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Parents who grew up in the '70s and '80s remember the experiences that blow their kids' minds

Kids were tougher then for a reason.

via Wikimedia Commons

Island School Class, circa 1970s.

Parents, do you think your child would be able to survive if they were transported back to the '70s or '80s? Could they live at a time before the digital revolution put a huge chunk of our lives online?

These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, but before then, if you were in public and needed to call someone, you used a pay phone. Can you remember the last time you stuck 50 cents into one and grabbed the grubby handset?

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, roughly 100,000 pay phones remain in the U.S., down from 2 million in 1999.

Do you think a 10-year-old kid would have any idea how to use a payphone in 2022? Would they be able to use a Thomas Guide map to find out how to get somewhere? If they stepped into a time warp and wound up in 1975, could they throw a Led Zeppelin album on the record player at a party?

Another big difference between now and life in the '70s and '80s has been public attitudes toward smoking cigarettes. In 1965, 42.4% of Americans smoked and now, it’s just 12.5%. This sea change in public opinion about smoking means there are fewer places where smoking is deemed acceptable.

But in the early '80s, you could smoke on a bus, on a plane, in a movie theater, in restaurants, in the classroom and even in hospitals. How would a child of today react if their third grade teacher lit up a heater in the middle of math class?

Dan Wuori, senior director of early learning at the Hunt Institute, tweeted that his high school had a smoking area “for the kids.” He then asked his followers to share “something you experienced as a kid that would blow your children’s minds.”


A lot of folks responded with stories of how ubiquitous smoking was when they were in school. While others explained that life was perilous for a kid, whether it was the school playground equipment or questionable car seats.

Here are a few responses that’ll show today’s kids just how crazy life used to be in the '70s and '80s.

First of all, let’s talk about smoking.

Want to call someone? Need to get picked up from baseball practice? You can’t text mom or dad, you’ll have to grab a quarter and use a pay phone.

People had little regard for their kids’ safety or health.

You could buy a soda in school.

Things were a lot different before the internet.

Remember pen pals?

A lot of people bemoan the fact that the children of today aren’t as tough as they were a few decades back. But that’s probably because the parents of today are better attuned to their kids’ needs so they don't have to cheat death to make it through the day.

But just imagine how easy parenting would be if all you had to do was throw your kids a bag of Doritos and a Coke for lunch and you never worried about strapping them into a car seat?


This article originally appeared on 06.08.22

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Well Being

The 'Best Anti-Smoking Ad Ever' was made 8 years ago, but is just as relevant today

via Ogilvy

Quitting smoking is one of the hardest things to do because nicotine addiction keeps people in denial. Smokers either tell themselves they'll be the lucky one who avoids the health consequences of smoking or they procrastinate, halfheartedly believing they will quit next week, next month or next year.

One of the keys to helping people quit, is to put them in a position where they are forced to take an honest look at themselves and their habits.

A 2012 anti-smoking ad made by Ogilvy Thailand for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation is known as one of the greatest ever because it uses the smokers' love of children to help them confront their habit.

In the video, two small children, armed with cigarettes, ask adults if they can borrow a light. Out of concern for the little ones' health, the smokers tell the kids all about the dangers of smoking.

"If you smoke you die faster," one man tells a little boy. "Don't you want to live and play?" "When you smoke you suffer from lung cancer, emphysema and strokes," another says.

The smokers cannot help but feel hypocritical talking about the dangers of smoking to a child while holding a cigarette.

The ad ends with a touching twist.

Smoking Kid - Best of #OgilvyCannes 2012 / #CannesLionswww.youtube.com


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These anti-smoking ads were —​ wait for it — ​paid for ​by tobacco companies.​

Justice has finally been served to Big Tobacco in the U.S.

"More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined."

After decades of growing evidence telling us smoking kills, you may not be all that shocked to see a message like that being advertised.

What if I told you a cigarette company paid for it?

[rebelmouse-image 19469889 dam="1" original_size="750x394" caption="Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids." expand=1]Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Starting Nov. 26, anti-smoking ads — paid for by Big Tobacco companies — will start appearing in newspapers and on TVs across the U.S.

These companies aren't running the ads voluntarily, of course.

Back in 2006, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found that tobacco giants Altria, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard, and Philip Morris USA conspired to hide the health risks associated with smoking from the public, NPR reported. The suit was originally filed by a number of medical and advocacy groups in 1999.

In her scathing ruling — in which she called cigarettes "highly addictive" products that lead to "a staggering number of deaths per year [and] an immeasurable amount of human suffering" — Justice Kessler ordered the companies run "corrective statements" to counter their harmful and misleading messages from years past. After years (and years and years) of appeals and disputes over the exact wording of the statements, the companies' ads are finally being published and aired to an audience of millions.

So you may start seeing ads like this one — a full page spread in The Wall Street Journal — that spells out the facts about cigarettes and their effects.

Or a TV spot like this one, which will air on networks during prime time.

The ads are void of color and flashy imagery; they simply state the facts.

All in all, 50 major American newspapers will carry full-page, weekly anti-smoking ads, and NBC, ABC, and CBS will air five spots like the one above every week for the next year — all paid for by Big Tobacco, NBC News reported.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which has been part of the suit since the beginning, created graphics to be shared on social media to help boost news of the ad launch.

There's this graphic, in which the group notes why tobacco executives are a bunch of "frauds."

[rebelmouse-image 19469890 dam="1" original_size="750x393" caption="Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids." expand=1]Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Or this one, in which the organization highlights the fact that Big Tobacco all but admitted to lying and racketeering.

[rebelmouse-image 19469891 dam="1" original_size="750x394" caption="Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids." expand=1]Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

"It’s both an important victory and a frustrating one," Matthew Myers, president of the organization, told The New York Times. These companies, he explained, have spent millions of dollars and over a decade avoiding having to simply tell the truth about their products.

Anti-smoking advocates see a few drawbacks to the ad launch though. For starters, the 11 years it took for these corrective statements to go public means the media landscape has evolved in favor of the tobacco companies. Newspaper ads, for instance, are significantly less influential than they were in 2006 since social media and internet advertising has grown. The wording on the ads has also been tampered down throughout the appeals process; the companies' lawyers argued earlier versions were crafted with the sole intent to "shame and humiliate them," according to The New York Times.

These ads will still make a difference, however, advocates argue.

The public may already know smoking cigarettes is harmful because the health effects are well-documented by now, Myers said. But this is still an opportunity to further inform Americans about just how deadly they can be and just how far their makers are willing to go to get customers to buy them.

"Very few people know that the court found that the tobacco industry intentionally manipulates cigarettes to make them more addictive," Myers told NPR.

[rebelmouse-image 19469892 dam="1" original_size="750x394" caption="Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids." expand=1]Graphic by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Robin Koval, CEO and president of anti-smoking nonprofit Truth Initiative, agreed: The ads take on important new meanings in 2017.

"People have forgotten over time all of the practices of the tobacco industry," Koval told NBC News. "Not only the fact that they lied about the products but also the fact that the products they were selling to the American people were engineered to be addictive as possible."

It's about time Big Tobacco got its facts straight.

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90% of smokers start before they turn 18. Will this legislation help?

On Aug. 9, Oregon became the fifth state to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21.

Oregon has been at the forefront of tobacco cessation and prevention programs for more than 20 years. A 1996 voter-approved tobacco taxation and prevention initiative has prevented an estimated 31,000 Oregon children from picking up the habit, and cigarette use has declined by more than 50% in the state.

The latest tobacco bill, signed by Governor Kate Brown, will continue to build on these efforts, prohibiting the sale and use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products to people under the age of 21.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Oregon joins California, Hawaii, Washington, D.C., Maine, and New Jersey in raising the legal age for tobacco use to 21.

Like Oregon, Maine and New Jersey raised the tobacco age to 21 this summer. The Maine legislature successfully overrode the veto of Governor Paul LePage to turn the bill into law on Aug. 2. While New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed the bipartisan bill July 21.

In a statement, Christie cited his mother's death from the effects of smoking and hoped the measure would keep young people from ever starting the addictive habit.

"By raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21, we are giving young people more time to develop a maturity and better understanding of how dangerous smoking can be and that it is better to not start smoking in the first place,” he wrote.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images.

While only five states and D.C. have raised the tobacco age so far, many cities and states are considering the measure.

After nearly 10 years of trying, a bill in Texas to raise the tobacco age has bipartisan support and positive momentum. Efforts in Utah, Massachusetts, and Washington state are similarly underway after several fits and starts.

Since statewide measures are time consuming and difficult, 200 cities and towns have taken the step to raise the tobacco age on their own, including Chicago, New York City, Kansas City, and Boston.

Photo by Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images.

Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000, or 1 in 5, deaths in the U.S. each year.

Measures like these are truly a matter of life and death. Smoking causes a majority of the cases of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and it significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancer. It can affect fertility and smoking, while pregnant can result in stillbirth or low birth weight.

Each day, more than 3,200 people under 18 try their first cigarette. If current patterns persist, 5.6 million Americans currently under the age of 18 will ultimately die from a smoking-related illness.

Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images.

Something has got to give.

Since 99% of smokers have their first cigarette by 26, (90% before 18), raising the legal tobacco age is an important step toward keeping the next generation healthy and tobacco-free.

Hawaii, California, Maine, New Jersey, and Oregon are leading the way. Make sure your city government and state legislature are working to join them.

Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images.

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