Drinking from a garden hose doesn’t seem that dangerous, but back in the day water that came from a hose was not as regulated as tap water. Often, the water and the hose nozzle contained unsafe levels of lead. Do you remember drinking from the garden hose on a hot day? Do you also remember playing in the water from a fire hydrant? It was not only wasteful, but the force of a fire hydrant water pressure could knock down a kid.
Becoming blood brothers or sisters meant making a small cut on your finger and pressing it on someone else’s cut. It meant loyalty or friendship and was considered to be really cool in the 1960s and ’70s. No one knew how gross it was and how they could exchange bacteria and disease from it. Yuck.
While sleeping in the car isn’t really bad, sleeping in the back window probably is. Kids often were able to fit in the back window of the car and slept there on long road trips.
Spanking and hitting for disciplinary reasons was considered normal. If your dad got out the belt, you knew you were really in trouble! This kind of treatment is now considered abuse and isn’t really tolerated in our society anymore.
Mercurochrome was a dark pink antiseptic. It was pretty gross, but then the FDA realized that it was not only gross but dangerous. It contained mercury, which we now know shouldn’t be put on or in our bodies.
There were plenty of toys made with unsafe chemicals, but there were also toys that could hurt you. Do you remember Jarts? They were darts with a hook attached that was pretty painful if you got hit with one. Not to mention BB guns, cap guns, and much more.
How many of these things do you remember? If you found this article interesting, please SHARE with your friends and family who grew up in the ’60s or ’70s too!
Check out this awesome video where someone asked kids in the 1960s what the 2000s will be like. Do you think they were right about anything?
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