Remember when kids disappeared for hours and parents didn’t panic? When you learned to fix things because there wasn’t money to replace them? When a handshake actually meant something?
Growing up in the 60s and 70s was different. Not better or worse necessarily, just different. We learned things out of necessity that many younger folks struggle with today.
These weren’t lessons from YouTube tutorials or self-help books. They came from life itself, from parents who’d lived through harder times, from communities where people still knew their neighbors.
My father worked in a factory outside Manchester. Watching him navigate union meetings and shop floor politics taught me more about how the world works than any university course ever did.
Those lessons, learned around the dinner table or while helping fix the car on weekends, shaped an entire generation.
The irony? Many of these skills that came naturally to us are now taught in expensive workshops or therapy sessions. What we took for granted, younger generations are desperately trying to relearn.
1) How to be bored without losing your mind
We didn’t have phones to scroll through during every idle moment. Waiting rooms meant staring at the wall or reading whatever ancient magazine was lying around. Long car journeys meant looking out the window, making up games, or actually talking to whoever was in the car with you.
This taught us something crucial: How to be alone with our thoughts. How to daydream. How to let our minds wander and make unexpected connections.
Psychologists now tell us this “default mode” is when our brains do their best creative work. We didn’t know the science back then. We just knew that boredom often led to the best ideas, whether it was inventing a new game or figuring out how to build that fort in the woods.
Today, I watch people panic when their phone battery dies. They literally don’t know what to do with themselves.
But those quiet moments? That’s where self-awareness lives. That’s where you figure out who you really are when nobody’s watching.
2) How to fix things instead of replacing them
When the toaster broke, you didn’t order a new one on Amazon. You took it apart, figured out what was wrong, and fixed it. Same with bikes, radios, even cars. My dad’s toolkit was sacred, and knowing how to use it was part of growing up.
This wasn’t just about saving money, though in working-class families like mine, that mattered.
It was about understanding how things worked. About not being helpless when something went wrong. About the satisfaction of bringing something back to life with your own hands.
I’ve mentioned this before, but this mindset changes everything. When you know you can fix things, you approach problems differently. You don’t panic. You investigate. You experiment. You learn that most things aren’t as complicated as they seem once you open them up and take a look.
3) How to disagree without destroying relationships
Politics at the pub. Religion at family dinners. We argued about everything, sometimes heatedly. But here’s what’s different: We still showed up next week. We still helped each other move house. We still lent each other tools.
You learned that someone could be dead wrong about politics but still be the first person to help when your car broke down. That the neighbor with different views would still watch your kids in an emergency.
My grandparents, who’d lived through the war, knew this better than anyone. They’d seen what happens when neighbors turn on each other. They knew that community was more important than being right.
Now I see people cutting off family members over Facebook posts. Ending friendships over political differences. We’ve forgotten that disagreement doesn’t mean disloyalty. That you can think someone’s wrong without thinking they’re evil.
4) How to commit to things even when they get hard
Jobs lasted decades. Marriages lasted lifetimes. You picked something and stuck with it, through the boring parts, the difficult parts, the “grass is greener” moments.
This wasn’t always healthy, granted. Some situations should be left. But we learned something valuable: Most worthwhile things have rough patches.
The job that becomes rewarding after you master it. The relationship that deepens after you weather a storm together. The skill that pays off after months of practice.
Watching my father go to the same factory for thirty years taught me that consistency creates expertise. That showing up, day after day, even when you don’t feel like it, is how ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things.
5) How to handle money when there isn’t much of it
We knew exactly how much things cost because every purchase mattered. We saved for things. We did without. We learned the difference between wanting something and needing it.
Credit cards weren’t thrown at you every five minutes. If you didn’t have the money, you didn’t buy it. Simple as that. This forced creativity. It forced prioritization. It forced conversations about what really mattered.
The envelope system wasn’t a trendy budgeting technique. It was how our parents divided up the weekly wages. Rent in this one. Food in that one. Everything visible, tangible, real.
6) How to entertain yourself without being entertained
Three TV channels. No internet. No video games for most of us.
Yet somehow, we were rarely bored. We made up games. We explored. We built things. We put on plays in the garage. We started bands that were terrible but taught us about working together.
Reading was entertainment, not self-improvement. Libraries were treasure troves, not Instagram backdrops. We read everything we could get our hands on because what else was there to do on a rainy Sunday?
This self-directed play taught us initiative. Nobody programmed our free time. Nobody scheduled our fun. We learned to create rather than consume.
7) How to show up when it matters
When someone died, you showed up. When someone got married, you showed up. When the neighbor needed help moving, you showed up. Not virtually. Actually, physically present.
These weren’t Facebook events you could “maybe” attend. Commitment meant something. Your word meant something. If you said you’d be there, you were there.
This physical presence taught us to read rooms, to offer comfort without words, to know when to speak and when to just be there. These are skills you can’t learn from behind a screen.
8) How to respect experience even when you disagree with it
Old people had lived through things. Wars. Depressions. Massive social changes. Even if their views seemed outdated, we understood they’d earned them through experience.
My grandparents’ stories about rationing, about bombs falling, about rebuilding afterward, gave me perspective.
History wasn’t abstract. It was personal. It was the reason they saved every bit of string, why they never wasted food, why they valued stability over excitement.
You didn’t dismiss someone just because they were older. You listened, filtered what was useful, and respectfully set aside what wasn’t. But you listened first.
9) How to be uncomfortable and be okay with it
Houses were cold in winter. Cars didn’t have air conditioning. Shoes gave you blisters until they were broken in. Food wasn’t always exactly what you wanted. And that was just life.
We weren’t tougher. We just hadn’t been told that every discomfort was unacceptable. That every inconvenience needed an immediate solution. That feeling uncomfortable meant something was wrong.
This tolerance for discomfort opened doors.
You took the job even though the commute was rough. You tried things even though you might fail. You had difficult conversations because they needed to be had.
The bottom line
These skills weren’t taught in workshops or learned from life coaches. They were absorbed through living in a world that demanded them. A world that was perhaps harder in some ways, but that hardness created resilience.
Can younger generations learn these skills? Absolutely. But it requires something that goes against everything modern life encourages: Slowing down, disconnecting, and embracing discomfort.
The real question isn’t whether these skills can be learned. It’s whether we’re willing to create the conditions that teach them. To put down our phones long enough to be bored. To fix something instead of buying new. To show up in person when it matters.
The tools change, but human nature doesn’t. The skills that helped us navigate the 60s and 70s aren’t outdated. They’re timeless. And maybe, just maybe, they’re exactly what we need to navigate today’s challenges too.