Being a teenager in the mid-1970s


I was born in 1958, and graduated from high school in 1976, which makes me the generation of the Baby Boomers, which goes from 1946 to 1964. The next generation is called Generation X, and it starts about twenty years after the first Baby Boomers were born. And that makes sense, because an average generation is about twenty years - people usually have children in their twenties, become grandparents by their forties, and great-grandparents by their sixties. If you've done your genealogy you know that this is the rough estimate that you usually do, although there are exceptions (of course!). Where it gets confusing for people is when they define themselves by their teenage years, in which case someone who is still in your generation would have had a dramatically different experience. I'll see if I can explain.

Although nowadays, in my sixties, anyone from 55 to 100 seems to be "about my age", when we talk about what was we remember as teens, the difference really shows. The TV shows, and the music that I remember from the mid-seventies usually gets vague stares, or maybe a "I've kinda heard of it" from someone who was in high school in the '60s, or the '80s, which nowadays doesn't seem all that far from the '70s.

And to be fair, when I graduated from high school, anyone who was just starting high school didn't even seem to be there for me. Seniors didn't usually even talk to sophomores, and it was only a three-year difference in age. And in that short period of time my taste in music would have been seen as very old-fashioned to them, and theirs to be "just noise". I have my old high school yearbook and have no idea who the people in other years were, even a year above or below. They might have been a whole 'nother generation!

And although it wasn't to my tastes, the biggest album of my high school years was "Frampton Comes Alive", which I'm guessing you remember well if you were a teenager in the '70s, and if not, maybe not at all, or maybe you've just heard of it. Here, I'll sing a bit of it...

I want yooooou
To show me the way,
Every day!

Image at the top of this post: My high school graduation in 1976.
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Comments

  1. CelesteApril 10, 2022 at 11:19 AM

    I graduated in '79 (Mighty Fine 79), so I was a freshman when you were a senior, so guess you wouldn't have known me at all. Even though there is some truth in what you said, I myself did know quite a few in other grades. And I do remember that song by Peter Frampton, although it wasn't my favorite. I looked him up, he's 71 now, and looks quite different from the way I remember him in the 70s.

    ReplyDelete
  2. kirkdooleyApril 11, 2022 at 9:01 AM

    You know you've become an adult when you find yourself saying, "I just don't understand the music kids are listening to these days." Our parents said that about Elton John, our grandparents said that about Elvis, and our great-grandparents said that about the Anti-Christ -- Frank Sinatra. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CelesteApril 12, 2022 at 5:52 PM

      Don't think I've ever heard Frank Sinatra called that!

      Delete
    2. Brad HallApril 12, 2022 at 6:41 PM

      Interesting! My mom was a Bobby-soxer in the 1940s, who swooned for Frank Sinatra, so I'm inclined to think that the older generation than her considered him kinda evil - controlling young girls' minds, ya know?

      Delete
    3. CelesteApril 13, 2022 at 2:34 PM

      Well, Elvis was supposed to have corrupted young minds with his hip swaying. Reminds me of the scenes in the movie Forrest Gump where Forrest's mother ran a boarding house, and Elvis Presley, who was not yet famous, visited there, and plays the guitar for Forrest and incorporates Forrest's dance movements into his performances. Later she sees Elvis on a TV in a store window, swaying his hips, and says, "This is not for children's eyes," not realizing it was her own son that gave him the idea. Ha Ha. My own mother liked Ricky Nelson.

      Delete

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