Growing Up in the 1970s

Amanda
Jan 22
2 min read

Did the generation growing up in the 1970s have it better than the generation growing up in the 00s?

Big question - and a fun one to tease apart! Yes, there are the advantages often associated with growing up in the 1970s, without turning it into a “kids-these-days” rant (because every generation gains and loses things).

1. Freedom, autonomy, and embodied confidence growing up in the 1970s

Many 1970s young people had a level of unsupervised freedom that’s rare now:

Roaming neighbourhoods, problem-solving in real time, negotiating conflict without adults intervening
Learning risk, limits, and consequences in the body, not via rules or apps

This often translated into:

Higher tolerance for uncertainty and boredom
Practical self-reliance (“figure it out” skills)
A felt sense of agency rather than constant evaluation

By contrast, many 2000s young people grew up under intensive supervision, safety culture, and performance monitoring - protective in some ways, but sometimes at the cost of confidence and spontaneity.

2. Fewer surveillance dynamics

No smartphones, no social media, no permanent record:

You could experiment with identity without it being archived
Mistakes faded with time instead of becoming searchable
Social life happened locally, not performatively

Psychologically, that meant:

Less self-objectification
Less comparison culture
More room for private fantasy and unconscious play

Young people in the 2000s grew up inside a panopticon - peers, platforms, parents, and algorithms all watching, rating, and shaping behaviour.

3. A slower developmental tempo

The 1970s offered:

Fewer academic pressures in early childhood
More unstructured time
Later exposure to adult anxieties (economic collapse, climate dread, global catastrophe weren’t daily background noise yet)

This supported:

Imagination and symbolic play
Emotional digestion rather than constant stimulation
A clearer developmental boundary between child and adult worlds

2000s kids often matured faster cognitively but not always emotionally, absorbing adult-level information before having the psychic scaffolding to metabolise it.

4. Material expectations were lower (and clearer)

The 1970s had plenty of economic stress, but:

Housing, education, and employment still felt attainable for many
The social contract, while flawed and unequal, felt more legible
Fewer “infinite choice” pressures around identity, careers, and lifestyles

For today’s young people:

Precarity is normalised
Success criteria are contradictory and shifting
The horizon can feel permanently foreclosed

That has real effects on hope, ambition, and anxiety.

5. Collective culture over individualised branding

1970s youth culture emphasised:

Shared music, TV, political movements, subcultures
Being part of something rather than curating a personal brand

This fostered:

Collective identity
Political imagination
A sense that change happened through groups, not just personal optimisation

The 2000s tilt heavily toward individual responsibility for systemic problems, which can quietly internalise failure and fuel shame.

A crucial caveat (especially from a feminist lens)

These benefits were unevenly distributed:

Many people, particularly women, lgbtqia+ communities, and people of colour - paid a high price for that “freedom”
Silence around abuse, mental health, and power meant harm often went unspoken
Some of today’s gains (language, visibility, consent culture) are real and hard-won

So it’s not “the 1970s were better,” but rather: