‘Back in my day…’
By Jenna Yates & Kerrie Turner
We’re coming to realise that the phrase ‘back in my day’ is somewhat of a rite-of-passage for parents… we rolled our eyes when we heard it as kids but now it’s our turn to use it!
Please enjoy this stroll down memory lane… we have thoroughly enjoyed sharing our blissful pre-social media world with our children, and are quite sure these innocent little faces would not have handled all the added pressures of growing up today with it.
Kerrie here, and when I was 13, it was 1993. I was desperately trying to grow out what I had thought would be a good idea for my very thick, bob cut hair (how wrong I was!)… a spiral perm.
If the cassette player in my room wasn't being used to make mix-tapes, or record my favourite songs off the radio, it was playing my collection of 100% hits albums that I had saved and then spent my pocket money on. I would also save up and buy myself the latest in the Babysitter's Club series.
I caught the bus to school and home again. I remember a boy who lived near my house would get off the bus at the same stop and walk behind me along the footpath, spitting at my back. Vile. But I wasn't brave enough to say anything so would just walk quicker and cross the road to try and get away.
There was only a phone connected to the wall in my house - if I wanted to speak with my friends on weekends or after school, I had to call their homes and usually would find myself speaking to their parents before I would get to talk to them. What was a text message?! Nothing that I had heard of yet!
I don't remember if we had a computer at home, but if we did it would have been a huge box of a thing - and we certainly wouldn't have had connection to the internet. My sister and I were allowed 30 minutes a day to play 'Frogger' or 'Granny's Garden'.
My TV viewing was a mix of watching the lives of those who called Wandin Valley, Summer Bay or Erinsborough home. It was a simple time. I was very innocent and naive to the world.
Jenna here now, and I’ve got to say… there was slightly more tech in my house when I became a teenager, ten years later! After school, me and my siblings would fight over the shared family computer that sat just off our living room, to play the SIMS. I’m pretty sure we had Wifi, but the only use I had for it was researching for class assignments.
A friend eventually set me up with a Hotmail account… the email is forever seared in my memory - jenna_c72@… - she was horses_rule something. We would sometimes chat on MSN messenger but I remember it being ‘cooler’ to be offline as that meant you had better things you were doing.
13-year-old Jenna also had a mobile phone… my mum’s old Nokia 3310. I powered it up with a $30 prepaid Vodaphone SIM that often was ‘out of credit’ meaning I’d have to call from the home phone. I had no problem with that but my parents usually cut me off at a certain point.
Both mum and dad worked full time and we lived in a semi-rural area, so after-school hang outs weren’t really a thing for us. Truthfully though, I was more than happy to be home with my sisters and brother where I was free to be myself. I didn’t know it at the time but I was incredibly anxious and insecure. My face would turn beetroot red at the drop of the hat (even sometimes just because I was worried about it happening.) I know the other kids laughed about it - thank God there was no camera phones.
I’m not sure if this is normal but I still sometimes think of something that happened during High School and cringe. That awkward, self-conscious girl would not have been able to handle the constant pressure of being ‘on.’
We had such an eye-opening chat with Yasmin London in episode four of How Motherhood Changed Me. It’s given us much to think about as our kids approach ages where social media and smartphones will come into play.
The 36 months campaign is a great initiative we are wholeheartedly behind. If you’re yet to sign the petition to help raise the legal age of social media citizenship in Australia from 13 to 16, you can do so here.
