You were allowed to have a personality. Everyone didn't have to think the same or like the same things. You found your group and did your thing and no one really bothered you.

Generally speaking, we mostly raised ourselves. Our parents were either war generation or just after. They expected you to have your shit together and look after yourselves. Subsequently, I did things that should have probably killed me, but instead turned into great memories.

Great bands and music. NWoBHM, mostly.

Going on a date didn't automatically mean you were getting laid. Most of the women, at least here where I live, had morals and respected themselves. Didn't want to be thought of as whores. The "fat" people back then would not be considered fat by today's standards. Even the fatso's then were in better condition than most normies today! When I was in the 7th and 8th grade I wanted to play sports. Practice was after school but I didn't have a ride home. Folks just didn't have gas money for stuff like that. So I would practice, then walk home. About 3 and a half miles of 2 different state highways, then another 2 and a half miles of county roads. Never once worried about a thing! You could get in a fight at school and not get in huge trouble. It was considered a normal part of growing up.

Stayed home alone with my sister constantly. My cousin and I would go ride bikes all day and no one would know where we were or cared. Almost every neighborhood in socal was white except the obvious like LA, Compton, Watts, etc. Orange County was a paradise, same with the beach cities. Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Knotts all were full of whites and safe. Chuck E cheese was awesome. Ball cages, giant playgrounds, video games everywhere, actual cheese and hand made pizzas. The malls were really fun as a kid, 4th of July was patriotic, the niggers were still killing people for their shoes, cops were respected and niggers and spics didn't fuck with them, or they would eat a night stick or maglight before going to jail. We could walk people all the way to the terminal at the airports and watch their plane back out, taxi and take off. We could see our family waving to us from the windows of the plane. Traffic was not that bad in LA. Christmas was amazing in every city you went to. Same with Halloween. People actually had decorations everywhere. Now they're all gone completely. No one hands out candy anymore for the kids. Movie theaters were more fun as well, since the movies were much better. It was really America. Not the shitty kike country we have now.

There was so much music, and it didn't all sound the same. So much variety.

Like 8mm so succinctly points out, we raised ourselves and were largely left to our own devices as our Latter Day Silent Gen and Early Tiered Boomer Me Gen parental units bought The Lie and narcissistically divorced and split nuclear family units asunder, en masse. That was the true fission Cold War Kids of X experienced. However, the unintended fall out was that glorious fun was had by all. The music was real and brilliant and ballsy and unquantized and unauto-tuned and varied and was largely dictated by your chosen tribe. We enjoyed the freedom of BMX banditry and minibike rapscallionry, wrapped in the cloak of anonymity against the all seeing prying societal camera eyes that were to come. Malls were still a viable social scene. The forced race mixing was still in the early stages and lines of delineation and separation were understood, although the seeds of the Heeb created and managed Darkie Boom Box-n-Cardboard Culcha' were being sewn. The World of American 80s youth was of our own making and everything in it was ours for the taking. As expected, missteps and stumbles were made and Just Say No institutionalized retributions were paid. We were little hoes and life experienced way too early. That being said, we did happen to catch the tail end of the party before the flood lights kicked on. We rode the wave of that manufactured collective sigh of relief at the demise of the cold war right into the young adulthood of the 90s dessert and played our parts in the teaser trailer opening act of the next era being scripted to further ratchet down control and keep everyone on edge and bunged up and the profits flowing and freedoms dwindling.

It was hella bitchin

Be home by dark. That and who's house was I probably at was all my mom needed to satisfy her concerns.

And there was a lot of Belinda Carlisle.

A lot of what was said in here isn't all that much different than the 90s....

I think many people tend to view different ages through distorted lenses. Weren't many of modern problems still present back then? Maybe some things were better but others were worse so it balanced out. I don't know about music and movies as well, there was mainstream music and cinema and there were albums and movies that would get you in trouble back then.

Of course it all depends on the place and the society but I think people were more naive back then.