This “Portrait of 80’s Parenting” Is Going Viral for All the Wrong Reasons
This “Portrait of 80’s Parenting” Is Going Viral for All the Wrong Reasons
People tend to look back on their earlier years with a great sense of nostalgia, remembering the “good old days” of 80’s parenting with rose-tinted glasses.
But some things really are best left in the past, as this viral photo, shared on Facebook by Historical Pictures, demonstrates.
The photo clearly illustrates the stark contrast between what was acceptable as parenting in the 80s versus what parents of today find appropriate for a child’s birthday party.
Open beer cans litter the table along with an ashtray half full of ash and cigarette butts. A lit cigarette is held near the birthday boy’s face as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake.
The cake inscription reads “Happy 5th Birthday Mikael”.
The photo was shared with the caption: “The 1980s, when a kid had to blow out his birthday candles over an ashtray and next to an open beer while someone held a lit cigarette 6 inches from their face.”
The photo has now been liked over 15,000 times and prompted thousands of comments from users sharing their own tales of growing up as part of the generation that came before ‘generation snowflake’.
It’s a wonder that any of us 80’s kids survived at all! I can’t imagine what it must be like to not be in the possession of a single fuck when it comes to your own children’s health and well-being.
It all boils down to this quote from Maya Angelou:
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
The parents of today were the 80s kids in photos like this. We know better now. We may have survived, but that doesn’t mean those behaviours like riding without seatbelts, roaming the streets until the streetlights came on and smoking in the car are okay.
We know better now, and we do better. And if the older generation believes that their children have created a bubble wrapped generation by making better parenting choices, then so be it.
They can enjoy their nostalgia while we get on with raising little humans who will no doubt do better than we did when it comes time to have their own children. That’s how it works.
When you know better, you do better.
Source: Facebook/Historical Pictures
Jill Slater
Jill is a busy wife and mother of four young children. She loves nothing more than making people giggle, and loves to settle in with a glass of wine (or four) and wander about the internet. Feel free to follow her to see all the cool stuff she finds!
