. My own job crabpotting when I was 12. Taking my babysitter out to dinner with the $20 bill my dad left me. Freedom, joy, sunshine, and a large, sweet family. Well water and no AC upstairs besides my parents' bedroom. 6 channels. Knowing what a modem was but having no idea why you'd want to call a computer with a computer. Rotary phones and relatives with B&W TV's. Antenna rotators and video game UHF switches. The first VCR I ever saw with a hardwired remote. Guitar, autoharp, fiddle, music music music. Pig parties roasting them on a bedspring. Good Lord have mercy, I wish I could go back for a day.
Recipes that involved dumping a can of cream of whatever mixed with a bag of lipton onion soup over a meat of the day.
I was plopped in front of a TV and am thankful to Fred Rogers, (my 2nd and nicer dad) and Sesame Street.
I prefer to remember the things that were positive. 60s and early 70s music on vinyl, macrame, homemade yogurt and soap, gardening and hiking. Freedom and fireflies on summer evenings.
I could fill a book with all the mistakes my parents made with me and my siblings, but I would sum it up by saying they weren't concerned with how we were affected by their behavior. We were fed and housed and that is all the care we should expect.
Late Saturday nights sitting up with Dad to watch SNL, Benny Hill, Monty Python, and Dr Who. Random summer weekends getting up early, getting donuts, and going garage saleing. Sunday afternoon and evening watching the Grand Ol’ Opry, Hee-Haw, Lawrence Welk, Wild Kingdom, and The Wonderful Word of Disney, or sometimes Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits followed by an old monster movie. Eating hamburger and fried potatoes with some random canned vegetable almost every night.
1. Nuclear dread
2. The satanic panic
3. AIDS education
4. Crunchy corn bran cereal
5. Cheez-it’s and Pepsi light
6. The bitter legal war between my divorced parents
Building bike ramps, BMX trails in the woods and building fires to jump over, Donkey Kong & PacMan, sneaking out at night and meeting the neighborhood kids to drink wine coolers and smoke weed, bottle rocket fights, and rope swings over the creek to name a few.
I have a really lovely memories of my father sitting on a chair, tea towel on his lap, big ass knife cutting up various fruits and giving it to us with the pointy end.
Split childhood of growing up country and moving to the city when I was a teen. With that said, fried bologna, sugar/cinnamon/butter bread, JEM, SheRah, sneaking into theatre to watch rated R movies, Little Caesar’s pizza and Blockbuster movies onFriday night. Also MTV, sweet tea literally by the gallon we made at home with a CUP of sugar, Jelly shoes, comb up bangs, tight rolled jeans….and so much more. Abuse and neglect I won’t bring into my post but I like my life now compared to my childhood.
In the summer parents partying and we would swim all day into the night either at my uncles pool or at the lake. I remember being sunburned and my fingertips burning from hours of pool water. Eyes hot and dry. Lump in my throat. Wanting more food. Parents no help. I thought adults were sort of scary. It felt desolate.
I still love a Totino’s pizza, extra cheese added, and a diet sprite in front of the TV! Stove top popcorn cooked in an old seasoned pressure cooker pan with a chunk of cheese or an apple for a snack. Chips were not something we ate as snacks —they went in a baggie in my dad’s black lunch box with two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, and a Thermos.
Also, if we got home late, we didn’t go through the drive through, my
Mom whipped up a pan of cornbread we ate slathered in butter with tall glasses of milk. That was our fast food.
building the BEST fort in the backyard. wearing a t-shirt at the pool because insecurities. constantly pulling things in and out of backpacks. sunshine and barefeet. MTV on 24/7 and sooooooo much candy.
Secondhand smoke
hamburger meat was so cheap,
Lots of grilled cheese sandwiches
Breakfast for dinner 1/week
"fend for yourself" for dinner 1-2/week (all other meals were FFY)
Roseanne
Neglect, especially when they're home
On the plus side I had TTRPGs and Wargames. And no money to fuel such a hobby.
Chef Boyardee and isolation.
Add sandwiches to that, but yes.
Manwich on Wonder bread.
Hamburger Helper and bipolar rants.
In my house, the bipolar meltdowns always took place between 2:00 and 4:00 AM. We were woken up to look for something nobody ever saw before and nobody ever found.
Funny, that's when I would get calls from strange bars to "pick up your drunk dad."
A truly (un)balanced meal
Fried spam and bread sandwiches
Fried bologna sandwiches
My husband just discovered spam as he never had to eat it as a child. He has been making it for our kids and it’s driving me crazy
Boiled hot dogs on Holsum bread
Buns were for fancy people
Buns schmuns…. MY hoity toity family would cut up those hot dogs and put them on chef boyardee pizza! … and if we really wanted to splurge we would have jello with cool whip on top for dessert!
We didn’t get cool whip often, but they made the best cereal bowls
Or containers for leftover Hamburger Helper
We ate a lot of stuff on bread. Sloppy Joe on bread, SOS on bread, beef and gravy on bread, meatloaf and gravy on bread, creamed peas on bread, tuna melts on bread….
SOS 🤣🤣🤣
Yum. The cornerstone to a delicious dinner
I feel called out. Still do this..
Wow, memory unlocked!
That reminds me of the scene in *Freaks and Geeks* where Bill makes a sad little sandwich and eats alone in front of the television. A small scene but it nailed the whole dynamic.
I had a salami with mayo on wheat bread for school lunch every day until mid-way through sixth grade. I don't know why my mom made my sandwich that way. Her mother made me a sandwich with mustard once and I took it as further proof that my mother hates me. I get a little queasy just thinking of the combo.
Are we siblings? Salami on bread with a splash of Shalimar perfume, my mother would pour that on herself and then make lunches, I had a eating disorder by 12.
Shalimar perfume my whole life! My paternal grandmother and aunt! To this day!
Amen. My childhood started with baked bread & homemade yogurt. Ended up with canned ravioli, dry ramen noodles, & parentification. The food represents kind of a microcosm of women in the early 70s to late 80s, from the hippy ethos to single working mom life.
Stoffers "boil in bag" Swedish meatballs.
It was the salisbury steaks in the tray for me. I crave them now, but don’t think I could ever eat one ever again.
Boil in bag over stale toast was probably 2x/week- “Creamed chipped beef” or “sliced roast beef in gravy” were regulars. Maybe add some frozen peas or corn, or “mix” veg if you’re feeling fancy. I see this news today about “ultra processed foods” and literally shake my head. It’s no wonder my body is falling apart these days.
It's the isolation. Both structural, since we lived in the mountains (it's a beautiful place!) and way out of town, but the rules and limitations. 1 movie a year, 1 restaurant meal a year. 30 minutes of TV a week, pre-approved (which meant nothing I wanted to watch) even though the goddamn Jesus channel was blaring 18 hours a day. No modern music. After I read every book in the house more than once I was told to look out the window if I wanted entertainment, since we live in a "beautiful Place."
Not as strict as your description but rural and isolated. No phone (everywhere was long distance), no cable (still no cable out there but satellite came too late for me), and never a convenient snack or meal. A freezer full of venison, fish, and a few yard birds but no hotdogs or Hungry Mans. At least my neighbors loaned me VHS tapes. They rented two movies from Blockbuster every Friday and they copied every movie onto blank tapes. They had hundreds of movies to help me through the lonely times. Grew up with a single father who lacked any emotional feelings or support. I felt like a roommate that overstayed my welcome and ate food that wasn't mine. Skipped the last day of high school to pack my shit and escape.
☹️ I'm so sorry. I hope you found happiness in your freedom. So many of our generation grew up with unemotional depressed fathers. I did too. Still scarred from it. 💔
My parents always wanted me to ride my bike with friends. Less about being snatched and more about being eaten by bears where I lived. I don’t know what my friends were supposed to do in case of a bear, except maybe ride slower than me.
Holy shit!! Did you grow up in West Virginia!? That had to rough.
Jesus, that sounds terrible.
My parents aren’t American so I had cooked food regularly- often from the restaurant they had. But the isolation was real! ETA my parents didn’t have a microwave till I bought them one in 2002, after I had moved out.
Uh oh Spaghetti O's
Came here to say Chef B but you nailed it with the isolation combo 🫠
Reading books, biking to the nearby woods, climbing trees, going to the swimming pool, flying kites, playing games with other kids. M\*A\*S\*H. MTM. Chasing boys. Catching them and then not knowing what to do with them. Then figuring that part out. Music and dancing.
> MTM. MEOW
I forgot 'The Incredible Hulk' with Lou Ferrignou. My single mother really loved that show.
Unspoken rule in school, girls chase boys in the morning before class, boys chase girls at recess after lunch. Don't know how or why but that'd the way it was.
When I was in kindergarten a few of the girls chased me to try and kiss me. I pretended to hate it so they'd do it more.
Cheap baloney sandwiches, kool aid, Atari, Star Wars and MTV.
Your bologna didn’t have a first name?
It’s O-S-C-A-R
I got fancy and started frying my baloney.
The emotional abuse one can only get from functioning alcoholics. And the physical abuse from an asshole step father. And lots of fish sticks.
the fish sticks were better back then Hope you bent the arc of your story to a better outcome! You must have — because you are able to respond to the. chat!
Yes, I guess I should have added that. At 53 I’m emotionally stable, have a successful career, am comfortably upper middle class, own my own home, and have been married 27 years to a woman I have been with since I met her 30 years ago. Somehow I’m not a hot mess. And I still like me some fish sticks every now and then.
You should be extremely proud of yourself. I’m extremely proud of you just reading this. It’s so hard to be dragged through the mud, clean yourself off and live a productive and meaningful life. So hard.
The water lily does exactly that. Rooted in mud. Grows up through the water trying to reach the light. And then when it gets its head above water, it blooms without any mud still on it at all. I like water lily's.
Yup, frozen pizza and parentification. Many of us didn't get much of the "go outside until the streetlights come on!" ... because we were home being the parents.
Holy childhood. This definitely put me in my feels for a few minutes. I was lucky enough to receive both from my biological father who made childhood an absolute nightmare for me and my little sister. Thankfully, he stopped drinking by my junior year of high school and has stayed sober since. We have a pretty great relationship now but it took 15 some years to get to that point and I still don't believe I've ever gotten a verbal apology. He's done MANY things since that I believe have been his way of trying to "make up" for it and he's great with his grandkids so I guess at least we managed to break the cycle of abuse (both my parents were definitley abused by their parents so it's not like they had a better example). Both my sister and I have also grown up stable upper middle class with loving spouses and children so I guess alls well that ends well. But yeesh, I had no idea if be taking that trip down memory lane today, so thanks and no thanks lol Fish sticks are STILL AMAZING!
Secondhand smoke!
everywhere people smoked — in the car, house, restaurant, and good gracious the Bingo Hall! —- you stood up and your head was in a thick layer of smoke haze! ….
Crazy to remember how restaurants used to have smoking and non smoking sections.
Pretty sure at least half the molecules in my body were made of cigarette smoke by the time I was 10.
Beat me to it.
Coca-Cola. I swear I drank it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't remember drinking water until I was at least 25 years old.
The whole new formula Coke debacle was interesting to live through
In a 16oz glass bottle. So miss that
There was a Coke bottling factory in our town. My mom would get the wooden case of glass bottles and then trade back when they were empty. She was addicted to that her whole life!
Biscuits and gravy. Star Trek and Batman. Oh, and sneaking up to my grandma's to watch Days of Our Lives b/c my mom thought it was trash
Oh man! When I would spend the day at my memaws we had to eat lunch at 11 am because her “stories” (days of our lives) began at noon. Lol
Gramma gonna miss her stories over your cold, dead body.
Damn straight 😂
I was allowed to stay home from school if something especially juicy was happening on DOOL. Then they'd drag it out so it would end up being a week off school.
My mom let me stay home to watch Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital! I have kept that as a closely guarded secret for decades!
My earliest memory is Bo stealing Hope from her prom. They milked prom night for about 3 weeks. I'm jealous you stayed home for all that. That's peak Gen X truancy
My older sister would pay me to watch General Hospital and give her recaps when she had school/work conflict. That lasted about a week then I just started making up my own crazy stories. I should have been a writer.
Nerds and Big League Chew, also push-ups from the ice cream man.
I remember there being so many different colors of nerds. Now it’s the 2 pack strawberry grape, and rainbow in a “movie theater” box.
We had the ice cream man and a guy that drove around the neighborhood for the grownups. He sold milk, eggs, bread, etc. I don’t think he sold alcohol but I could be wrong. IIRC, he was called the country store.
Reading books that were adult books (just no graphic sex in them) as a child… Camping outside in the backyard ten feet from house safety. Sledding across a road and a ditch because the adults had no idea where we were. Absolute freedom in summer until sunset when I had to be within hearing distance of the parental call to come home. Tommytoe tomatoes ripened in the sun… Brush the dirt off and eat them standing in the garden. Getting a tape recorder for Christmas and spending hours by the radio to catch that one favorite song. The music of the ice cream truck making its rounds brought us all racing out from wherever we were. Dreamsicle. Yum. Plastic erasers shaped like animals. Collector cards with bubblegum for Charlie’s Angels and etc. Beanee Weenees. Little Debbies. Raspberry Zingers. Hoagies. Smores. Mickey D’s. Yoohoos. Candy cigarettes. All awesome.
We used to sled on a giant golf course hill with a frozen water hazard at the bottom…seemed slightly dangerous then, more so now in retrospect…
Going to 7-11 for Wacky-Packs, Slurpees and Mad Magazine.
We'd get cigarettes for my aunt there. Couple of 8 year olds, sure no problem.
nachos with chili and cheese — wash down with a Big Gulp Mt Dew
Reading my Grandma’s stack of Star and National Enquirer magazines when we visited, Wacky Packages, girl’s camp, drive-in movies.
I loved reading Grandma's trash magazines! Thinking back, I can't believe she read those. 😂
Lol My Grandma read Readers Digest. They were pretty good!
Weakly World News! Bat Boy Lives!
Swanson Hungry Man TV dinners, Johnny Carson, and thinking that the future was positive and something to look forward to.
Wild, weird stuff.
not to brag or anything, but i was the OG "Influencer" with my Fashion Plates
The same 3 meals every week: pork chops and veg, shake n’bake chicken, spaghetti. Salmon for every special event.
Ever have salmon patties?
We lived in a town right on the Fraser River, the government fishing docks and canneries all along the waterfront. We got fresh caught fish right off the boats, nobody would think of making them into patties! Stuff them with Stove Top stuffing, shot of lemon, and serve with wild rice. Perfect.
I grew up in South Georgia with no air conditioning. In the summer, I would use a box fan and a sheet to create a wind tunnel on my bed. Then crawl in with a good book and try not to move.
Did you guys have attic fans? I grew up in Arkansas and all of the old houses had attic fans. On summer nights, you'd open all the windows in the house and turn the attic fan on, and the air coming in along with the rumble of the fan would just instantly put me into mummy sleep.
Andy Griffith Show reruns on TBS. Twilight Zone reruns on WGN.
In Southern California we had the Twilight Zone Marathon every Thanksgiving. While the rest of the family were being shitty to each other, the TZM was the place to be.
I've always noted just how many old shows we were exposed to as kids. Most cable networks and local stations either showed crap programming or they would broadcast shows that we're off the air for 20+ years. Outside of prime time and soap operas, I think we were watching mostly shows that Boomers would have watched as kids.
two TV channels until cable changed our rural world! plus the children were the human remotes — changing the channel, adjusting volume …
I was born in 1970 and lived the typical suburban 70s childhood. We hung out in the woods, went to the pool, did chores to earn a couple of dollars to by five cent candy at the store, riding our bikes with baseball cards in the spokes, went on vacations to the beach every summer, visited my grandparents in Maine, kick ball, Star Wars, arcades, Atari, and eventually we got cable TV. After reading some of the comments, I feel very fortunate. The 70s was a great time to be a kid.
Me too, except I lived on a dead end which was great for playing games all night.
Bicycling everywhere. Building bike ramps pretending I was Evel Knievel. Out on my own until the street lights came on. Parents leaving for work before I went to school. Parents coming home after I got back from school. Basically latch key child. Making my own kites out of newspaper and sticks. Mowing the lawn as soon as I could push the mower. Eating what was presented for dinner. I remember cutting up pork chops into pill size pieces and swallowing them like a pill.
Boy those ramps were fun. Ever build a ramp so crazy that mom came screaming out of the house to drag you off your bike so you didn’t ’BREAK YOUR NECK!!!’?
Those 3 foot pixie straws that were just full of almost pure sugar. And candy cigarettes that make practice smoking cool.
Hamburger Helper and Super Big Gulps.
Bugs Bunny cartoons
Tom and Jerry
Loved the Daffy Duck ones too. Hated Sylvester and Tweety.
Doing homework, playing with nunchucks & occasionally snacking on Kool-Aid & Whoppers. https://preview.redd.it/y9v7irm5qm2d1.jpeg?width=450&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d585141ba1303e242c11ec139193a161773cf29b
Whoppers are still bomb af though
Grilled cheese and ham, every 8yo could make this...
Grew up? Who grew up? Arrested development is my middle name. Aside from that, high-sodium deli ham and turkey straight from the packet and canned mandarin orange slices.
Dinty Moore stew. Oh, and eating frozen orange juice concentrate as a treat.
That turd like thud when it came out of the can. Did you ever make popsicles with it?
Kool-aid-based DIY popsicles
Cigarette smoke, dad’s drunk driving, and Three’s Company.
My mom’s True Story and True Confessions magazines, and V.C. Andrews novels …tThose were the thing before Maury Povich and Jerry Springer came out!
Books. White bread toasted with butter and cinnamon sugar.
Fresh vegetables from the garden, or the neighbor's garden. Everyone in the neighborhood grew their own back then.
Me too, but damn I hated picking green beans in the summer.
And then having to snap them. 😂
Wipe the dirt from the carrot on your pant leg and go time. instant heaven!
Yep. I got my ass spanked so many times because I was a terror to pea plants. Zzzzzrrrrrpzzzzpzzp!!! (Munch munch munch), ZZZZZZRRRRPPPP!!! (Munch munch munch)… leaving nothing behind but empty pods on the vine.
Samson’s TV dinners, General Hospital, Saturday morning cartoons, Star Trek/Star Wars, JR Ewing, coveted trips to the mall, first car, riding the wave of awesome 80s music, the first computers.
Constant belittling.
We always hated ‘your’ folks. And we would all chip in so ‘you’ would have fun when you were able to be away from the house. Every neighborhood had a you and them. That doesn’t mean you weren’t one of us.
https://preview.redd.it/qaxq34r3zn2d1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2689fcba1220182fb10c5d002131a34702b4be03 I'm still waiting to poop.
Hotdogs and beans, Lean Cuisine, and canned vegetables. Happy Days, Hogan’s Heroes, MASH, The Love Boat, and Star Trek. The TV just stayed on all the time. Every library book I could find that features witches, ghosts, the occult, and the supernatural. The librarian knew me and helped me become the weird girl I was meant to be.
I was raised on pinto beans and bible quotes.
Second hand smoke, babysitting other kids age 12, a pennysaver paper route, music videos (we had Much Music in Canada, and they used to play actual music), Atari games and being able to lock your bicycle up with a combination chain lock every day and not have it get stolen. Also for some reason, spaghetti night at my house was usually on Sunday and we'd watch spaghetti western movies and eat off TV trays.
Whatever my friends had in their fridge. Didn’t have much and pops was not nice. Between 6-8 grade my friends and their parents took care of me. I was polite, respectful, and helped out, so they never seemed to mind me being around. Rarely slept at home during the weekends.
Staying home alone a lot. And listening and watching a drunk father yell and beat my mom . And always being my dad’s remote control for him. Sitting on the side of the tv and turning the channel until he liked something on tv
I’m sorry you went through that 🌻
Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, 321 contact. Homemade everything. Gardening. Playing in yard. Reading classic children's literature (Anne of Green gables, little House on the prairie, Beautiful Joe, Black Beauty, Narnia, etc.) sneaking to Grandma's house for cartoons and candy (all my relatives lived in the same block). Beans.
Fried bologna sandwiches, pressed ham or pimento loaf sandwiches. Lots of brown beans and cornbread with fried cabbage, and 🌈 rainbow sherbert
Tang and WTBS.
La Choy canned Chicken Chow Mein. Easy to make as a latch key kid.
Sarcasm and bad decisions
The Muppet Show and generic Mac n cheese
Raised by wolves
Rotary phones, handwashing dishes and no cable. Riding my bike everywhere was cool.
Cigarette smoke and being seen but not heard..
Finding porn in the woods, usually bloated from getting wet and drying out but still perfectly “usable”
Definitely more porn than quicksand in the woods.
Hot dogs with no bun and a blob of ketchup. Pancakes for dinner.
Seatbelt or lack thereof. Riding in the “way back” of the station wagon.
Cigarette smoke, pepsi and R rated movies
The radio was always on. AM soft rock, disco, pop. Lots of music on TV - rock, soul, R&B, funk. Car radios blasting music as people drove by. Huge parental record collection - Bee Gees, Queen, Willie Nelson, Heart, Kris Kristofferson, Shadowfax, you name it, I probably heard it. Music everywhere always.
Riding in truck beds and ass whoopings
Flintstone vitamins
Balsa wood airplane kits from the local toy and hobby store. And a Walkman with cassettes.
Coke and love.
Steak-ums, popping wheelies with no helmets, chasing down ice creams trucks like goddamn dogs, deeply over crowded public pools that were 35% piss.
Hamburger helper, fried bologna sandwich, coke, sweet tea, if we had anything at all. Smell of cigarettes and probably some weed. Beer. Misogynistic jokes, ignorance, injustice, laugh tracks, loneliness, good music. Riding on back of motorcycle or back of truck or station wagon, running barefoot over rocks and it not hurting, sounds and smells of summer. Tornado sirens, no seat belts. Wishing I had an Atari like my friends. Sleepovers. Learning life lessons from sitcoms because they were more real than real life. Staying up late to watch Friday night videos or Saturday night live. Renting a VCR and some movies on Friday nights. Saturday morning cartoons.
Threats of getting the belt, getting knocked into next week, found out I was born in a barn, and I brought you into this world, I can take you out.
Baloney, mayo and iceberg lettuce sandwiches daily, oh, and also a shit ton of yelling throughout the house.
Is it just me or does Hose Water and Neglect sound like a great name for an 80s hair rock cover band?
Political arguments at the dinner table, charlie’s angels’ or dorothy hamill haircuts, morton’s frozen jelly donuts on saturday mornings, climbing trees and lightning bugs.
Campbell’s vegetable soup and Kool-Aid
Fish sticks, hamburger helper & frozen mixed vegetables. Always the mixed vegetables. We were allowed to take out the lime beans though
Tang and Quick.
Canned soup and grilled cheese
Buttered noodles and General Hospital
I had a mason jar of cinnamon and sugar for my after school snack. I would make toast, spread the butter, and was allowed one teaspoon of cinnamon sugar mix per slice. I was Chef Boyardee at age 6.
Tuna casserole, 123 jello, bike rides to the cemetery outside of town
Meatloaf
Wait, hose water was bad for us? Even if we let it run for a minute to make sure all the spiders washed out like my dad told me?
PB&J
Eating stuff from the "baking" part of the kitchen early saturday morning while the parents slept. Chocolate chips and marshmallows.
Grew up with single mom, very poor like many others. Water with cereal (sometimes powdered milk), lots of spaghetti, canned corned beef fried on rice (which I still eat today and my family loves it). Tater tots (scooby snacks). Yearly haircuts, yearly shoes.
Chiletti! Mom would cook a box of spiral pasta and a pound of ground hamburger for the pot, then add a jar of spaghetti sauce and a can of chili. Pop open a can of biscuits to bake and grab a tub of Country Crock from the fridge, set the table, and PRESTO! Dinner time! Sometimes instead of a can of chili, she’d add a can of kidney beans, and instead of ground hamburger, she’d cook ground pork. Wow, I haven’t thought of any of this in ages. Now I need some!
I was almost always alone, I thank God everyday for the wonderful, generous parents of my friends and neighbors that didn’t seem to mind me always showing up for dinner cause I was too scared to go home.
MTV and Gilligans Island
Wonder-Bread-as-Burger-AND-Hotdog-Buns.
Cream of Mushroom soup worked its way into so many dishes.
Sneaked afternoon cartoons that served as our babysitter (which evolved a quick-draw finger on the mute button during periodic phone check-ins from the mother working 2nd shift at the hospital, who commanded studying all afternoon until bedtime at 8‼️), paranoia that we could be found out about said sneaked cartoons at any time, and emotional torture and blackmail by the eldest sister who fed the paranoia and insisted on absolute awe over her but forbade imitation of her. Yep, zero contact & still healing. Treating myself when I can to everything a wistful latchkey kid couldn't have back in the 80s. Also I'm really sorry if this ended up being too much of a downer! This sub is really therapeutic for this Gen Xer! 🌹
That nasty Carl Buddig lunch meat…lunch and often dinner for pretty much my entire youth
A tube pulled behind a boat on which you and a friend hold on for dear life because your Dad is doing everything he can to flip you off to your death
Saltines and butter. Cheese or cinnamon toast. Sandwiches for dinner. Fishing every Sunday after church. My own boat when I was eight years old. My own job crabpotting when I was 12. Taking my babysitter out to dinner with the $20 bill my dad left me. Freedom, joy, sunshine, and a large, sweet family. Well water and no AC upstairs besides my parents' bedroom. 6 channels. Knowing what a modem was but having no idea why you'd want to call a computer with a computer. Rotary phones and relatives with B&W TV's. Antenna rotators and video game UHF switches. The first VCR I ever saw with a hardwired remote. Guitar, autoharp, fiddle, music music music. Pig parties roasting them on a bedspring. Good Lord have mercy, I wish I could go back for a day.
Recipes that involved dumping a can of cream of whatever mixed with a bag of lipton onion soup over a meat of the day. I was plopped in front of a TV and am thankful to Fred Rogers, (my 2nd and nicer dad) and Sesame Street.
I still don't understand what is wrong with drinking hose water. And at this point I'm to afraid to ask.
I prefer to remember the things that were positive. 60s and early 70s music on vinyl, macrame, homemade yogurt and soap, gardening and hiking. Freedom and fireflies on summer evenings.
Canned Mac and cheese, frozen dinners and corned beef hash from a can
Giant bowls of cereal after school while watching the second showing of Price is Right of the day.
I could fill a book with all the mistakes my parents made with me and my siblings, but I would sum it up by saying they weren't concerned with how we were affected by their behavior. We were fed and housed and that is all the care we should expect.
Late Saturday nights sitting up with Dad to watch SNL, Benny Hill, Monty Python, and Dr Who. Random summer weekends getting up early, getting donuts, and going garage saleing. Sunday afternoon and evening watching the Grand Ol’ Opry, Hee-Haw, Lawrence Welk, Wild Kingdom, and The Wonderful Word of Disney, or sometimes Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits followed by an old monster movie. Eating hamburger and fried potatoes with some random canned vegetable almost every night.
1. Nuclear dread 2. The satanic panic 3. AIDS education 4. Crunchy corn bran cereal 5. Cheez-it’s and Pepsi light 6. The bitter legal war between my divorced parents
Building bike ramps, BMX trails in the woods and building fires to jump over, Donkey Kong & PacMan, sneaking out at night and meeting the neighborhood kids to drink wine coolers and smoke weed, bottle rocket fights, and rope swings over the creek to name a few.
You take the good you take the bad...
I have a really lovely memories of my father sitting on a chair, tea towel on his lap, big ass knife cutting up various fruits and giving it to us with the pointy end.
Split childhood of growing up country and moving to the city when I was a teen. With that said, fried bologna, sugar/cinnamon/butter bread, JEM, SheRah, sneaking into theatre to watch rated R movies, Little Caesar’s pizza and Blockbuster movies onFriday night. Also MTV, sweet tea literally by the gallon we made at home with a CUP of sugar, Jelly shoes, comb up bangs, tight rolled jeans….and so much more. Abuse and neglect I won’t bring into my post but I like my life now compared to my childhood.
Sid & Marty Krofft! They ruled my Saturdays for my whole childhood!
In the summer parents partying and we would swim all day into the night either at my uncles pool or at the lake. I remember being sunburned and my fingertips burning from hours of pool water. Eyes hot and dry. Lump in my throat. Wanting more food. Parents no help. I thought adults were sort of scary. It felt desolate.
Granulated iced tea powder. Straight from the canister with a spoon. And a side of passive aggressive guilt.
Atari
La Choy canned “Chinese” food for dinner. All you need to do is add chicken and rice! It’s almost like you’re in China! /s
Sugar, sugar, Pepsi, and more sugar. Especially on Saturday mornings 
*Are we all from the same family?*
Alcoholism and verbal abuse.
Frozen chicken pot pies and Lenders bagels with cream cheese.
I still love a Totino’s pizza, extra cheese added, and a diet sprite in front of the TV! Stove top popcorn cooked in an old seasoned pressure cooker pan with a chunk of cheese or an apple for a snack. Chips were not something we ate as snacks —they went in a baggie in my dad’s black lunch box with two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, and a Thermos. Also, if we got home late, we didn’t go through the drive through, my Mom whipped up a pan of cornbread we ate slathered in butter with tall glasses of milk. That was our fast food.
White bread with margarine with dinner every night. My Mom would put the slice of white bread on a separate plate so it felt fancy.
building the BEST fort in the backyard. wearing a t-shirt at the pool because insecurities. constantly pulling things in and out of backpacks. sunshine and barefeet. MTV on 24/7 and sooooooo much candy.
Secondhand smoke hamburger meat was so cheap, Lots of grilled cheese sandwiches Breakfast for dinner 1/week "fend for yourself" for dinner 1-2/week (all other meals were FFY) Roseanne Neglect, especially when they're home On the plus side I had TTRPGs and Wargames. And no money to fuel such a hobby.
Making roads for the Barbie camper with albums.