Go to the main content

Adults raised in the 1960s and 70s are tougher than today's generations — they were raised by people who were still emotionally processing the Depression and two world wars and had nothing left over for softness

They handed us house keys on yarn necklaces at eight years old and taught us to fix broken toys with duct tape instead of buying new ones — not because they didn't love us, but because they'd inherited a bone-deep fear that softness might kill us.

Lifestyle

They handed us house keys on yarn necklaces at eight years old and taught us to fix broken toys with duct tape instead of buying new ones — not because they didn't love us, but because they'd inherited a bone-deep fear that softness might kill us.

When I was eight years old, my mother handed me a house key on a piece of yarn and told me I was old enough to let myself in after school. No cell phone to check in, no after-school program, no adult supervision until she got home from work at 6:30. Just me, my younger sisters, and strict instructions about not answering the door for anyone. Looking back now, after 32 years of teaching high school, I see how that simple act of necessity shaped an entire generation's understanding of resilience.

We weren't neglected. We were being prepared for a world our parents knew could be unforgiving, by people who had survived far worse with far less.

The weight of inherited trauma

Have you ever wondered why your parents or grandparents could never quite say "I love you" without following it with something practical? Mine showed love through preparation: teaching me to balance a checkbook at twelve, insisting I learn to change a tire before I could drive, making sure I knew three different routes home in case one was blocked. Their parents had lived through the Depression and sent children to wars that swallowed them whole. Softness, in their experience, was a luxury that could get you killed.

Research indicates that children raised in the 1960s and 1970s developed resilience through unstructured, unsupervised play, fostering independence and problem-solving skills that differ from modern parenting approaches. But what the research doesn't capture is the loneliness of that independence, the weight of being trusted with adult responsibilities before you'd lost all your baby teeth.

My father, who worked as a mailman and knew everyone in town by name, once told me that the best gift he could give me was the ability to survive without him. At the time, it felt cold. Now I understand it was the deepest expression of love he knew how to give. He'd seen too many people who couldn't function when their support systems collapsed, and he was determined his children would never be among them.

Economic anxiety as a parenting style

The 1970s weren't just culturally tumultuous; they were economically brutal. As Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman, noted, "An entire generation of young adults has grown up since the mid-1960s knowing only inflation, indeed an inflation that has seemed to accelerate inexorably."

This economic uncertainty shaped everything about how we were raised. My mother clipped coupons like her life depended on it because once, it had. She taught me to shop sales, to never buy anything at full price, to always have a backup plan for the backup plan. When the gas crisis hit and we sat in lines for hours, she used the time to teach me mental math, turning anxiety into education. Every moment was a teaching moment because every skill might be the one that saved us.

I remember the day she found me crying over a broken toy. Instead of comforting me, she taught me to fix it with duct tape and a paperclip. "Things break," she said matter-of-factly. "But most things can be fixed if you're creative enough." It wasn't the hug I wanted, but it was the lesson I needed.

The rebellion that wasn't soft

What strikes me most about our generation's supposed rebellion is how practical it was. Willie Alexander, leader of a Boston band, captured it perfectly: "Punk looks right at you and says something." Even our counterculture was direct, unflinching, honest in ways that would seem harsh by today's standards.

We rebelled by being even tougher than our parents expected, by taking their survival skills and adding a layer of defiance. We didn't rebel by being soft; we rebelled by being harder in different ways. We learned to survive emotional neglect by becoming hyper-independent, to deal with absent parents by never needing anyone.

Studies now suggest that individuals raised in the 1960s and 1970s developed psychological strengths, such as hyper-independence and emotional suppression, which were adaptive responses to their upbringing but may now be interpreted as trauma rather than resilience. But here's the thing: it was both. We were traumatized and resilient, broken and unbreakable, all at the same time.

The unexpected gift of toughness

Sometimes I watch my former students, now parents themselves, hovering over their children, protecting them from every possible disappointment, and I understand the impulse. They're trying to give their kids the softness they never received. But I also see what gets lost in translation.

When my car broke down last winter on a rural road with no cell service, I knew exactly what to do. I'd been trained for this moment since childhood: check the engine, look for obvious problems, walk to find help if necessary, never panic. A younger colleague in a similar situation recently called me in tears, completely paralyzed by the experience. She'd never been taught that problems have solutions, that discomfort is temporary, that you can survive being cold and scared and alone.

Research highlights that children exposed to war and armed conflict, particularly those with authoritative and warm parenting, exhibit better mental health outcomes, suggesting that parenting styles significantly influence children's resilience in adverse conditions. Our parents, shaped by war even if they hadn't fought in one, parented from that same place of preparing us for conflict, for scarcity, for loss.

Finding the middle ground

As I've gotten older, I've learned to appreciate both the gifts and the gaps in how we were raised. Kris Kristofferson once said, "There's really more honesty and less bullsh-t in today's music than ever before." The same could be said about parenting. Today's parents are more honest about their struggles, more open about mental health, more willing to admit when they need help.

In one of my previous posts about finding purpose in retirement, I mentioned how teaching teenagers for three decades taught me that every generation thinks the next one is softer, weaker, less prepared. But maybe they're just differently prepared. My generation can survive a crisis, but can we process our emotions about it? We can push through anything, but do we know when it's okay to stop pushing?

I see it in my own life now. I can handle my second husband's death, manage the estate, keep functioning through grief. But asking for help? Admitting I'm struggling? That still feels like failure, even though I know intellectually it's not. The toughness that saved us also sometimes isolates us.

TIME Magazine once wrote, "The superstars are dead. Long live the superstars." They were talking about rock music, but they might as well have been talking about parenting styles. The tough, stoic parent is dead. Long live the emotionally available parent. And maybe that's okay.

Final thoughts

We were raised by people who loved us the only way they knew how: by preparing us for the worst while hoping for the best. They couldn't give us softness because they'd never received it themselves, and in their experience, softness didn't survive hard times. They gave us what they had: grit, determination, the ability to endure. If that made us tougher than today's generations, it also made us less able to process emotions, ask for help, or admit vulnerability. Both the toughness and its cost were real. Perhaps the best gift we can give the next generation is permission to take what serves them from our resilience while leaving behind what doesn't.

 

VegOut Magazine’s February Edition Is Out!

In our latest Magazine “Longevity, Legacy and the Things that Last” you’ll get FREE access to:

    • – 5 in-depth articles
    • – Insights across Lifestyle, Wellness, Sustainability & Beauty
    • – Our Editor’s Monthly Picks
    • – 4 exclusive Vegan Recipes

Marlene Martin

Marlene Martin is a retired high school English teacher who spent 38 years in the classroom before discovering plant-based eating in her late sixties. When her daughter first introduced her to the idea of removing animal products from her diet, Marlene was skeptical. But curiosity won out over habit, and what started as a reluctant experiment became a genuine transformation in how she thinks about food, health, and aging.

At VegOut, Marlene writes about nutrition, wellness, and the experience of embracing new ways of eating later in life. She brings a teacher’s instinct for clarity and patience to topics that can feel overwhelming, especially for readers who are just beginning to explore plant-based living. Her writing is informed by personal experience, careful research, and a belief that it is never too late to change.

Marlene lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her mornings reading research papers, her afternoons tending a modest vegetable garden, and her evenings knitting while listening to audiobooks. She has three adult children and two grandchildren who keep her honest about staying current.

More Articles by Marlene

More From Vegout