5 Habits That Were Normal For Boomers But Are Considered Rude Today
They lived in a completely different world. But should some of their habits make a comeback?
Dmytro Zinkevych | Shutterstock There's no doubt about it — Boomers came of age in a completely different world than the rest of us (and many of them are still stuck there).
A conversation about this recently ensued on Reddit where one user posed a question to Boomers (and probably a few Silent Generation folks as well), wondering, "What are some things that would be considered rude or boundary crossing today but were perfectly normal and acceptable when you were growing up?"
The responses were revealing, not just about Boomers themselves, but about how times have changed.
Here are 5 habits that were normal for boomers but are considered rude today:
1. Correcting other people's children.
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If you're over a certain age, you can surely remember this happening multiple times as a kid.
"I remember getting corrected by strangers," one Redditor wrote. So do I, as a person right on the cusp of Gen X and the Millennial generation.
Back in the day, people looked out for each other's kids, helped keep them safe, and kept them in line. Of course, this being Boomers, that correction was often harsh — and the whole reason we needed community supervision is because we were mostly running amok unsupervised!
Yet this kind of intervention is widely looked down upon as intrusive nowadays — even within families, it would seem.
One Boomer in the Reddit thread reported being yelled at by their daughter-in-law for reporting her grandson for lying. "[She] told me I was out of line and to never correct him again because it isn't my place to do it," the grandma wrote. Different times.
2. Playful spankings on your birthday.
Okay, THIS is one Boomer tradition we should definitely leave in the past. If you're under, say, 35 or so this likely sounds utterly bizarre to you, as it probably should — it was very weird!
Basically on your birthday adults would give you as many "spankings" as you were years old, plus "a pinch to grow an inch."
It's one thing when it was your grandma or an aunt or something, but one Redditor remembered how their "4th-grade teacher did this to all of us in front of the whole class," including a pinch of the bottom to "grow an inch." Um, yeah… this one can stay in the archives because it never should've left the drafts in the first place!
3. Stopping by friend's houses unannounced.
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My toxic trait is that I absolutely mourn the way texting and social media have made dropping in on a friend completely and totally taboo, but I also do not remember the last time I actually answered my doorbell — or my phone, for that matter.
Still, there is definitely something lost with the retirement of this custom. One Boomer wrote, "You never knew who, or how many, would show up at our house on a Friday night for a game of penny ante poker or Yahtzee in the '60s and '70s."
I remember being so excited when this would happen with my mom's friends as a kid — the treats for "company" would come out and there'd be adult conversations to eavesdrop on!
Now, every time I go visit my 88-year-old aunt and someone shows up out of nowhere for coffee it feels like being on another planet. It's no wonder people report feeling lonely and missing a sense of community — we've all sort of tacitly agreed that this is forbidden. We should change that! (Maybe. Idk… I REALLY like living in my pajamas…)
4. Smoking indoors.
Every now and then I remember my mom's garbled speech as she said something to me with a Salem Light dangling from between her lips — or her sitting at her desk at her job in the library of a HOSPITAL with a cigarette burning beside her while she typed — and wonder how anyone survived the Boomer era.
"And on airplanes and trains," one Redditor added. "I remember riding the L in Chicago with people smoking in the cars."
I remember flying as a 5-year-old unaccompanied minor to my dad's house in the smoking section of the plane because there were no other seats available! How do my lungs even WORK?
Today, Boomers' once-normal smoking habits aren't just frowned upon — many of them would probably land you in jail.
"I was born in '82," one Redditor wrote. "There’s a picture of my mother holding me shortly after I was born, laying in a hospital bed, and on her bedside table is a pack of reds and an ashtray." Yeah… that's a prison sentence!
5. Inviting neighborhood kids into your home.
One Redditor reminisced about a kindly old lady who'd invite the neighborhood kids into her home for candy and Bible readings. "This woman really enjoyed doing this, the parents didn’t seem to mind either," they wrote. "This would NEVER happen today." I should say not!
When I was a kid there was a middle-aged man we called "The Candyman," because if you went to his house and knocked on his door he'd invite you in for a chat and give you a peanut butter cup or a Starburst after. But you had to come in for the chat to get the candy. Yikes. Thankfully that's as far as the quid pro quo went, and the rumor was his wife had left him and taken their kids and he was just very lonely.
But can you imagine what would happen today? More importantly, is this wildly inappropriate, or just yet another example of a bygone sense of community and trust in your neighbors that is missing nowadays (and a huge part of why our political situation is the way it is, by the way, but that's a whole other article)?
It depends on your sensibilities, really, but it just goes to show how much things have changed — and maybe explains a bit of why many Boomers and elderly people are so frustrated these days. They're certainly not without their misguided faults, but their world seems to have been a lot more open and friendly than ours has become.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.