Was the 1970s Really Freer? The Psychology of Nostalgia and Why We Romanticize the Past

 

Remember when kids played outside all day long until dusk, when parents didn’t seem to care at all about safety, when playgrounds were survival courses, and when music wasn’t background noise – it was life?  The 1970s felt like the freest decade to be a kid—but was that freedom, or just blind luck? Psychologists say our brains might be editing the past.

I was born in the early 60s, but I did my “growing up” in the 1970s.  And boy, weren’t those the best of times!  Now 45 years later, I recall the freedom I had as a kid.  Mind you, my mother ran a tight ship.  She ensured my brothers, sister, and I had a structured life, with chores to do and meals to eat at specified times of the day. And if we misbehaved, yes, she spanked us and made us go to our rooms.  But despite all that, my fondest memories were of being outside all day, no matter the weather, and doing whatever I wanted.  We played with the kids in the neighborhood and never had a care in the world about safety.  We biked without helmets, skateboarded without elbow or knee pads, and even talked to strangers. We didn’t have lawnmower parents (or even helicopter parents – they hadn’t been invented yet) worried about where or what we were doing. Honestly, it seems like our parents really didn’t care about us 😊 But were we really freer then?  I mean, in looking back, it sure seemed like it.  But maybe we were just ungoverned.

According to social psychologists, my memory of the 1970s might be due to a little “rosy retrospection”, whereby people rate past events more positively over time, even if they evaluated them neutrally or negatively back then.  Surely, when I was 10 years old, I didn’t think life was so darn good! If I really think about it, I had moments where I felt I had the worst life in all the world. You see, our brain tends to selectively remember the highlights (biking down the street at 15 miles an hour without a helmet) while forgetting the struggles (like the time I scraped the heck out of my leg when I fell on the pavement). When I think about it, in the 1970s, many things were more dangerous than now. Remember the playground equipment – monkey bars suspend over gravel pits! And while we are talking safety, remember having to wear a seatbelt when you were a kid?  Yeah, me, either!  So, while it seemed like we were freer back then, maybe we were just more lucky.  But if safety was riskier back then, what about culture? For me, one thing truly was better: the music.

The music felt like life itself, though I’ll admit that’s probably the nostalgia talking about it.  Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours wasn’t just an album to me; it was the music of my teens and shaped the person I am today.  I think. But was 1970s music better, or just dearer to me? For me, Stevie Nicks’ voice is the soundtrack of my childhood. But today’s kids will say the same about Billie Eilish in 40 years—and they won’t be wrong. Still, for me, there is nothing better than the bands of the 1970s.  I was obsessed with Fleetwood Mac, but other music was just as great – David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Earth Wind and Fire, and on and on.  Music was a big deal in my house, driven entirely by my mother.  She would bring home a wrapped stack of 45s (she would have no idea what songs she was buying, but it didn’t matter because she had four kids who thought those records were the greatest thing in the world).  We had a carrying case that looked just like this one. We would spend afternoons, evenings, and weekends listening to different music, creating interest in various types of music. But when I think a little more deeply about music then versus now, I have to admit that while I love the thought of pulling out those old 45s again, I sure do dig opening Spotify and listening to and discovering any music anywhere in the world. And I must admit that live music today is more immersive than it was then.  Remember when we bragged to our friends about the “incredible light show” we saw at the Rush concert?  Hmmm, I wonder what Pink or Taylor Swift would say about that?

So, why do we engage in Rosy Retrospection? Some social psychologists argue that nostalgia is a buffer against existential threat, kind of like a psychological shield.  When times seem uncertain or threatening, our brains find comfort in replaying the highlight reels of the past. Think about one of our behaviors during the COVID lockdown – vinyl sales of 1970s music spiked, presumably because we were reaching for what we recalled as “simpler times.” So the next time you catch yourself sighing, ‘They don’t make music like they used to,’ ask: Is this really about the past—or am I just craving comfort today? Nostalgia isn’t a lie. But it is a selective edit. And maybe that’s okay.

So tell me: What’s your rose-tinted memory? And if you dig deep—was it really that simple, or is your brain just being kind?