For those 45+, how good were the 1990s, actually?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 90’s were sooo much better than today. I’m 55.

“Smartphones” have ruined society.

This. 54 years old. White male born in ‘71.

80s were halcyon but 90s were so much better. I just remember being able to flirt with abandon. Now seems women are offended if you simply hold the door as a courtesy….feel for my kids who are late teens.

They found their tribes but cool kids are all on phones forcing worst narcissistic tendencies that were mostly muted in my era.

So many narcissists today….

[Anonymous]

95% of the convenience, 5% of the problems

It was a great time

[Anonymous]

I was making babies in the 90s. I have great memories of women supporting each other and “natural” living was a thing. Breast feeding was the standard (expected), natural childbirth, baby food made at home. Gentle parenting was a thing but not intentionally done. We cared a lot about our kids development and their feelings maybe to a fault. I was a SAHM and there was lots of focus on SAHM v WM. The working moms were the ones who were judged. I was a Mom a WM could call when they were stuck. Husband was loving his career choice. We were thrilled to buy our FIRST minivan. Our parents (The “greatest generation”)took little to no interest in us or our kids but we kissed their ***. I have some regrets. No family helped in any way. I’m a boomer and in retrospect we did spoil our kids a bit. We had none of the worries that young families have today. Our millennial kids have lived through 9/11 ( heard the plane hit the Pentagon), when they got their drivers license the DC sniper and running around the car when they pumped gas, the internet became a thing, a pandemic, our government normalizing hate, a masters degree was necessary to advance, etc. But there were definitely times when “everyone gets a trophy”. We did not experience keeping up with the Jones’. In spite of all of this, life was much easier. Good times (except for natural childbirth!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bought a nice starter townhouse for $95,000 in 1995, which was a little less than 3x my salary at the time. I was 28 years old. Nice neighborhood. It was small but just 7 years old at the time. It didn't appreciate for 8 years and then in 2004-2005, its value ballooned and I sold it for $202,000.

I did it on my own. That's how amazing the 90s were. I was solid middle class and single, and was able to buy. I ache for young folks today.

You did it with the help of a property boom in the early 2000s

DC real estate has always been solid with the government work force. We made over double what we paid but I hear things are different under this administration. Parents are losing their jobs or living in fear. So sad.

[Anonymous]

Depends if you were poor or middle class or rich. It was ok for middle classes I think, but we were dirt poor and on the verge of homelessness. Working min wage jobs didn't pay the living even back in the 90s and you couldn't get anything paying living wages until graduating college. If you were a poor youth without financial stability or solid middle class family backing you up, life really sucked for you even in glorious 90s. I worked low wage jobs with people who were runaways and likely illegal immigrants and heard all sorts of stories, including teenage prostitution. After graduation most kids had to live with roommates if seeking urban living in more or less decent safe neighborhoods. And the trend of of having kids move back with their parents after college was already the fact in late 90s because COL was rapidly rising even then. My English major friends were not making enough to live on their own or even with roommates in the city. You had to be in tech or Finance to be able to afford to live alone first few years out of college.

Even if RE was a lot cheaper the wages were lower and 6 figure income meant that you "arrived". Even low 6 figures could get you a decent lifestyle then and ability to afford a home, but it was hard to get to this point outside of a few fields after several years of working.

Also starter homes were dumpier in the 90s and early 2000s. Much smaller, mostly tract homes in expanding suburbia/exurbia or fixer uppers or studios.
In HCOL cities people bought studios as their starter homes.

What I am saying is that issues we have today with affordability crisis started looong ago.

[Anonymous]

I was born in 1975, graduated from college in 1997. The 90s were great. I would rewind the world to that time and hit pause if I could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asking specifically X-ennials, Gen X, and Boomers, who were wage-earning, taxpaying adults during the 1990s - so no rose-colored childhood glasses. I'm also specifically asking those who grew up in the United States, I wouldn't ask people who grew up in Rwanda or Bosnia or Chechnya this question.

Were the 90s actually better, economically, culturally, technologically (as in we had the right amount of technology - not too much?) Were things actually better then, or is it really only a matter of millennials thinking their childhood was the good old days. Also, a possible counterpoint is that we have progressed since then on LGBTQ and racial issues, for the most part, so the 90s nostalgia might be very concentrated among white, middle class, suburban millennials. What I think I'm really getting at besides the whole "is nostalgia real" question is, was it actually easier back then to work a steady job and afford things, and were we healthier as a society before smartphones and AI.

Bonus points if you are old enough to vouch for the 80s as well.

I’ma X-ennial. I remember one day in high school where I reflected on how lucky I was to be born in the United States. Medicare was fully-funded. I never expected to worry about retirement. We were the must powerful country in the world. I never expected to worry about a war on our home turf. Everyone was kind to me, and I thought all Americans were treated that way. (Looking back, I was pretty, but didn’t know it.) I got into my dream college with very little effort, and I felt invincible. Iirc, we’d already fixed the hole in the ozone layer. Sure, I was taking a foreign language, but English was the future. I feel bad for my kids, who are being raised in a less optimistic era.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born in 1975, graduated from college in 1997. The 90s were great. I would rewind the world to that time and hit pause if I could.

+1 born in 1978 and graduated from college in 2000. High school was fun and traveling was easy and relatively cheap. My life was so much more carefree than my own kids' lives.

[Anonymous]

No smartphones. Just a "car" phone for emergencies. Blissful. Anonymous.

--class of 96

[Anonymous]

The US started falling off a cliff in 2000. Yes the 90's were better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No smartphones. Just a "car" phone for emergencies. Blissful. Anonymous.

--class of 96

Yes! My "emergency" phone cost $7/mo.

[Anonymous]

I'm 45. 90s were terrible because I was still in the clutches of my overbearing mother. I escaped in 2002. Now THAT was a pivotal decade for me. Got married, had a kid, etc.

[Anonymous]

My first job was 1997, in the back of a crappy little restaurant. I think I started at $4.25/hr and worked all the way up $5.75 before I quit and started working as a waitress at another restaurant across the street. I was in high school. We were poor, but we lived in a blue-collar area, so our poverty was not a huge contrast to how everyone else lived.

I did all the drugs with all the people. I went to all the festivals, raves, and afterparties. We would find out about a party via a flyer from another party with a phone number. When you called the number, it would lead you to an address or to another phone number, which would lead you to a rave at an abandoned warehouse.

My family may have taken out the first subprime loan. One 90s memory I have is the mortgage company calling over, over and over, and without caller ID, a teenager must answer the phone call that the mother is avoiding and lie and say, no, she’s not home, not sure when she’ll be back.

[Anonymous]

Radiohead. No better sound in the 90s. It was a great decade if you cared about music.

[Anonymous]

The best decade.