What was the best decade to be a little kid?

Not sure but let me tell you this. When I was a kid while waiting for the school bus we would actually talk to each other. In the winter we sometimes would have a friendly snowball fight while waiting. Now when I drive past kids waiting for the bus they have their heads buried in their cell phones oblivious to everyone and everything around them. And half of them have a cigarette in the other hand.

I was pretty fond of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We had the advent of the video game arcade, the Atari 2600, CHIPS, Dukes of Hazzard, and home video/cable started to become pretty prevalent. Some stuff that made earlier generations cool too were still around like playing outside, riding bikes with friends, and non air conditioned school buses (joke). I remember also helping a friend's older brother wax and polish his Cragar mags on his '69 Camaro and '79 Chevy 4x4 truck. That kind of stuff was still awesome for a little kid to help out with and cool cars were still around and teenagers could afford them. Lots of go-kart tracks and bumper boat places were around too (even if some were sort of shady). The mall was becoming the go to place for kids to hang out at (even if you didn't have any money). Music was great too like KISS and AC/DC (early Van Halen too). I remember people that worked at fast food joints still had to wear crazy uniforms like Long John Silvers and Burger King. Also, Taco Bell actually used real meat back then.

I think in the 90s you had Best of Both Worlds you had technology where you can play pretty cool video games but you still had to go over to your friend's house if you wanted to play the games together.
Also kids were still outside a lot in the 90s. Probably in the 90s malls were most fun you had arcades everywhere a lot of cool toys a lot of cool cartoons.

The 80s for sure. I experienced the entirety of the 80s as a kid. It was an overall great decade for a kid to live through. The toys, the video games, the cartoons, the tv shows, the movies, the music, the fashion trends, the hairstyles, and so on. And as m-slovak79 said, times were simpler.

90% of people will say whatever decade they happen to have been a kid in, regardless of what decade it was.

Seems that way, I guess technically you don't really have anything to compare it to. I'm going to say the 50s, just seemed really cool innocent and carefree.

Harmless elf



That's a fair point because most of the decade was pretty much pre-internet/cell phones and I agree with the whole playing games with another person, in person, was true in the 1990's because it was pretty much pre-online gaming as in my area we never got quality internet til the year 2000 (I remember the guy who installed the Comcast cable modem said I was one of the earlier people to get it installed in the area as I first remember seeing it advertised on TV on the channel ZDTV (which looking it up online says it was called that from 1998-2000 before switching to TechTV etc)) as prior to that it was still dial-up only. NOTE: I basically had internet since 1995 (on a Windows v3.11 with a 486dx2 66Mhz CPU etc) which is about 3-5 years before it was more mainstream.

also, I did get into arcades back in the 1994-1996 time frame (maybe a little beyond 1996) as I played MK2/MK3/UMK3 as much as I could in those days at $0.50 per play with my cousin etc (those were the days ) as that's when arcades were still ahead of consoles but after the 1990's consoles pretty much got good/modern (i.e. basically PS2(2000)/XBox(2001)) and arcades pretty much lost their appeal for the most part. but I would imagine in terms of arcades in general the 1980's and 1990's were their hey-day as I personally can't claim the 1980's much myself (maybe a little at best) since the whole MK2/MK3/UMK3 (and a little bit else) was pretty much my hey-day of arcades which at that time I was pretty much in the 14-17 years old age bracket. but I know PS1/N64 where pretty much the first major players in the 3D console market though even though I did have a Sega Saturn at one point which was probably about 1995 as I know I got a N64 not long after it's release in 1996 etc. but some of my best nostalgia with N64, at least in terms multiplayer, is the game people like to praise from those days, which you might already know... GoldenEye. in fact, GoldenEye was pretty much the last console shooter I really enjoyed because not long after GoldenEye I got too used to playing shooters on the computer (Quake/Quake II/Quake 3 etc) and could not go back especially once I got into Counter-Strike which I first played in 2000 on I think it was Beta 7 or Beta 7.1 which was a little prior to the official v1.0 release as looking online real quick it looks like Sep 2000 was the official release of Counter-Strike v1.0 so I had to be playing it before Sep 2000.

Of course I would pick late 70's / early 80's. I mean, that's when I was doing it all. Wow, I could go on about the 70's in-neighborhood weed buying with my dad, seeing Star Wars six times in the theater (with my dad getting high in the parking lot one time), seeing a UFO, my Ozzy loving heavy metal babysitter who tried to kill herself when Randy Rhodes died then she came to babysit me that evening, the local ice cream parlor that only hired hot girls who had burnout boyfriends who smoked cigarettes outside and the ice cream shop also sold t-shirts and jerseys where you could get AC/DC and Iron Maiden logos steamed onto the shirts. Those elementary school ice cream socials with games and prizes; we had one where they were doing KISS face painting - but it was some weird half black / half white with alternate stars (maybe to easily gauge the amount of face paint). I wasn't having it. I wanted the Paul Stanley look to be correct. It backfired; everyone though they screwed it up and just did all white with one black star. I tried to explain that it was exactly how it should be, and that I would have got the Ace spaceman instead but getting Paul was just hard enough. Then I looked stupid and I should have just did what the rest of the kids were doing. I got these cool pocket mirrors too, a Black Sabbath one which was a black mirror, and a Blondie one. My dad was adamant about the Blondie one because he thought she was hot. Probably high. She was though. Right around that time we had a neighborhood bike thief. He was just a kid, but I don't know what kind of parents he had because his backyard was full of bikes he stole. Well, he was crossing a very busy fast road on a stolen bike. And that was his last free ride. I guess they found his head a couple hundred feet from the accident. It was kind of like Detroit Rock City I guess.

I have big fond memories of malls and shopping around that era. Especially of when the regular decor was 70's style, since the economy wasn't great - nothing was being updated. That yellow, orange and brown style was everywhere still. Then things changed. The early 80's was a little cultural boom. Style took on a new look. It was supposedly all new. It was edgy and bright. I think it had some roots in 50's style actually. There was definite backlash against bellbottoms and 60's and 70's life. Early 80's around the beginning of MTV, Night Flight, cable television that played movies with boobs any time of day. That had my name written all over it. I remember the "cable guide" came at the beginning of the month. And in that cable guide it listed at the beginning every movie that was on that month. Which included how many roses out of 4 it got (I didn't care). And it listed a letter code about Language (L), Violence (V) and Nudity (N). So that cued me in to know what to look for. N's, then L's. The rest of the guide was the entire month's schedule, full timeslot of all channels and movies. First step, find out when the N movies played, watch them and make a mental note of when the nudity occurred. From there, I didn't need to waste any time watching the whole movie; I could figure out when to tune in according to the schedule and my perverted little timeline. I have vague memories of watching the clock then getting up from the table in the middle of dinner just saying "I want to watch TV", and my parents thinking "what the hell?". Then looking at tits for a couple minutes then returning like nothing happened. I mean, it wasn't that seamless and they probably knew what I was up to; but I guess they thought I was cool for thinking ahead and being so ambitious about boobs.

I could go on.

I didn't experience anything on your list, but yes, it was a simpler time.

It actually might be the best time to be a kid.

And I had a HORRIBLE 1950s