Best time to be a child

Where is everyone, I keep checking in but hardly anyone is there.
I have been feeling a bit nostalgic after reading posts on a Aged Forum.
Everyone reckons the 50/60's were the best decades for being a child some added the 70's. Many people agreed with the wonderful free life they remember living, while one or two pointed out the privations of that time. While I garee there were good things and bad things, isn't it more about the  community life we lived. Yes, thankfully we have amazing health advances, better housing (which is again beginning to fall by the wayside for so many) education was opened up. There were of course bad things that we tend not to remember, child abuse, misogyny etc., but what we seem to remember because it was good is the community feeling and actuality. We had schools that were local, we had doctors who were local and knew their patients from birth to death in many cases, our local hospitals were just that local, you didn't have to travel 30/50 miles to end up as a patient number in maybe a very modern, very efficient all singing all dancing but souless hospital - unless it was entirely called for. Isn't it actually about knowing those around you from birth to death and depending on them knowing and caring for you that made those times memorable, even with all the negative things. All I had growing up were people in the village willing to care for me if my parents had to go somewhere, a house that was old and a bit damp, one fire in the living room/kitchen ( very modern these days) a front room with fire rarely used except for courting couples or very special visitors, only a cold water tap in the house, an outdoor toilet, a bath once a week, army great coats on the bed in winter and the feeling of intense love and security. I know that was not the experience of a lot of children but all I can remember is safety and love. I live in a village not far from my birth place, it's a larger village than I was born in (my own village is now only for posh people) but was always known for its community, which you see very little of these days, other than to your own extended families, I don't belong to any of the families living here these days and you certainly don't feel cherished and loved anymore as just part of the community even if you were part of a large family, a small family or a 'lone wolf' you belonged, everyone was important just because, its very different now.
That's what I think it was all about - belonging, which is why we have so many problems with gangs these days, people need to belong.

Hi Vintage, that's a lovely nostalgic post.

I grew up in a city not a village, but the close community in the streets where I lived was very similar to what you describe.
Everyone knew their neighbours, they were always willing to help out when needed, and kids were surrounded by friends, neighbours, and family.
Unlike today, the vast majority of married couples stayed together, so the sense of belonging was there from birth to adulthood.
The breakdown in family has a lot to do with societies ills nowadays.

We could see a family Dr the day we needed to, he knew us, my family Dr when I was a kid actually delivered me and my sister, and like you say, Dr's and hospitals were local. Ours was within walking distance, which was handy, because I think in our street only one family had a car, and they were considered posh.

There was a lot of poverty around, people did sometimes go hungry and cold, and women were second class citizens. This really hit home to me when my mum and I went to buy a new carpet, we were buying it on HP because we didn't have the full amount to pay right off, the sales assistant insisted we have a male guarantor before he would allow us to buy.
I was about 16 or 17 then, we were both working, we refused on principle...and waited till we could buy it with cash (not from that shop I hasten to add)

I check in here every now and again, but there is nothing to reply to, so more and more I forget to look.
I saw your post and really enjoyed reading it.
Take care, x

Nostalgic thoughts. All pleasant. But denied in America, if you were black. Or, as you point out Syl, if you were female.

Those are the things that we tried to correct...but were opposed by conservatives, or worse, white supremacists, all too pleased with their lot in life to be concerned about others.

I agree many things were very bad in the old days and some still are but we seem to have paid a very high price for our progress, pity we couldn't have the progress and keep the good things we seem to have left in our wake.

I tend not to look back much, if I’m honest. I think that we often look back with rose-coloured glasses. Each generation will think that their childhood was the best.

I just wish the current generation of parents in our countries would realise that the world is safer now than when we were kids, and lay off the helicopter parenting a bit. Now could be a great time to be a kid, if parents were wiser.