Growing Up in the 1970s vs Today: 10 Differences, Fact-Checked

Children who grew up in the 1970s had far more unsupervised freedom than most children today: they walked to school alone, played outside until dark and had no screens competing for their attention. Those changes are real and well documented. But a popular list of "10 differences" written by health writer Marco Torres, and shared widely since 2015, mixed those genuine shifts with claims about vaccines, sunscreen, ADHD and food that do not stand up to the evidence.

Here are his ten points, grouped by theme, with what each gets right and where the record needs correcting. The aim is not to dismiss nostalgia, but to separate the lessons worth keeping from the myths worth dropping.

Freedom, play and screens

1. Entertainment came from other children

Torres recalls a childhood without internet, mobile phones or games consoles, in which friends and physical play filled the hours. That contrast is fair. Children today spend far more time on screens, and many parents and researchers worry about what that displaces: outdoor play, sleep and face-to-face friendship. His suggestion that phones expose children to harmful radiation, however, is not supported; phones use non-ionising radio waves, and research so far has not shown that normal use damages health.

2. Playing outside was normal

This is the strongest point on the list, and the data back it up. When researcher Mayer Hillman surveyed English schools in 1971, about 80% of seven- and eight-year-olds went to school without an adult. When he and John Adams returned to the same schools in 1990, that figure had fallen to 9%. Similar declines have been seen in many wealthy countries.

The backlash has reached the law. In the United States, the "free-range kids" movement launched by writer Lenore Skenazy in 2008 pushed for change, and in 2018 Utah became the first state to state explicitly that letting children walk, play or travel alone at a reasonable age is not neglect. Several other states have followed.

4. Parents did not need to reach children every minute

Torres criticises "helicopter parents" who track every move, shield children from every mistake and buy every gadget. Many child-development experts share the worry that constant supervision can leave children less practised at solving their own problems. It is worth adding a nuance he skipped: parents of the 1970s were not simply wiser. They faced less social pressure, and the risks they accepted, such as cars without child seats, were sometimes deadly.

ADHD: more diagnoses, not invented ones

3. "Kids being kids" versus ADHD

Diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have risen sharply. A 2024 US parent survey reported by the CDC found that about 11.7% of children aged 3 to 17, roughly 7 million, currently have a diagnosis, with boys diagnosed about twice as often as girls. Research has also shown that the youngest children in a school year are more likely to be diagnosed than their older classmates, a sign that ordinary immaturity is sometimes mistaken for a disorder.

That is a real concern, but it is not the same as saying ADHD is imaginary or that medication never helps. ADHD is a recognised condition, and treatment combining behaviour support and, where appropriate, medication helps many children function better. The original article’s figure of half a trillion dollars supposedly wasted on unnecessary ADHD drugs has no reliable source. If you are worried about a diagnosis or a prescription, talk to a doctor and ask about all the options.

Bumps, bruises and bullies

5. Getting hurt was part of growing up

Scraped knees and rough games were common, and there is a reasonable argument that children learn resilience from manageable risks. But Torres went further, claiming that anti-bullying programmes are useless and that children should simply sort things out themselves.

That goes too far. Persistent bullying is linked to anxiety and depression, and the evidence on school programmes is mixed rather than negative. The US government’s StopBullying.gov points out that children who are defended by peers are less anxious and depressed than those left alone. The useful lesson from the 1970s is not to ignore bullying, but to raise children who can handle ordinary conflict and who stand up for each other when it becomes cruelty.

Sun, vaccines and medicine

6. Sunshine without fear

Sunlight helps the body make vitamin D, and time outdoors is good for children. But the claim that sunscreen causes illness and that people near the equator do not get melanoma is wrong. Australia and New Zealand have the highest melanoma rates in the world, and sunburn in childhood is one of the strongest risk factors. In the United States, melanoma incidence rose from 8.8 to 27.7 cases per 100,000 people between 1975 and 2021, partly reflecting the sun-loving habits of earlier decades. Sunscreen helps prevent melanoma and squamous cell skin cancer, and diet or supplements can cover vitamin D needs.

7. Fewer drugs and vaccines

Children in the early 1970s were vaccinated against about seven diseases; today’s schedules protect against many more, which is why the number of doses is higher. The original list called vaccines "more risky than beneficial". That is false. The World Health Organization estimates that immunisation prevents 3.5 to 5 million deaths every year from diseases such as measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. Claims that standard cancer treatments are "poison" fall into the same category. Questions about any medicine or vaccine are best taken to a doctor.

Dirt, soap and household chemicals

8. Soap and water, not antibacterial products

Here Torres was partly ahead of his time. In September 2016 the US Food and Drug Administration ruled that triclosan and 18 other antibacterial ingredients could no longer be sold in consumer hand and body washes, because manufacturers had not shown they worked better than plain soap and water. Scientists had also raised concerns about triclosan and bacterial resistance.

His wider claim, that clean homes cause allergies, rests on the "hygiene hypothesis" first proposed by epidemiologist David Strachan in 1989. The current thinking, sometimes called the "old friends" idea, is that early contact with a diverse range of everyday microbes, from siblings, pets and outdoor play, helps train the immune system. It is not an argument against washing hands, which prevents infections without raising allergy risk.

9. Fewer chemicals in everyday products

Some substances on his list, such as BPA and certain phthalates, have been restricted in children’s products in several countries because of health concerns. Lumping these together with fluoride and "geoengineering", though, is misleading: community water fluoridation at recommended levels is supported by major health bodies, and there is no evidence of a secret programme spraying toxins from aircraft. It is also easy to forget the chemicals 1970s children did face, including leaded petrol and lead paint.

Food then and now

10. No gluten-free, sugar-free or GMO-free labels

Some dates in this section are right. Monsanto launched the herbicide glyphosate under the Roundup brand in 1974, and glyphosate-tolerant genetically modified soybeans followed in 1996. Whether glyphosate causes cancer is genuinely debated: the WHO’s cancer agency classed it as "probably carcinogenic" in 2015, while the US EPA and the European Food Safety Authority concluded it is unlikely to pose a cancer risk at normal exposure.

Other claims here are not supported, including that modern wheat is uniquely harmful to human metabolism or that pasteurised milk is toxic. Pasteurisation kills dangerous bacteria and remains one of the great public health advances. Gluten-free food matters for people with coeliac disease, but there is no good evidence that ordinary wheat harms everyone else. Where Torres had a point is ultra-processed food: diets heavy in it are linked with poorer health, and cooking from simple ingredients is a habit worth passing on.

What 1970s childhood can still teach us

Strip away the health myths and a few lessons remain solid:

• Give children age-appropriate independence. Walking to a friend’s house or the shop builds confidence and judgement.
• Protect unstructured outdoor play. It supports fitness, creativity and friendship, and it is good for mood.
• Let small failures happen. Children learn from mistakes they are allowed to make.
• Keep modern safety gains. Vaccines, car seats, bike helmets and sun protection are part of why far fewer children die young today.

Torres closed his piece hoping that love, rather than fear, would guide how we raise the next generation. That is a goal most parents share. The best version of it combines the freedom of the 1970s with the knowledge we have gained since.

Sources: Original list by Marco Torres, Prevent Disease (shared via The Mind Unleashed); John Adams: The demise of the free-range child; Wikipedia: Free-range parenting; CDC: Data and statistics on ADHD; StopBullying.gov; Wikipedia: Melanoma; Wikipedia: Sunscreen; WHO: Vaccines and immunization; Wikipedia: Triclosan; Wikipedia: Hygiene hypothesis; Wikipedia: Glyphosate.

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