I was born in 1952. I remember the 50s fondly. It seemed like a quieter, simpler life then. Perhaps, that is just my perspective being a child.
We were a family of six. The summers were amazing. We went outside after breakfast. We came in long enough for lunch and then were back outside until dinner. We explored the nearby farm fields. We climbed trees and made forts out of all sorts of things. We didn't have that many toys, other than our bikes and a sandbox, but we had great imaginations. After dinner, we'd be back out playing until dark. I remember my mom meeting with the other neighborhood moms for coffee about 10am each morning. They'd go to a different house each time.
During school months, we'd walk to school and back (about 12 blocks) or ride our bikes depending on the weather. After school we'd play outside or, if the weather was bad, we'd roller skate in the basement.
Our entire family always ate dinner together. After dinner, my sister and I would do the dishes (no dishwasher). This was followed by homework and then television with the family. We only had one television. It was black and white and we only got three stations. We watched a lot of variety shows. We always watched Saturday Night at the Movies together. I saw some great films with my family in our living room!
Saturdays were fun because there were cartoons on television. About once a month, the one theater in our little town would have a Saturday matinee. It would consist of cartoons, 3 Stooges and a movie. Often they were Tarzan movies. It cost $.35 to get into the show. My mom would give us each $.50. This would cover the cost of the movie plus a soda and popcorn. Disney movies were more expensive. They cost $.50.
We knew everyone in our neighborhood and our families spent a lot of time together. We didn't do a lot of things away from the house. We went to the grocery store once a week. They ran a tab for us. The owner wrote down all of our purchases by hand. At the end of the month, when my dad got paid, he would pay the tab. It was a more trusting time. There were very few stores in town. The biggest stores being Montgomery Wards and Woolworths. There was a Sears catalog store, but it only carried a few appliances. Everything else had to be ordered from the catalog and picked up. I remember one nice restaurant, an A&W Drive thru, a Dairy Queen and a McDonalds. We ate at home the majority of time. My mom was an amazing cook so it was not hardship. Every day, she would bake something for that night's desert. We'd come home from school to fresh cookies, cakes, pies, cinnamon rolls, etc. It was a wonder we weren't all the size of barns!
I'm sure my parents had worries, but they never shared them with us. Our first home only cost $11k, but my parents had to borrow a $1k from a relative for the down payment. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch and it seemed like a palace to us! My parents never got involved in our homework unless we got stuck on something. My mom would attend our school programs, but that was about it. We never heard much about our grades other than we should do our best. No pressure.
Things changed quite a lot when I was 12. We moved to Kansas City. We went from a town of 8,000 to a major city. Life definitely was different. Some things were better, but I think we lost a lot of the closeness we'd had growing up during the 50s in a small town.
Sometimes, I wish we could go back to simpler times where people weren't fighting tooth and nail to get ahead so they can have all the cool stuff and it would be nice to not hear so much negative stuff thrown at us constantly by the media. I lost my parents when I was in my early 20s, but I have very fond memories of my childhood in the 50s.