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I was born in 1963, so I can speak primarily to the ’70s. In addition to some of the other great answers, In the 1970s…We were far, far less informed about LGBTQ culture and issues. We listened to Queen without thinking about what the band’s name might mean. TV and movies had almost no gay characters. Being called “a fag” was deeply insulting and threatening. Virtually no teens were out because it was not safe. They would have experienced humiliation and vicious verbal and physical harassment. In this atmosphere, Rocky Horror seemed profoundly transgressive and freeing, mocking the “squares” and normalizing the teens and young adults who mostly stayed closeted.Trans was simply not a thing. No distinction was made between gender preference and gender identity.We were incredibly credulous about spiritual and psychic scams. Uri Geller got huge traction displaying silverware he bent “with his mind” because of course no human thumb could cause that damage.Religious cults were big. Hare Krishnas, Rajneesh, Moonies and many more. Jim Jones attracted hundreds to trundle off to a bug-infested jungle where he exercised complete control over them, eventually driving them all to mass suicide.Insult humor was big. Many TV shows revolved around a crusty but lovable character creatively insulting everyone around him. Teen boys picked up on it. We expressed our regard with teasing and insults. If you were teased, you were “in” or about to be in, as long as you didn’t screw up this social entrance exam. Having no derisive nickname meant you were either not yet accepted, or actively disliked.There was much less recognition that childhood sexual abuse was a thing. The culture could accept a prime-time TV performance like the one below as sweet and harmless, ignoring the subtext. The huge majority didn’t want to think that sexual abuse was possible and closed their eyes to what was happening right in front of them.Ideas about rape were only beginning to change. Date rape was a new idea; the phrase was only coined around 1970. Most people thought a little compulsion around sex was a normal part of dating and girls just needed to deal with it. The term “rape” was reserved for a stranger jumping out of the bushes. If the woman didn’t have bruises to back up her claim, well, it was just her word against his. Male-on-male rape happened as much then as now, but it wasn’t a thing society attended to.Domestic abuse was at least as common in the 1970s as in the 2020s, but it was almost never prosecuted. Victims were shamed and blamed, resources like shelters for battered women were only beginning to exist and religious leaders often argued that the family structure was more important than any abuse which might be occurring inside the family.Among children, “bullying” meant being assaulted or threatened with assault and bullies were common. As a general rule, adults would not step in—you were expected to fend off bullies by yourself. Being harassed with insults and disparagement was not on adult radar. You were supposed to ignore “teasing.”Fist fights among boys were common. Adults accepted that boys settled differences physically from time to time. As long as no one was too badly hurt, it was ignored.Our parents had had it much worse. At least that is what they told us. They complained TV and comic books were turning our brains to mush.Dinner was a nightly ritual you did not miss. Even being late was a severe offense. Mom cooked a three-course meal which everyone ate, whether they liked it or not. Criticizing the cooking was taking your life in your hands. We ate our vegetables because—starving kids in Africa.Eating occurred at meal times. Snacking would “ruin your dinner.” A Mom cooked or made almost everything you ate. Sometimes it wasn’t your own Mom because kids frequently ate meals at the houses of friends. Restaurant meals, even fast food, were rare. Soda and candy were special treats. Frozen meals were only just beginning to be a thing (they were horrible) and moms usually cooked meals from scratch. Do I need to point out cooking was almost exclusively a female activity?Adults drank and smoked and didn’t exercise yet were mostly thin. Kids looked like string beans.Kids played sports outside with other kids without adult supervision. If you went to the park there was a basketball, football or baseball game going on. You just joined in. Indoors you played board games.Children spent much of their time outside, unsupervised and in the company of other children. We ranged all over and didn’t tell our parents what we were up to. If you climbed your grumpy neighbor’s fruit tree, he would yell at you or even hit you. If you told your Dad, he would agree with the neighbor and might hit you again.Teachers could still hit you, with parental permission. Conservative parents gave it, liberal parents did not.“Autism” was reserved for a few profoundly disabled people. Weird, geeky, smart guys were picked on, but it was their own fault for choosing not to like football and to be socially awkward. No one explained their behavior with a label.Learning differences were mostly unrecognized. People with learning disabilities were “slow” and deserving of either pity or scorn—not special accommodations. The kid who “refused” to read was willful, not dyslexic.Kids who were defiant or rowdy were BAD KIDS. They were punished and sent to reform schools. Few people spent time worrying whether they were acting out after being beaten by adults or raped at home. This attitude was beginning to change, but admonishment was still seen as a primary mechanism for driving behavior change in children.Addiction was just beginning to be a thing. An addict was a sweaty guy with wild eyes in a movie who HAD to have that smack. We didn’t have sex addicts, sugar addicts, intimacy addicts, shopping addicts, TV addicts, or TV shows about the people who love them. Your uncle who fell down drunk at every family function just needed more self-control—he wasn’t an alcoholic…The world was almost exclusively run by white men. Virtually every mayor, police chief, priest, pastor, business owner, CEO, governor, state legislator, and boy scout leader was white and male and that seemed right and normal. There was something frightening about allowing women and people of color into those positions.Higher education was cheap. When I started university in 1981, the University of California cost $650 a year. College was four years to find yourself. If you used the time to prepare for a career, that was a bonus.American cars really sucked—really, truly deeply sucked. Honda, Toyota and Datsun were the reasonably-priced cars to buy.Smoking was going out of fashion, but was still a thing cool teen rebels did. Many ads on TV discouraged teen smoking.Drug use was polarizing and attitudes toward drug use were a marker of political identity. Conservatives saw drug use as a sign of moral decay. Liberals saw drug use as a sign of openness and saw drug enforcement as governmental oppression.Drunk driving was a much bigger thing than it is today. In the late 1970s a public education campaign was launched by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). Ads were on TV and Drivers’ Ed classes featured gruesome movies with titles like, “Red Asphalt”. Wonder of wonders, it worked! Rates of drunk driving plummeted and traffic fatalities today are half what they were then.The sensibilities of religious people held a privileged position in public discourse. Religious people were deeply offended by, and loudly protested against, Jesus Christ Superstar and Life of Brian and their complaints were taken seriously.You could adhere to atheism privately but publicly questioning religion would get you admonished.In my local area, race relations were not actively hostile but could be tense. Although no longer segregated by law, our teenage society was segregated by social convention. My town was about 60% white, 30% black and 10% other races. Middle class white kids lived in the hills. Black kids lived in the flats. We thought people chose to live in racially similar neighborhoods—we didn’t know redlining had prevented non-white people from buying homes in our middle-class neighborhoods. We had no idea that busing—which started in 1968—was a required remedy to the housing policy decision to restrict black residents to particular neighborhoods.Some social mixing between racial groups occurred among teenagers but there was a barrier. White guys who hung around with black guys were athletes. Black guys who hung around with white guys were those ostracized by their peers because they were gay or studious introverts. Interracial couples were rare. Crew, tennis, soccer, gymnastics, lacrosse, swimming, water polo, golf and cross country were white sports. Basketball, track and football were black sports. Baseball and wrestling were mixed. Churches, boy scout troops and social organizations were same-race with perhaps a token member of a different race.The generation gap was an abyss. Even if your parents were only 20 years older, their pop culture touch points came from the moon.Their 1950s music sounded quaint at best and horrible at worst. They shouted, “Turn that noise off” when you played Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. No one wrote on Youtube saying, “I am 16 years old and this music is so much better than new music.”Their movies were so different—the clothes worn, the accents, the music, the naïve and innocent themes.Their TV shows were so sanitized. Nothing remotely controversial occurred.Their comedians were lame, uncool and unfunny. They liked Jerry Lewis, Milton Berle, and Jack Benny. You liked Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Martin Mull.Parents had no experience with and did not understand the drugs which were a ubiquitous element of youth cultureAt Crazy Eddie’s, Prices were INSANE!!!!!!! …. maybe you had to be there.For a representation of 1970s childhood that captures the time, watch Freaks and Geeks. It is a charming and hilarious look at teenage years, even if you are too young to experience it as a walk down memory lane. As a bonus, you will see many famous actors at the start of their careers.Freaks and Geeks

I'll tell you a little bit about one of the smartest people I have ever known.My brother was very smart. Among my early memories of him, I remember at age six he had a notebook that he would keep hidden in the closet, buried under his folded clothes. It wasn't a diary as I discovered when I, out of curiosity and without his permission, decided to read it. To my surprise and disappointment it was full of numbers and equations I didn't understand. This notebook was his playground, a place where he could fulfill that part of himself that no one understood, not even my parents. He had created his own way of calculating certain things that became the amusement of every adult he got in contact with.For example, he would calculate the day of the week a person was born based on the age and birthday. So if my uncle said “I am 37 and my birthday is August 12”, in a split second my brother would say “you were born on a Saturday!” or whatever day his mind calculated and he would be correct every single time.I remember one time we went to the movies with my cousins to celebrate one of their birthdays and after it ended we were all excited talking about what our favorite part of the movie was. When I asked my brother what he thought of the movie he said “there was lot of dirt (dust and scratches) on that film”.He was always looking at things differently and the everyday stuff that entertains kids didn't interest him. That's why he spent so much time with the adults - they appreciated him much more than kids did, including me.I believe that smart people are quiet because whatever is going on in their minds is far more interesting than the mundane conversations that people have like the latest TV shows, celebrities or the new consumer products. My brother opened up when you talked about music theory, numbers or politics.His favorite number was π. A mathematician would say there's no mystery in that number, and for the most part it is true. My brother passed away on March 14, 2015.**EDIT**I want to say thank you. I didn't expect so many upvotes on my answer, and even less curiosity and questions about my story.Yes, the story is real and yes, he did die on that date which coincides with the number Pi. It is one of those gifts of life.Many asked how he died. My brother passed away after years of battling a brain tumor. It was deep in his brain and surgery was too risky so he was treated with a procedure called Gamma Knife. The procedure literally fried the tumor inside his brain but because of the type of tumor it was impossible to remove it completely. Glioblastomas are aggressive and the prognosis was that he would live something between 18 months and 3 years. He lived 6. I am not a doctor so forgive me if I confuse terms.The treatment changed him. He went from being a genius with no social skills to a more social and engaging person. The trade-off was that his math skills lowered, still above the average person though. We all agreed that he got more than he lost, although from time to time he felt the frustration.After six years under control the tumor decided to grow again aggressively and in a matter of weeks my brother dimmed down like a lightbulb. There was no pain.

27 is a though age. I got married at 27 same as my dad after he came home from WWII and I came home from Vietnam. Like father, like son! I didn’t want to be like my dad, but I’m a lot like my dad! At that point I had 3 years of college and proposed too soon and just followed my heart without looking. I was in love. I didn’t see myself single any more. She was mine! I knew her one date before I proposed and she took a week to decide and wrote it in the snow! How touching! How creative! love is blind! At 27 the urge to procreate and make a family is strong and be with the opposite sex is strong! We got the permission of our parents. I married smart. She already had her degree and career being a public school music teacher. I wanted a smart woman, the first teacher of my kids. I wanted smart kids! So, it was time. She is the same religion as mine! She used a girlfriend to push me a little to advertise herself. I was game. We took 7 years to have our first child. The mother-in-law wanted her grandchildren. I said whatever my wife wants, she gets. After 2 kids, she had me get fixed and also I got a hepatitis vaccine which later saved my life! Everyone should have a hepatitis vaccine. You don’t know where your boyfriend has been. He might have it and not know it. Do not have premarital sex. But before you get married get both parents permission so there is no disunity in the family. And both get a blood test and be both clean for the Lord! Millennials are more selfish then Baby Boomers. They will take longer to have kids or maybe none at all, heaven forbid! But I maybe wrong about this generation. They’ve been spoiled and I believe they lack gratitude and thankfulness for what their parents have given them and expect more to be given to them. There’s plenty of example in the “Tabs” where an actor was spoiled, like Angelina Jolly, who is a man eater. She is not a fit parent. They could split 3 and 3 and neither would have to pay child support. And the children would be exchanged every month. That arrangement would work. I don’t like it where the woman always gets the kids. But the courts will decide. Why aren’t they trying this divorce in French Courts?