17 Things Everyone Did Growing Up in the 1970s

The ’70s offered a unique landscape for childhood that was markedly different from the structured lives kids lead today. It was an era defined by physical presence and tangible objects rather than screens or digital interfaces. Children spent their days navigating the world with a sense of freedom that often meant being away from home from sunrise until the streetlights flickered on in the evening. There was no way for parents to track their location or send a quick text message to check in. Boredom was a frequent companion and it forced kids to be creative with whatever they found in their backyards or local parks. This era was not just about the lack of technology but about a specific type of social trust and community spirit. It was a time of corded phones and analog wonder.

1. Using A Rotary Phone

Dialing a phone number back then was a physical process that took considerable time and effort. You had to put your finger in a hole for each digit and rotate a plastic wheel all the way to the metal stop. If there was a zero in the number, you had to wait several seconds for the dial to slowly click its way back to the starting position. It was a common frustration to mess up the very last digit and have to start the entire process over again. There was no contact list or speed dial to help you out. You either memorized your best friends’ phone numbers or kept a messy paper address book near the phone. Most of the time, the phone was attached to a wall by a very short curly cord.

2. Everywhere Alone

Parents in that decade generally had a much more relaxed attitude about where their children went during the day. It was perfectly normal for a group of young kids to walk several miles to a local park or a convenience store without any adults following them. The rule was simple and understood by everyone. You just had to be back home by the time the streetlights came on for the night. There were no tracking devices or cell phones to bridge the gap between home and the outside world. You relied on your own sense of direction and on neighbors’ help if you got lost or had a flat tire on your bike. This gave children a massive sense of independence and a deep knowledge of their town.

3. Drinking From The Garden Hose

When you were playing outside on a hot summer afternoon, you did not go inside to get a glass of ice water. Instead, you just walked over to the side of the house and turned on the outdoor faucet. Everyone drank directly from the green rubber garden hose regardless of the slight metallic or plastic taste it gave the water. You had to let the water run for a few seconds first because the sun had heated the liquid inside the pipe to scalding. Once it cooled down, it was the most refreshing thing in the world. Nobody worried about germs or the chemicals in the hose material. It was just a fast way to get hydrated so you could get back to your game of tag or riding your bike around the block.

4. Using A Physical Encyclopedia

If you had a question about history or science, you could not just look it up on a handheld device. Most families saved up money to buy a heavy set of encyclopedias that lived on a prominent shelf in the living room. These books were organized alphabetically and served as the primary source for every school report. If the information was not in those specific volumes, you had to ride your bike to the local library to look through even bigger books. The information was often a few years out of date, but it was all we had. You would spend hours flipping through the thin pages and looking at the occasional color photos. Learning required a lot of physical effort and a quiet place to read.

5. Playing Outside Until Dark

The neighborhood was the primary social network for every child living on the block. After school ended or during the long summer breaks, everyone would spill out of their houses to find their friends. There were no organized playdates or digital invitations needed to start a game. You simply looked for where the pile of bicycles was parked on someone’s front lawn. We played games like kickball and hide-and-seek that involved every kid, regardless of age. The lack of indoor entertainment meant that the outdoors was where everything happened. You learned how to negotiate rules and settle arguments without calling for a parent. It was a self-governed world that only ended at dinner time.

6. Watching Scheduled Television

TV was a limited resource that required the whole family to agree on what to watch at a specific time. There were only a few channels available, and you had to get up from the couch to physically turn a clicking knob to change them. If you missed your favorite cartoon or a special holiday movie, you simply had to wait an entire year for it to air again. There were no recording devices or streaming services to save the show for later. We also had to deal with the rabbit ear antennas on top of the set. Someone usually had to stand in a specific spot and hold the metal rods just right to get a clear picture. It was a communal experience that taught us a lot of patience and compromise.

7. Riding In Cargo Areas

Safety standards for vehicles were very different several decades ago. It was quite common for a group of kids to pile into the back of a station wagon or even the open bed of a pickup truck. We did not use car seats or even seat belts most of the time. In a station wagon, the rear seat often faced backward so you could wave at the drivers in the cars behind you. It felt like a great adventure to be sliding around in the back while your parents drove down the highway. The wind would blow through the open windows, and there was plenty of room to stretch out and play with toys. Looking back, it seems very dangerous, but at the time, it was just the way everyone traveled to the beach.

8. Making Mix Tapes

If you wanted to own a specific song, you had to wait by the radio with a blank cassette tape ready to go. You would sit there for hours listening to the DJ talk and hoping they would play the track you loved. The moment the music started, you had to hit the record and play buttons simultaneously. It was an art form to catch the beginning of the song without letting the radio announcer’s voice dominate the recording. These tapes were then traded with friends or given as special gifts. They were physical artifacts of your personal taste and required significant manual labor to create. You could not just download a file or share a link. Music felt much more precious back then.

9. Using Paper Maps

Going on a family road trip required a large collection of folding paper maps stored in the glove compartment. Navigating was a difficult job that usually fell to the person sitting in the front passenger seat. You had to trace the thin red and blue lines with your finger and look for tiny icons that represented gas stations or rest stops. If you took a wrong turn, you had to pull over and unfold a massive sheet of paper that never seemed to fold back up correctly. There was no voice telling you where to turn or rerouting you around heavy traffic. You had to pay close attention to the green road signs and keep track of your mileage. It made every trip feel like a true geographical challenge.

10. Wearing Metal Roller Skates

Long before modern inline blades became popular, we had metal skates that clamped directly onto our regular shoes. You used a small metal tool called a skate key to tighten the clamps until they stayed put. These skates had hard wheels that made a very loud grinding noise on the sidewalk. They were neither particularly smooth nor comfortable, and they often fell off if you hit a tiny pebble or a crack in the concrete. Every kid kept their skate key on a piece of string around their neck so they could make adjustments on the go. Despite the constant rattling and the frequent scraped knees, we spent hours zooming up and down the driveway. It was a noisy and mechanical way to get around the neighborhood.

11. Visiting The Photo Lab

Taking a picture was a slow process that involved a lot of mystery. You had a roll of film inside your camera that usually allowed only 12 or 24 shots. You couldn’t see the image after you took it, so you had to hope that nobody blinked and that the lighting was okay. Once the roll was finished, you took it to a local drug store or a small booth in a parking lot to be developed. You had to wait several days or even a full week to get your prints back in a paper envelope. Opening that envelope was always an exciting moment because you finally got to see your memories for the first time. Photography was expensive and intentional, so every single frame really mattered.

12. Checking Library Card Catalogs

Finding a book in the library required navigating a giant wooden cabinet filled with thousands of small paper cards. These drawers were organized by author or subject, and each card contained a specific call number written in ink. You would flip through the cards until you found what you needed, then write the code on a tiny scrap of paper. Then you had to walk through the quiet aisles of tall bookshelves to find the matching number on the spine of a book. There were no digital search bars to tell you if a book was currently checked out or sitting on the shelf. It was a tactile and somewhat dusty process that required a good understanding of the decimal system.

13. Buying Candy For Pennies

A single dollar went a very long way at the local corner store during the mid seventies. You could walk in with a handful of loose change and walk out with a brown paper bag filled with treats. Many items, like gum or small chocolates, were sold for just one or two cents each. The shopkeeper would stand behind the counter, patiently waiting while you pointed to different glass jars and counted out your coins. There were no barcodes or self-checkout machines to speed things up. It was a social interaction that taught us the value of money and basic math skills. Getting a nickel from a parent felt like a significant windfall that could buy a decent snack to share with a neighborhood friend.

14. Playing With Dangerous Toys

The toys we grew up with would likely be banned or recalled immediately by modern safety boards. We had things like metal lawn darts with sharp points that you threw high into the air toward a plastic ring. Chemistry sets came with real chemicals that could actually cause minor explosions or stains on the carpet if you were not careful. Many of our playthings were made of heavy lead or had sharp edges that caused plenty of small cuts. We did not wear helmets while riding bikes or pads while we were skateboarding on wooden planks. While there were certainly more injuries, it also meant we learned a lot about personal risk and physical limits. We had to be responsible for our own safety.

15. Smoking In Public Places

It is hard for people today to imagine how much smoke was in the air during the seventies. Adults were allowed to smoke almost everywhere, including airplanes and grocery stores. Most cars came with built-in ashtrays in the doors and the center console. You would walk into a restaurant, and the air would be thick with a gray haze regardless of where you were sitting. Even teachers sometimes smoked in the hallways or in the designated lounge at school. For children, this was just a normal part of the environment that we did not question at the time. The smell of tobacco was everywhere, and it clung to your clothes and hair. It was a very different world before the public health shift.

16. Creating Hand Drawn Art

Without digital tablets or easy printing, we spent a lot of time drawing on paper with crayons and markers. If you wanted to make a card for someone, you had to fold a piece of construction paper and use glue to attach glitter or cutouts. There were no templates or clip art to make things look professional. Every project was a unique mess of hand-drawn lines and uneven letters. We also used carbon paper to make copies of our drawings, leaving blue ink on our fingers. The process was slow and required a lot of physical materials that took up space on the kitchen table. It was a time of tactile creativity where the joy was in the making and not just the final digital product.

17. Collecting Glass Soda Bottles

When you finished a cold bottle of soda, you did not just throw the glass into a recycling bin. Instead, you would save the empty bottles until you had a small pile and then take them back to the corner store. Each bottle was worth a nickel or sometimes more, and the shopkeeper would give you cash right on the spot. This was a primary source of income for many neighborhood kids who wanted to buy a new comic book or a bag of marbles. We would often walk along the side of the road, looking for discarded bottles tossed out of car windows. It was a very early lesson in the value of resources and the importance of returning things to where they belonged. Every bottle felt like a treasure.

• Tags:
• vintage childhood
• Analog Memories
• classic toys
• family history
• 70s life