Children of the '60s were born at a weird time. Culturally speaking, by the time you were truly aware of JFK's assassination, the space race, the Ceremonious Rights Motion, the counterculture, or the Beatles, they were over.

On the other hand, you vividly remember Watergate, the end of the Vietnam War, inflation, disco and the oil crunch. (In fact, you're pretty certain you were on line for gas for all of 1973.) How many of these cultural and family touchstones do you lot identify with?

1. Y'all don't actually place with a particular generation

In that location's a good risk you don't call up of yourself equally a baby boomer, but yous're not exactly part of Gen X, either. It's a strange place to be, because the media tends to ignore you. But the joke'due south on them, because you lot and your peers have the power.

2. Yous had the Hamill

Dorothy Hamill (center) smiles while wearing her gilded medal at the 1976 Wintertime Olympics.

Tony Duffy/Getty Images

You lot had long hair, parted in the middle, until early 1976. Then, right afterwards the Montreal Olympics, y'all, your sisters, and every other adult female on Earth got ice skater Dorothy Hamill'south wedge. Or, at to the lowest degree you lot tried to (see photo). Sometimes, your 'do only didn't comply.03

3. Your idea of family was changing

While most households still included a mom and dad, plus a bunch of kids — you may accept had three or four siblings yourself — families in your neighborhood were being upended.

Mothers started wearing pants, and some even had full-time jobs. Fathers stopped wearing hats, grew sideburns, and maybe quit the union.

The biggest change, though? For the start fourth dimension in your life, whether information technology was your parents, your aunt and uncle or the Morgans downward the block, someone yous knew got divorced. Sure, it seems much more than common now, just back then, it was new and weird and a lilliputian bit scary.

four. You shudder thinking about your wardrobe

Your childhood wardrobe came down to a handful of inescapable trends: corduroy, stripes, plaids, Toughskins, chucks, Keds, jumpers, and ludicrously large and detailed collars. Honestly, looking back at your class photos nigh makes you grateful for the '80s. Nearly.

v. Your Saturdays were pretty far out

Cling, Jimmy and Mayor H.R. Pufnstuf

Getty Images

Yous started Sat mornings with a bowl of Life cereal and a marathon ofScooby-Doo,Josie and the Pussycats,H.R. Pufnstuf,The Flintstones, and a superhero show (The Fantastic Iv,Super Friends, etc.). In good weather, you took off on your bike — a.k.a your ticket anywhere — to the park, the ball field, or the woods behind the church/school/your best friend's house.

If you were stuck indoors — either past rain or the occasional super-blizzard — you passed time messing with your Weeble Wobbles, whipping upwards dessert in your Like shooting fish in a barrel Bake Oven, listening to your Disney-heavy album collection, or gettin' artsy with your sparkly, amazing Light Brite.

Later that dark, y'all'd dig into some Hamburger Helper and be shooed upwards to bed while your parents watchedAll in the Family. All in all, non a bad way to grow upwards.

6. Your parents were party animals (in a sense)

In the belatedly '60s and early '70s, you lot didn't have hyper-involved helicopter parents. Nope. Your parents — who had y'all in their teens or twenties — hadlives.

They played cards, they had parties (which you secretly watched from the banister), and they went on dates, leaving you with your grandmother or immature, questionably qualified babysitters. (Supervision wasn't always your mom and dad'south potent indicate.)

Since your extended family unit lived pretty close — within a few miles of your firm — a lot of your parents' social calendar revolved around your aunts and uncles, who showed up at every holiday and well-nigh weekendsen masse. You were shut to your cousins, as well, and wonder if families today take the same kinds of bonds. You lot hope they do.

vii. You ate new and interesting foods

All you ever wanted in life was a TV dinner, with a Twinkie or Devil Dog as a dessert.

Oh, wait! Scratch that. All y'all ever wanted was to become to McDonald'due south, where make-new characters similar Grimace and the Hamburglar could serve you two all-beefiness patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame-seed bun (a.k.a. the Big Mac, which went nationwide in 1968). That Egg McMuffin thingamajig, which hit Mickey D's in 1972, looked mighty tasty, as well.

Oh, wait! That's not correct. All you e'er wanted was a microwave oven, in which you could melt dinner quickly and … honestly, kind of poorly. But man, did they look cool.

viii. You know Schoolhouse Rock! merely every bit well as archetype rock

Man, what a time for music! With psychedelia over and the Beatles disbanded, the early-to-mid '70s was an incredible era for experimentation (before disco redefined/wrecked everything).

Punk was built-in. Funk saw its glorious heyday. Black Sabbath pretty much invented heavy metal. Stevie Wonder released 3 archetype albums in four years. In August of 1972, Elton John and the Rolling Stones droppedHonky Chateau and Exile on Main Streetwithin a calendar week of each other.

You may have been enlightened of that. More than likely, you were still a kid, listening to theMary Poppins soundtrack on vinyl or trying to go Schoolhouse Stone! out of your head. Hey, you may non know the collected works of David Bowie, merely you'll be darned if yous can't sing "Three is a Magic Number" from memory.

9. You understand your own grandparents a scrap amend now

In family pictures, you're struck at how old your grandparents looked at the fourth dimension. Yous're approaching the aforementioned historic period now, and there'south a remarkable departure in the wrinkles, the pilus, and even the way you lot deport yourself. Some of it's genetics. Most of information technology is because you swallow better, do less manual labor, protect yourself from the lord's day, and don't smoke.

Merely, while browsing those photos makes you wish Nana and Pops had it a tiny scrap easier, it also makes you think nigh their sacrifices. Each of those wrinkles gave you lot a new opportunity. And for that, y'all'll always be grateful.

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See Also

9 signs you were born in the '50s

15 sounds people nether 40 won't recognize

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