Perfect 1950s Family Life Was All An Act

My grandmother would say: "There's no such thing as the good old days." Difficult times in the perception of perfection.

LMFAO "These kids greet their dad *as if* they genuinely missed them" My god the lack of basic self awareness is astonishing for them to write it that way.

It’s nice to hear previous generations admitting how lonely they felt. Everyone keeps blaming social media on loneliness today, but I remember being a kid and experiencing that shift from the 90s to the 2000s when I could suddenly connect to people with shared hobbies online, discovered new hobbies, and I felt like a new world of people opened up for me. I am less lonely now than I was in the 90s.

My mom’s mom was on pills and alcohol and my mom’s best friend’s dad was on pills and alcohol. They had each other to commiserate. My mom had classmates who disappeared for a few months to visit an aunt. That was the cover for teen pregnancy.

I was a kid in the 50's, and believe me, family life was very far from perfect.

This explains why my Mother (born in 1945) cannot accept imperfection in her family. She wants everything to be easy and perfect, and she never wants to have a deep thought. Life is way too messy for that. She also has extremely sexist expectations for me and my daughter yet she's modern thinking with other women.

My mother's mental illness (would be called zrapid cycling Bi Polar today and could be treated) had us moving monthly some years. Later my dads job with Boeing allowed them to move between city's and state at the same pace ! Anyways, I met maybe hundreds more 60s era families than most kids. On the outside, our family looked and acted wonderfully. On the inside it was fraught with severe mental and sexual abuse. To survive, i was a pretty worldly and aware little kid. I was the youngest by far, so I learned alot by watching what my siblings went thru. I left at 15. So, I'd meet all these new families, and I could pick up on the craziness or abuse immediately. I realized right away it was pretty common, and a lot of kids had it way worse than me. There weren't many schools with counselors you could trust to not call your parents if you reached out for help. Abuse and mental illness were buried very deep. In my experience anyway.

I'm 68. My mom had baby after baby a year apart. She was addicted to sleeping pills and diet pills. My dad was a violent alcoholic. We did play outside, ride bikes to our friend's and had zero real interactions with adults. We were basically on our own.

My grandmother married an alcoholic (born 1936). It has caused a huge ripple effect in our family of trauma and poor behaviour. She finally left and he died before I was born. She worked incredibly hard to survive after that with three kids alone. It wasn't an easy life.

Many had PTSD from the war. So it was Hard for the wife and the rest of the family.