I grew up before cell phones and internet AMA

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amother

Royalblue

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 4:12 pm

Some families write monthly news letters to share monthly tidbits of family news and photos.
Now we all have WhatsApp and get the news and photos instantly

amother

Floralwhite

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 4:12 pm

amother Brass wrote:

do you think shiddchim were somewhat done differently then in terms of shadchanim (well I am sure they could exist but no data bases) resumes (not email to send them , gotta print them and hand over or mail them or shadchan give over reference numbers etc ) and dating (in terms of boy picking up girl where to go without gps etc and not having direct phone to call after few dates and must call home phone in which you don't know who will pickup etc...

Absolutely, I was pretty Yeshivish and the boy would call BEFORE the first date! The shadchan told you exactly what time he was calling and you'd better make sure that noone was on the phone. I had my own phone line so it wasn't an issue and it was pretty common to have your own phone line by the time you were out of high school. Remember we spent hours on the phone! Of course I paid my own phone bill too.
It was also common to drop the shadchan by the third date if things were going well. The boy would say "I had a nice time, would you like to go out again?" And if you weren't sure or weren't interested you'd say "I'm not ready to drop the shadchan yet".
Nowadays this isn't done in Yeshivish circles any longer.
Resumes??? Never heard of them and I dated 50 guys. You got a name from the shadchan with a little information and then you did your own research. In general investigation weren't FBI level like people do nowadays.
As for driving without GPS boys need to have exact directions. I don't remember getting lost on a date ever.

amother

Floralwhite

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 4:19 pm

GLUE wrote:

I grew up when you could not get in touch with people because no one has cell phones, which meant that you had no idea if you missed a ride or were left behind.

I spend to many times not knowing if I missed a ride, I would come to the center meeting place and no one would be there, other times I would get there and see the car driving away, yes I ran after it a few times.

Other times just sitting in school waiting and waiting for the ride to come. One time I was waiting outside of school and it was already 7:00 and I could not get in touch with the person who was suppose to take me home-no cell phone-and was crying thinking I was going to sleep on the street that night. One of the neighbors of the school called up Mr. Younsky(I think that is how it is spelled, probably not)and tolled him that one of your girls is crying on the street. He came down opened up the building and sat in the building for another hour until my ride came.

My husband has his own stories, that is the big reason why my teenage daughter has a cell phone because her parents are to scared from not having one.

Oh my how true! I lived close to school about half a mile and I would end up walking home at insanely late hours cause I stayed late to help with production or something else and my mother didn't even drive.
One of my first years teaching which was still pre-cell phone days I stayed a little late doing some prep. I came out and the gate to the school was locked! Was so scary. I had no way to call anyone. B"H after some time a Jewish neighbor saw me and he called someone who had the key.

I got a cell phone a few years later - was nearly the size and weight of a brick - it's actually still exists one of my siblings has it, wonder if it's worth any $$$

amother

Forsythia

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 5:16 pm

amother Arcticblue wrote:

Quote:

Pre-internet we used paper maps and AAA triptiks. You called AAA before your vacation and they made a custom booklet for you with the routes to all your destinations.
Every car had a map. We pulled it out often when we were lost or going to a new destination.

I remember sitting with my father and siblings and planning our road trips literally for months! We looked at those maps and triptiks until they were shredded

One of my very early memories: I'm maybe not quite 4 yrs old, we're vacationing in Maine, my parents are driving with a giant road map spread all over the dashboard, arguing, it's getting dark, and I learn a new yiddish word: farblundget.

amother

DarkGreen

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 5:18 pm

amother Forsythia wrote:

Getting farblundget was real back then!

giftedmom

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 5:50 pm

amother Zinnia wrote:

Studies actually show that depression and suicide rates in teens and 20s have gone up in correlation with social media .

Thankfully most of our kids are not on social media

amother

Royalblue

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 6:13 pm

amother Forsythia wrote:

Lol. My mother has a very similar memory , but in Massachusetts. She wasn’t frum , so it’s not like they spoke Yiddish. But when she asked her father where they were , after going around in circles a few times he said “ Mir Zenen Farblundget”.

amother

Birch

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 7:06 pm

amother OP wrote:

Im in my mid 40s.
Im older than you and we had car seats and seat belts. Did you grow up out of the usa?
We didnt have a,cd player, but our record player aldo came with a tape deck.

I'm in my 50s. Our car had seat belts, but virtually no one used them. When driving somewhere for my bat mitzvah, we had 5 girls in the back seat. The smallest girl sat on the lap of the largest one. No one gave it a second thought.

amother

Lightcyan

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 7:06 pm

I got a cell phone 14 years ago, shortly before my 8th kid was born. (I'm in my late 40's). It changed my post partum experience hugely for the better, particularly during my hospital stay.

Other then that life was perfectly fine without one. We made arrangements ahead of time which was normal at the time.
The same way nowadays ppl who are travelling abroad let others known when they are gonna be in the air therefore unreachable we did the same when going shopping.
Same if we going to be out when dh/dc are expected home, we knew they couldn't reach us so we left a note.

Even now I don't have a smartphone or WhatsApp. I use the family laptop for shopping and imamother (the extent of my social media).

It's not a choice I made, my siblings who all live close by and we have a great relationship with all have a WhatsApp chat so it's very normal, I've just never really found a need for it.

Life gets busy and I haven't really got time to live someone else's life. Maybe because I grew up without it.

amother

Azure

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 7:23 pm

amother Hunter wrote:

how did you know where to go without gps

We had these things called maps. Like a globe, but flat and made out of paper that folded up small and fit in your glove box. You had to remember which way to go, and if you got lost you pulled over and looked at your map.

GLUE

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 7:27 pm

amother Azure wrote:

...and hope you were holding it the right way so if you wanted to go north you would not end up going south and have to turn around.

amother

Azure

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 7:29 pm

amother DarkGreen wrote:

OP, you're making me feel old! I'm only in my 30's & my parents got their first cell phone when I was almost a teen. We gotba CD player when I was a teen as well.
My father had a car phone & a beeper.
We carried around quarters for the public phones.
We sat backwards in the back of the station wagon.
Seat belts & carseats were not a thing.
Mom sat in the front seat with the map giving directions.
Food stamps were actual paper bills.
We had a VCR with those huge tapes & a huge projector witu reels turning....
(Oh, and bungalows were actual bungalows!)

I'm almost 40 and sear belts and car seats (and boosters after car seats) were absolutely a thing.

amother

DarkGreen

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 8:43 pm

giftedmom wrote:

Thankfully most of our kids are not on social media

Why do you think so?

amother

DarkGreen

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 8:45 pm

amother Azure wrote:

I'm almost 40 and sear belts and car seats (and boosters after car seats) were absolutely a thing.

Of course there were seat belts in the car, but no one really buckled up & babies were held....

GLUE

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 9:05 pm

amother DarkGreen wrote:

Of course there were seat belts in the car, but no one really buckled up & babies were held....

It depended on the people driving some people would only go if every person was buckled with no double buckling. Others would put 17 kids in the back of a station wagon(someone else will have to explain that)

amother

Azure

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 9:10 pm

amother DarkGreen wrote:

Of course there were seat belts in the car, but no one really buckled up & babies were held....

Maybe by you. You can't really generalize for an entire generation of people across the country. But car seats and seat bealts were definitely a thing, it's up to individuals whether they chose to use them. There are still people who don't bother with them.

amother

Azure

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 9:12 pm

GLUE wrote:

...and hope you were holding it the right way so if you wanted to go north you would not end up going south and have to turn around.

Yes! And folding the map up nicely after was always a challenge. The struggles that kids today will never understand!

amother

Snow

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 9:42 pm

amother Outerspace wrote:

I also grew up before cellphones and internet
Can we become double celebrities now? Wink

Remember the car phones? It was a rich man's thing.
And no one got that number! It was "pryvet"!

Yup and beepers.

amother

DarkGreen

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 9:53 pm

amother Azure wrote:

I understand. But there definitely wasn't much awareness about car seats & seat belts back then. It was common that only whoever sat in the front, wore seat belts.

amother

Milk

Mon, Jan 01 2024, 10:59 pm

Some cars had bench seats in the front and a young child was allowed to sit in between 2 adults in the front seat. Seat belts and car seats existed but weren’t enforced by law like they are today, therefore, many people didn’t use them. I remember standing in the trunk of mini vans waving at drivers behind us. Also when there wasn’t enough space in a car, we sat on laps or even on the floor. This was in the 80s.

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