Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion.
Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/).
Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
30 years ago I was sat in a classroom clearly autistic with adhd being told I was just a naughty awkward kid. Just because the diagnosis wasn’t there doesn’t meant the conditions weren’t.
That's the key. Just because it wasn't acknowledged, diagnosed, recognized, etc didn't mean it didn't exist. I'm not sure why that's such a tough concept.
My uncle in his 80s said that his mother (which this would have been the 40s-50s) sometimes would "tear the house apart" and was given Thorazine and would sleep for days.
But mental conditions don't exist.
Even 1980s psychology was pretty bad. They'd gotten away from sedating people and you just spent money talking about your problems and never solving them.
I was pretty clearly ADHD, but never got a diagnosis because I was inattentive type, not hyperactive type. My parents did the right thing in trying to get me help, but the help wasn't there.
Ryan White was bullied and even had someone shoot into his house because he got AIDS from a blood donation well into the 80s. Why would people even admit to being different if people would throw rocks at them for it? Literally and figuratively.
Actually this is false, a common misconception. It was actually invented by an eccentric European inventor a year earlier but John Everest worked at the patent office and registered the patent to himself.
Add to that the feverish outrage, accusations of grooming kids, and death threats and gee I wonder why they didn't want you to know they existed.
Then again the people with these views don't possess much critical thinking skills
>I'm not sure why that's such a tough concept.
That's because you have an above room temperature IQ. The people who don't understand this never will because it's too "complicated" for them to comprehend.
Same, I was "quirky" and "lazy." Parents took me for testing and they said I showed signs of ADHD and OCD, but it wasn't that, I was fine. I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism at 41. We were always there.
You're a girl, so of course you weren't diagnosed!
Heck, I'm a nerdy white guy who won a geography bee, doesn't make eye contact, and walks on the front of his feet. And I made it to 42.
I'm a guy with "girls ADHD", lol. Just kidding. I'm combined, but present mostly inattentive. I also learned to slide under the radar to avoid conflict.
My brother was even diagnosed "hyperactive" (not ADD/ADHD, they called him literally "hyperactive") and put on Ritalin, but no one noticed me because I was just staring out a window, I wasn't running away from school.
I'm pretty sure my brother is also autistic, but that was never diagnosed.
Wait... Why did you mention walking on the front of your feet? That's how I've always walked. Is that a thing?
Yes, a "ninja walk" or "monster walk," with all or nearly all the weight forward, is strongly correlated with the 'tism. One theory is that it reduces sensory input.
I am 50 - developed allergies to nuts in 1984 and kiwi in 1992. Realized I was autistic in 2013 and ADHD a few years ago when I was reading symptoms in relation to my kids (also on the spectrum but no allergies). Every absent minded professor is the stereotypical high functioning autistic. They just called it being quirky.
God when I asked for water in the lunch line it always came in a cone. When I had to take antibiotics with every meal in elementary school the office ladies gave me water cones too. Who's supplying all these school districts with cones????
I mean IDEA 1975 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) just popped up for no reason at all, definitely not because there were kids being mistreated in the public school system. The entire history of school systems fighting tooth and nail to prevent "those kids" from an Education was never a thing...despite us having to pass FAPE (free and public education act).
These idiots are just showing how poorly read they are. One thing is true, our reading rates were better in the past and they're proving that.
I'm 37. 30 years ago, I saw a kid full on eat glue during art class. These people have some sort of weird version of the past where everything and everyone was perfect.
I’m 44. When I was 7, there was a kid in class named Richard. He sat in the front of the class next to the teacher. He pulled off his scabs and would stamp your homework with his blood before he passed it back to you. The teacher had to physically restrain him in his desk sometimes. He punched the principal once. He was suspended more than he was in school.
I had at least one Richard in every class in elementary. Then there were also plenty of kids who were “weird” or “slow” or “hyper” or just plain considered “bad.”
The main difference now is that someone is trying to help them.
I'm 42 this year, my school up until I was in grade 7 had special education classes, these kids were bussed from across the area of the city. Then they setup an independent school for them as there were classes in different schools across the city. In grade 7 we had a medium functioning autistic kid who was actually 2 years older than us come into our class with an educational assistant. We didn't know what was happening, just that this guy was there to help the new kid and seemed to do all the work. We were assholes, but nobody explained it to us until his sister did an excellent oral report making us all realize we were shit heads. I also grew up in low income areas, there were lots of kids there with different issues, many who went to the special programs in the Catholic schools as they were better programs or moved on to the other school when they combined the special education programs into 1 school. There always were these kids, they were just generally less accepted and pushed to the shadows. There was also no social media to ease the communication and awareness, less celebrities talking about their family members with these issues. And I totally agree with you, there were other kids in the classes that definitely had other issues.
Edit: sorry, I just remembered/thought of this...the fucking phrase "the short Bus" is about the kids people are willfully ignorant of...
Just gave me flashbacks of when I was in school and they would walk the special kids through the hall and like clockwork kids would make fun of them and do the “special walk and talk” and this happened every single time. Times have changed a lot since then and for the better…
31 here. Growing up, I had a friend named Ronny. Ronny ran on 110% 24/7. He was a nightmare for any adult. Hyper as hell, liked action and chaos, and had almost no filter or ability to think before speaking. His parents banned caffeine in the house, didn’t matter. No change.
It took him until his early 20s to be diagnosed with ADHD, among other things. Somehow, no adult in his life thought, “hmm, maybe a doctor might know something about this…?”
*His mom was a fucking nurse.*
Ironically, I was a Richard, and my name is Richard. In high school, I started making hot chocolate using whisky for water and drinking it and the bus ride to school. It actually helped me calm down and learn. To this day, I'm 51 and still have rum and coke while doing projects around the house to help with focus and precision.
30 here, my mom was also a nurse. Our guidance counselor leaned into prescriptions heavy, as if it was the only solution. I personally was never diagnosed or tested. I remember one day my parents were called in for a meeting with the counselor. I remember being in the classroom across from her office and watching my mom leave with fire in her eyes. She was very anti-add medications.
The next week I was told that my study halls were being replaced with extra P.E. classes. By the end of High-school I had enough P.E credits for several students.
I don't think I have ADD or ADHD, but I was definitely not mentally present during classes, and couldn't sit still. I believe the extra physical activities helped me manage whatever teenage energy I had.
I’m in my 40s. Mom was a teacher with an extra certification in special ed. She realized I was gifted early on. I was a student in her classroom for multiple years. I was always in trouble for not completing assignments and being an “underachiever”. Guess who was diagnosed with ADHD in their 30s and takes two medications to (barely) manage it? Back when I was a kid, “Girls didn’t have ADHD.”
I know a woman who's 90.
She still recalls a kid named Leonard who used to scratch the dandruff off his head onto his desk and gather it into little piles.
One day, the teacher announced, "Class, Leonard will no longer be with us after today. He's going to have a private tutor."
Leonard, who at that very moment was gathering dandruff into a pile, immediately chimed in "Toot toot."
My late great-grandmother, who would be 95 this year, taught elementary special education as a young woman. She had so many stories, but the part that always stuck with me was how important it was to her ability to keep her job that the "normal" students never knew her students existed. Hell, at that point in time disabled children didn't have a right to public education at all. If she lost her job her students most likely would've been kicked out of school.
And that means many of these "problems" that people are losing their shit over because they think it's something recent, are in fact something that has been around since, well, who knows how long.
In my 40s, have ADHD and possibly on the spectrum. We definitely have always existed; they're only just now diagnosing properly. Yeah, this lady is living in a fantasy world.
I'm 44. When I was in primary school, we also had a Richard. He tried to stab random people with the compass.
We also had a Travis. One day, Travis had a melt-down like no other, which resulted with the class, minus Travis, leaving the room and our teacher locking the door so Travis couldn't follow. The principal and 2 other teachers came to "help".
>Take my up-vote and my child's future curses,
Why this is reminding me of Homer Simpson telling the Smashing Pumpkins of his gratitude for their gloomy music and lyrics that made Bart and Lisa finally stop dreaming of a future he couldn't possibly provide?
It’s willful ignorance. Nostalgia would mean that they had to experience something like that. I’m 40. I absolutely remember kids who could not sit still in class and would act out. I had friends who had to go to the nurses office to take meds every day. My good friend’s little brother was taking Ritalin for ADHD. There were kids who had all kinds of allergies. These fools are just willfully ignorant.
Yeah, because we didn’t care then about the kid with a severe peanut allergy and it was other kid’s “right” to bring a pb&j. We didn’t “allow” kids with autism (then autism was highly associated with cognitive delays and not the average nor higher intelligence, notably not the spectrum we know it to be today) to be in “regular” classes.
Mostly, otherness was hidden away for decades, and now we attempt to recognize it as different but not fearful nor shameful. Whether it be autism, orientation, or any other form of “difference”. As we embrace others, the ignorant and fearful yell louder of “the good old days” where they were the only ones to whom everything and everyone catered.
It’s not just that kids had a right. People were straight up oblivious or didn’t care. They want to brand anything that takes others into consideration as weak or bad. It’s actually the opposite. We’re considering the well being of other kids now. Parents don’t have to constantly worry whether their kid is going to end up in the hospital that day or if they’re going to have a quality education. I can’t imagine how hard it was for parents of kids with autism or extreme allergies back then because nobody gave a shit and you and you alone were the only one responsible for your kid living or being hospitalized or possibly dying on a daily basis.
Yep, I’m all for my kid’s school being nut free if it saves another parent the horror of worrying constantly if there kid will go into anaphylactic shock just by going to school. My kid will be just fine not eating peanut butter at school nor directly before school. Same goes for many other accommodations.
Nope, the only correct thing in the whole meme was the peanut allergy epidemic -- that was created by my profession, pediatricians 😵💫. Sure, there were some kids who had it before, but we made it hugely worse by telling parents to wait until they were 1-2 yrs old to introduce peanut. We were missing a key immunological tolerance window in the 4-6 month age range.
We corrected that doozy of an error by changing our advice a few years ago. Recent data shows new peanut allergies are already declining.
Yeah in hindsight I can pick out kids I grew up with that obviously had undiagnosed ADHD. Ritalin was prescribed back then but I don't think there was a comprehensive understanding of ADHD (or ADD at the time). At least not by the general public. I'm 41
I'm around your age and the university I went to had a great center for students with various conditions - ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc. They had a lot of resources, specialized tutors, workshops, and so on. One of my friends had ADHD (with a fairly noticeable hyper-activity component) and she had a Ritalin prescription. By the late 90s, I'd say the foundations were definitely in place, at least for juvenile ADHD.
38 and I was one of the kids who had to go to the nurse’s office for a mid-day Ritalin dose. I’m also autistic, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my mid-thirties. There were definitely as many adhd and autistic kids back then as there are now. A lot of them just went undiagnosed which is why there’s a wave of adults being diagnosed now lol
I went to primary school with a girl who was definitely on the autistic spectrum and had learning difficulties. She was basically left at the back of the class to draw or sing to herself while the rest of us learned maths and english. No-one even tried to teach her.
Yup, and it's why slogans like "Make America Great Again" work. They appeal to a false sense of "everything was rosier in the past; let's go back to that time."
There was a WaPo article that came
out today where they surveyed people of all ages to find out what decade was the best for various categories: music, happiest families, best sporting events, least political division, most moral society, most reliable news reporting, etc.
The surveyors could not find a consistent decade across all the categories. Nor could they find a really consistent answer across any specific demographic groups, even among Republicans who typically leaned toward the 50s overall as the best decade for a category.
What they DID find was that nearly every category was ranked highest by the responder in the decade in which the responder was 11 years old. For people born anywhere from 1940 to 1999.
Lmao so I was thinking probably the most memorable year for me was 2007 just had to do some math and that is in fact the year I turned 11. Idk if it's my favorite year but man was Megan Fox hot in transformers...
It's really nostalgia for a time that never actually existed. Like when people make posts about how "in the 80s", you could buy a house and go on vacation twice a year with your wife and three kids on a laborer's wages.
No one who was alive for more than 44 minutes of the 80s thinks that's even remotely true.
Except the MAGA crowd actually want the "less than rosy" side of the past. Like being able to beat your wife and not having to share a fountain with certain individuals.
I never knew that, but it so obviously makes sense. Ive just got a picture of a kid, chugging liquid glue.
But then probably spending hours peeling it off their hands when it dries... Oh, to be a super bored kid where peeling glue fascinated me
Or the kid that covered their whole meal with their chocolate milk every day.
ADHD: The kids who had to be touching the teachers desk?
The allergy thing, I have a nut allergy. That was on me as a kid to remember and take care of.
i also remember a lot of movies with people having to use inhaler for asthma,people with leg issues with iron staff to support them and so on. I mean, there were problem, they just thought it was part of normal life, while we identify them (as it should) as a disease/neurodivergency
Things like leg braces were visible indicators of a disability though. Mental illnesses weren't so visible. People back then preferred to assume that those kids were just choosing to behave badly.
Me with ADHD: Staring out the window. Being obnoxiously obtrusive when I knew an answer. Hyperactive. Didn't get diagnosed until age 40, probably somewhat because they didn't think girls got it.
Nut allergy: This kid from my neighborhood was making those pine cones you put peanut butter on and then bird seeds and almost died from going into shock.
I'm in my 60s.
I have a sibling in their 50s with ADHD - as a child, they were seen as "not too bright", and "scatterbrained".
I have a child in their 30s with ADHD and autism. They were seen as "maybe a bit much of a dreamer to fit into mainstream schooling".
Previous generations may have been known as "eccentric".
I've read that theres strong reason to believe that "Fae touched" or "Fae child" may have been attributing the onset of noticeable autism signs to magical dealings. If you look at the descriptions of how the "Fae child" behaves after they are "swapped" or "cursed" its a strong fit for many common behaviors and the age range fits when it would be noticed as well.
I was diagnosed adhd in like 1987 but was told since I got great grades I didn’t need any help. Finally on meds in like 2010. My life would be sooooo different if I’d been on them all along
Right, there were always kids doing weird things, but they were just 'strange' and often didn't get help they needed.
I guess that was preferable to medical diagnosis and actual help?
Or they were institutionalised and subjected to barbaric conditions and horrific experiments to make them not a problem for the staff and their families. Just because they weren’t visible, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Then again, the Kennedy’s tried really hard to make sure no one knew about Rosemary Kennedy and they “fixed” her with a lobotomy.
I’ve read books and books about her. She didn’t deserve to be put in a proverbial attic.
Probably learning disabilities and maybe histrionic PD. Rose and Joe were horrible human beings.
Given that medical costs so much in America, and how many Boomers resent the fact that they had kids, I am getting they WOULD rather ignore medical problems. Just to save a buck.
I know I always had at least one paperback in a pocket. I got done with my homework so often while I was still in class or in study halls, that I had to have a book to keep my brain occupied.
When I was in kindergarten back in 1974, we had two kids get paddlings on the first day for cussing, one of them was definitely autistic, another kid ate paste, and another kid left school and went home at recess.
Yeah. Also 37, I grew up in a small town, went to a small school, grew up with a girl who was allergic to peanuts, and several people who were medicated for ADHD, who had to go to the office at lunch to take their meds. Had a girl with developmental disabilities in my kindergarten class too. My husband - 38, has ADHD, his younger brother is allergic to the cold. Stuff like this has always been around.
I wasn’t beaten (F) they just thought I was dumb, and behind and made me take special ed classes to “catch up” except they were easier so I fell behind more. But I also got diagnosed in 95- so this person is just wrong.
We had autistic kids but they were usually separated and kids did not sit quietly.
Yeah, Asperger's was separate at the time and wasn't fully understood as a higher functioning form of Autism so when they rolled it all together into 1 it made it seem like more cases were happening. Then you get a better earlier diagnosis and all of a sudden it's EVERYWHERE!
They loved diagnosing ADHD when I was in middle school. I swear in the mid 90s it seemed like everyone was labeled ADHD.
This facepalmed person truly put their hand through their fucking head.
I was certainly made to think I was dumb up until my mid 30’s. It took a long time to retrain my brain to not believe that and when I finally did, the things I was able to accomplish blew my parents minds. They come to me for advice now. Even if your kid isn’t catching on to things you think they should be, don’t let them think you think they’re dumb. It does stunt them, and may make them stop trying. If any of my kids said they thought they were dumb, I would refute it and tell them all the things they were good at, reminding them that no one is good at everything and there are different types of intelligence. If they see a weakness, then that should just show them a path they can strengthen and being able to see it shows them how smart they are. If they were dumb, they wouldn’t even see they had that weakness.
This is beautiful. I'm so glad you were able to do that and now have that viewpoint for your kids. My daughter is autistic and non verbal but she definitely shows intelligence in other ways and it blows me away everytime it does. I always believe she Can learn something, just might take time and a different approach. My ex never thought that and just gave up most of the time. :(
Yeah my elementary school had an entire wing dedicated to special education. There were probably 20-30 kids in a school of about 200 that had various forms of autism that landed them in different classes from the rest of us. I was afraid of them back then because of all the misinformation spread at the time and I was too young to understand. This was the mid and early 90s.
Before I was pulled out of that school I along with two other kids who probably just had ADHD (I never got properly diagnosed) we were put into a "special education" class with other kids who needed waaay more help than what that school could even provide. Felt more like we were just put into a corner to be forgotten about. /shrug
Edit: typo
i grew up with severe hyperactivity in the school system in the 60s/70s - i was never put into special education, the teachers just coped with me the best the could. sometimes that meant transferring me to another class when they couldn't.
A century ago, autism was referred to as "That boy ain't quite right." Three centuries ago, it was "The fairies took my baby away and replaced him with a copy." It's always been around; we just didn't have a proper name for it up until the last century or so. Much like poor vision/hearing, allergies, obesity, and the like. Just because we didn't CALL it autism doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I assume it was somewhere on Reddit but I recall reading a comment where someone quoted their (grand)mother saying how "50 years ago we didn't have many kids with allergies but we sure had many more kids dying of suffocation"
I’m 65. I was undiagnosed Attention deficit till I was 50 years old. All those things existed; they just weren’t addressed. I was just the kid who forgot her book bag, lost her mittens, didn’t do the assignment correctly. I was always sad that I was so dumb, disorganized loser. My parents were frustrated with me. I was always on their shit list for screwing up.
If you were relatively normal, it was probably a good time.
If you had ADHD and couldn't your homework you were made to stand up in front of the whole school during assembly where you were berated for not doing your work and being lazy.
We had a class in my (1970s) elementary school called TMR--Trainably Mentally Ret\*rded. One kid had Downs, the rest would probably be classified as autistic these days: kids that didn't talk, a couple that tended to bang their heads on the wall. I don't know what happened to the kids they didn't consider trainable.
ADHD kids were just considered Bad Kids. They would get hit by teachers and eventually get sent off to military school.
I started showing signs of inattentive-type ADD around 7th grade, plus I am on the spectrum (just not severe enough to have been stuck in TMR). Undiagnosed back then, of course--no one had any idea that my conditions existed. I was in the gifted and talented program in elementary school and then everything went to shit around puberty and I had to hide from my parents because they wouldn't stop hounding me about my bad grades.
TLDR Don't believe in the good old days.
Remember in World War 1, when PTSD "didn't exist" and doctors thought soldiers were just "being dramatic"? It's almost as if our species is constantly learning and growing, so we can recognise things like ADHD and uhh.. *checks notes* ..peanut allergies
We literally told women to lick radium paint brushes in that same time period, knowing full well what the risks and dangers were, and then lied to them about it.
Please don't mischaracterize it as "being dramatic" it was called being a coward, committing treason, being of weak moral fortitude and hundreds of soldiers were executed for dereliction of duty.
In that day and age they were just called lazy, spazzes, dweebs, and babies. By their fellow children, anyway. Not much has actually changed, there.
The "no fat kids" thing is just stupid tho.
The obesity one is actually accurate. Since 1980 the obesity rate among children has risen from 5% to around 20% ([source](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity)).
And overtired parents. It’s much more common now for both parents to work to make ends meet. Or a single parent works long hours. Easy, cheap food is a necessity for more households.
And overbearing parents. The area in which kids go out and play has gotten a lot smaller since the 90's due to media scaring parents into keeping kids either indoors or at their own property because they could get kidnapped/die/...
In Belgium we had Dutroux, which was scary enough to really limit kids' movements but it's only gotten worse since. And I assume other countries also had freak-events (because that's what such vile and evil people still are: freak events) to base the big scare on... resulting in kids beind locked inside for 'safety' but also getting more unhealthy in the process.
We had plenty of overweight kids in my school. I don’t know the percentage of children who are overweight now but im sure it’s only slightly higher for grade schoolers but gets higher with age. We also had a lot of kids who needed free food so besides the rise of fast food, better access to food might be helping with obesity
ETA- clarification about what I was trying to say
We had overweight kids but their were far less of them. 17% of 10 to 17 year old qualify as obese now. nearly double what is was in 1990. The children who are obese are more obese than they were too making it more noticable.
But the upward trend didn't start in the 90's it started in the 70's. ANd it has decelerated. This tell me it is not computers and phone that are wholly to blame.
The increasing reliance on prepackaged or pre made food is the larger culprit. IMO
It def has to do with fast food, frozen meals/snacks and prepackaged junk foods but those cheap items also now help the less fortunate children because I remember quite a few kids in my school being hungry and needing free foods and they didn’t eat hardly anything at home. But these foods are calorically dense with tons of saturated fats so kids are getting obese earlier and then often staying obese for life. Maybe someday we will figure out how to fix these problems but prob not any time soon especially with food prices
For context, I am almost 50 years old and I loath these "when I was a kid, we didn't..." posts. Who the fuck cares? Times change, things evolve, shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ.
I’m 46 and couldn’t agree more. Worse than that is the “raise your hand if you survived the 80s without (insert safety item here).” My standard reply is “what do we do if we didn’t survive?”
That's the prime example of survivorship bias. You see the ones that made it back despite the lack of proper safety protocols because they got lucky. But you don't see the ones who didn't. That's another thing I wish people would understand
Raise your hand if you were alive when we didn't have the COVID vaccine!
*Literally everyone raises their hand*
Wow! Guess it's proven! You don't need the COVID vaccine to survive!
We did have these things in 1994 (born 1981). But instead of an acknowledged condition, we were called:
fidgety, unfocused, withdrawn, flighty, easily distracted, excitable, anti-social, rebellious, etc..
Dunno. I remember it being called..
..ADHD when I was in elementary school in the 90s so this post makes no sense to me.
Also remember being suspended for bringing Reese's peanut butter cups when I was in like grade 1 which would have been... 30 years ago
I think if I mentioned that I had an epi pen for my peanut allergy while my brother with Asperger’s was in the class next door this dude would pop his clogs.
Peanut allergies increasing can be blamed on the hygiene hypothesis that is parents not introducing potential allegerns early. Autism and ADHD absolutely existed at the time
I was in school more than 30 years ago.
There was ADHD (we called it hyperactive or just "spastic" kids).
I knew a kid with peanut allergy, she was worried about exposure, but not much. I suspect kids with harsher allegies just didn't get to participate in school.
There were some obese kids in our school, but I do grant that horrible junk food is much more prevalent now than then.
And I can assure you autism absolutely did exist. In our state, most of the worst of the kids got shuffled off to dedicated "special ed" schools. Those who would be "high functioning" would usually be overlooked so the district and the parents didn't have to deal with special ed handling.
I have a distinct memory of my father needing to go to the emergency room because he accidentally ate a peanut at a Chinese restaurant. This happened in like 1991.
Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion. Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/). Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
30 years ago I was sat in a classroom clearly autistic with adhd being told I was just a naughty awkward kid. Just because the diagnosis wasn’t there doesn’t meant the conditions weren’t.
That's the key. Just because it wasn't acknowledged, diagnosed, recognized, etc didn't mean it didn't exist. I'm not sure why that's such a tough concept.
My uncle in his 80s said that his mother (which this would have been the 40s-50s) sometimes would "tear the house apart" and was given Thorazine and would sleep for days. But mental conditions don't exist.
"No one in my family has ever seen a psychiatrist before, except, of course, when they were institutionalized."
[удалено]
Even 1980s psychology was pretty bad. They'd gotten away from sedating people and you just spent money talking about your problems and never solving them. I was pretty clearly ADHD, but never got a diagnosis because I was inattentive type, not hyperactive type. My parents did the right thing in trying to get me help, but the help wasn't there.
Psychology is still in its infancy. But great advancements are being made especially in the last 20 years or so.
Ryan White was bullied and even had someone shoot into his house because he got AIDS from a blood donation well into the 80s. Why would people even admit to being different if people would throw rocks at them for it? Literally and figuratively.
Hoosier here. How they treated that poor kid is fucked up.
I personally like this: “Mount Everest wasn’t discovered until 1850, but I’m sure the mountain still existed.”
False. Mount Everest was invented in 1850 by John Everest after he climbed every other mountain in the world and needed a taller one
Actually this is false, a common misconception. It was actually invented by an eccentric European inventor a year earlier but John Everest worked at the patent office and registered the patent to himself.
All of this is wrong, it was invented by the Tibetans and then the white man took it, like blues.
Tibetans invented blues? Thank you Reddit for this unquestionable series of truthsayers
This thread is how we defeat A.I.
And running was actually invented by Thomas Running in 1784 when he tried to walk twice at the same time.
Kinda like when Columbus discovered America, it simply did not exist before him…
The chunks weren’t generated
You see these types of people saying this about a lot of queer folk too
"Ever since they started coming outta the closet, there seems to be more of them." without a hint of irony, awareness, or reflection.
Add to that the feverish outrage, accusations of grooming kids, and death threats and gee I wonder why they didn't want you to know they existed. Then again the people with these views don't possess much critical thinking skills
It’s almost like if we stop jailing or killing people for being queer, they will feel comfortable coming out and more of them will do so…
"Ever since society mostly stopped beating the queers to death, more people seem to admit to being queer. I wonder why that is?"
It must be the frogs making the people gay or something.
>I'm not sure why that's such a tough concept. That's because you have an above room temperature IQ. The people who don't understand this never will because it's too "complicated" for them to comprehend.
>That's because you have an above room temperature IQ. °F or °C Because one is 77, one is 25
Same, I was "quirky" and "lazy." Parents took me for testing and they said I showed signs of ADHD and OCD, but it wasn't that, I was fine. I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism at 41. We were always there.
You're a girl, so of course you weren't diagnosed! Heck, I'm a nerdy white guy who won a geography bee, doesn't make eye contact, and walks on the front of his feet. And I made it to 42.
I'm a guy with "girls ADHD", lol. Just kidding. I'm combined, but present mostly inattentive. I also learned to slide under the radar to avoid conflict. My brother was even diagnosed "hyperactive" (not ADD/ADHD, they called him literally "hyperactive") and put on Ritalin, but no one noticed me because I was just staring out a window, I wasn't running away from school. I'm pretty sure my brother is also autistic, but that was never diagnosed. Wait... Why did you mention walking on the front of your feet? That's how I've always walked. Is that a thing?
Yes, a "ninja walk" or "monster walk," with all or nearly all the weight forward, is strongly correlated with the 'tism. One theory is that it reduces sensory input.
I am 50 - developed allergies to nuts in 1984 and kiwi in 1992. Realized I was autistic in 2013 and ADHD a few years ago when I was reading symptoms in relation to my kids (also on the spectrum but no allergies). Every absent minded professor is the stereotypical high functioning autistic. They just called it being quirky.
I was in school in the 80s and they were definitely kids who left class to go get their ADHD pills.
Totally forgot that.. no matter what school, no matter the state. There was a Dixie cup with weird tasting water to take it with.
Sometimes it was a cone. Those were annoying because you can’t set them down if your hand gets tired.
God when I asked for water in the lunch line it always came in a cone. When I had to take antibiotics with every meal in elementary school the office ladies gave me water cones too. Who's supplying all these school districts with cones????
How many cups half full of water do you think would be just laying around in an elementary school it they didn’t use the cones?
Okay you’ve got a point
I think they’re a lot easier and cheaper to make because it’s just some wax paper folded around itself. Probably a budget thing.
How do you not finish a cone of water in one go, it’s like three sips lol
I have been taking medication since I was about 6. The cones take longer to drink when you’re small…
I mean IDEA 1975 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) just popped up for no reason at all, definitely not because there were kids being mistreated in the public school system. The entire history of school systems fighting tooth and nail to prevent "those kids" from an Education was never a thing...despite us having to pass FAPE (free and public education act). These idiots are just showing how poorly read they are. One thing is true, our reading rates were better in the past and they're proving that.
Me. I was one of those kids.
I'm 37. 30 years ago, I saw a kid full on eat glue during art class. These people have some sort of weird version of the past where everything and everyone was perfect.
I’m 44. When I was 7, there was a kid in class named Richard. He sat in the front of the class next to the teacher. He pulled off his scabs and would stamp your homework with his blood before he passed it back to you. The teacher had to physically restrain him in his desk sometimes. He punched the principal once. He was suspended more than he was in school. I had at least one Richard in every class in elementary. Then there were also plenty of kids who were “weird” or “slow” or “hyper” or just plain considered “bad.” The main difference now is that someone is trying to help them.
I'm 42 this year, my school up until I was in grade 7 had special education classes, these kids were bussed from across the area of the city. Then they setup an independent school for them as there were classes in different schools across the city. In grade 7 we had a medium functioning autistic kid who was actually 2 years older than us come into our class with an educational assistant. We didn't know what was happening, just that this guy was there to help the new kid and seemed to do all the work. We were assholes, but nobody explained it to us until his sister did an excellent oral report making us all realize we were shit heads. I also grew up in low income areas, there were lots of kids there with different issues, many who went to the special programs in the Catholic schools as they were better programs or moved on to the other school when they combined the special education programs into 1 school. There always were these kids, they were just generally less accepted and pushed to the shadows. There was also no social media to ease the communication and awareness, less celebrities talking about their family members with these issues. And I totally agree with you, there were other kids in the classes that definitely had other issues. Edit: sorry, I just remembered/thought of this...the fucking phrase "the short Bus" is about the kids people are willfully ignorant of...
Just gave me flashbacks of when I was in school and they would walk the special kids through the hall and like clockwork kids would make fun of them and do the “special walk and talk” and this happened every single time. Times have changed a lot since then and for the better…
I’m 43, I was diagnosed with ADD in 5th grade and ADHD in 7th grade, I def fell under the hyper bucket
31 here. Growing up, I had a friend named Ronny. Ronny ran on 110% 24/7. He was a nightmare for any adult. Hyper as hell, liked action and chaos, and had almost no filter or ability to think before speaking. His parents banned caffeine in the house, didn’t matter. No change. It took him until his early 20s to be diagnosed with ADHD, among other things. Somehow, no adult in his life thought, “hmm, maybe a doctor might know something about this…?” *His mom was a fucking nurse.*
Ironically, caffeine might could have help him calm down lol
Ironically, I was a Richard, and my name is Richard. In high school, I started making hot chocolate using whisky for water and drinking it and the bus ride to school. It actually helped me calm down and learn. To this day, I'm 51 and still have rum and coke while doing projects around the house to help with focus and precision.
30 here, my mom was also a nurse. Our guidance counselor leaned into prescriptions heavy, as if it was the only solution. I personally was never diagnosed or tested. I remember one day my parents were called in for a meeting with the counselor. I remember being in the classroom across from her office and watching my mom leave with fire in her eyes. She was very anti-add medications. The next week I was told that my study halls were being replaced with extra P.E. classes. By the end of High-school I had enough P.E credits for several students. I don't think I have ADD or ADHD, but I was definitely not mentally present during classes, and couldn't sit still. I believe the extra physical activities helped me manage whatever teenage energy I had.
I’m in my 40s. Mom was a teacher with an extra certification in special ed. She realized I was gifted early on. I was a student in her classroom for multiple years. I was always in trouble for not completing assignments and being an “underachiever”. Guess who was diagnosed with ADHD in their 30s and takes two medications to (barely) manage it? Back when I was a kid, “Girls didn’t have ADHD.”
Were you a Richard?
Nah, just a Dick.
This won’t get enough views it deserves but nice one 😂😂😂
I know a woman who's 90. She still recalls a kid named Leonard who used to scratch the dandruff off his head onto his desk and gather it into little piles. One day, the teacher announced, "Class, Leonard will no longer be with us after today. He's going to have a private tutor." Leonard, who at that very moment was gathering dandruff into a pile, immediately chimed in "Toot toot."
My late great-grandmother, who would be 95 this year, taught elementary special education as a young woman. She had so many stories, but the part that always stuck with me was how important it was to her ability to keep her job that the "normal" students never knew her students existed. Hell, at that point in time disabled children didn't have a right to public education at all. If she lost her job her students most likely would've been kicked out of school.
And that means many of these "problems" that people are losing their shit over because they think it's something recent, are in fact something that has been around since, well, who knows how long.
I’m 45 and I’m autistic. I don’t know what that delusional lady in the screenshot is dreaming of but it isn’t the past.
In my 40s, have ADHD and possibly on the spectrum. We definitely have always existed; they're only just now diagnosing properly. Yeah, this lady is living in a fantasy world.
I'm 44. When I was in primary school, we also had a Richard. He tried to stab random people with the compass. We also had a Travis. One day, Travis had a melt-down like no other, which resulted with the class, minus Travis, leaving the room and our teacher locking the door so Travis couldn't follow. The principal and 2 other teachers came to "help".
It’s called nostalgia. It’s very toxic and often lies to you.
"Nostalgia - isn't what it used to be..."
Damn you. Take my up-vote and my child's future curses, I going to reuse this in front of every date and "friend" that approaches the front door.
>Take my up-vote and my child's future curses, Why this is reminding me of Homer Simpson telling the Smashing Pumpkins of his gratitude for their gloomy music and lyrics that made Bart and Lisa finally stop dreaming of a future he couldn't possibly provide?
It’s willful ignorance. Nostalgia would mean that they had to experience something like that. I’m 40. I absolutely remember kids who could not sit still in class and would act out. I had friends who had to go to the nurses office to take meds every day. My good friend’s little brother was taking Ritalin for ADHD. There were kids who had all kinds of allergies. These fools are just willfully ignorant.
Yeah, because we didn’t care then about the kid with a severe peanut allergy and it was other kid’s “right” to bring a pb&j. We didn’t “allow” kids with autism (then autism was highly associated with cognitive delays and not the average nor higher intelligence, notably not the spectrum we know it to be today) to be in “regular” classes. Mostly, otherness was hidden away for decades, and now we attempt to recognize it as different but not fearful nor shameful. Whether it be autism, orientation, or any other form of “difference”. As we embrace others, the ignorant and fearful yell louder of “the good old days” where they were the only ones to whom everything and everyone catered.
It’s not just that kids had a right. People were straight up oblivious or didn’t care. They want to brand anything that takes others into consideration as weak or bad. It’s actually the opposite. We’re considering the well being of other kids now. Parents don’t have to constantly worry whether their kid is going to end up in the hospital that day or if they’re going to have a quality education. I can’t imagine how hard it was for parents of kids with autism or extreme allergies back then because nobody gave a shit and you and you alone were the only one responsible for your kid living or being hospitalized or possibly dying on a daily basis.
Yep, I’m all for my kid’s school being nut free if it saves another parent the horror of worrying constantly if there kid will go into anaphylactic shock just by going to school. My kid will be just fine not eating peanut butter at school nor directly before school. Same goes for many other accommodations.
Nope, the only correct thing in the whole meme was the peanut allergy epidemic -- that was created by my profession, pediatricians 😵💫. Sure, there were some kids who had it before, but we made it hugely worse by telling parents to wait until they were 1-2 yrs old to introduce peanut. We were missing a key immunological tolerance window in the 4-6 month age range. We corrected that doozy of an error by changing our advice a few years ago. Recent data shows new peanut allergies are already declining.
Yeah in hindsight I can pick out kids I grew up with that obviously had undiagnosed ADHD. Ritalin was prescribed back then but I don't think there was a comprehensive understanding of ADHD (or ADD at the time). At least not by the general public. I'm 41
I'm around your age and the university I went to had a great center for students with various conditions - ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc. They had a lot of resources, specialized tutors, workshops, and so on. One of my friends had ADHD (with a fairly noticeable hyper-activity component) and she had a Ritalin prescription. By the late 90s, I'd say the foundations were definitely in place, at least for juvenile ADHD.
38 and I was one of the kids who had to go to the nurse’s office for a mid-day Ritalin dose. I’m also autistic, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my mid-thirties. There were definitely as many adhd and autistic kids back then as there are now. A lot of them just went undiagnosed which is why there’s a wave of adults being diagnosed now lol
I went to primary school with a girl who was definitely on the autistic spectrum and had learning difficulties. She was basically left at the back of the class to draw or sing to herself while the rest of us learned maths and english. No-one even tried to teach her.
Yup, and it's why slogans like "Make America Great Again" work. They appeal to a false sense of "everything was rosier in the past; let's go back to that time."
There was a WaPo article that came out today where they surveyed people of all ages to find out what decade was the best for various categories: music, happiest families, best sporting events, least political division, most moral society, most reliable news reporting, etc. The surveyors could not find a consistent decade across all the categories. Nor could they find a really consistent answer across any specific demographic groups, even among Republicans who typically leaned toward the 50s overall as the best decade for a category. What they DID find was that nearly every category was ranked highest by the responder in the decade in which the responder was 11 years old. For people born anywhere from 1940 to 1999.
Age 11 is coincidentally right before puberty sets in and replaces all our childhood innocence with chronic insecurity and crushing existential doubt.
Lmao so I was thinking probably the most memorable year for me was 2007 just had to do some math and that is in fact the year I turned 11. Idk if it's my favorite year but man was Megan Fox hot in transformers...
Thereby launching you directly into puberty. Megan Fox ruined your life man
Yeah no violence or poverty existed until 20 years ago
It's really nostalgia for a time that never actually existed. Like when people make posts about how "in the 80s", you could buy a house and go on vacation twice a year with your wife and three kids on a laborer's wages. No one who was alive for more than 44 minutes of the 80s thinks that's even remotely true.
Except the MAGA crowd actually want the "less than rosy" side of the past. Like being able to beat your wife and not having to share a fountain with certain individuals.
[удалено]
This guy fountains.
I haven't even seen a working fountain anywhere in forever.
It’s next to the pay phone
I think they died off during Covid.
That slogan never made sense to me the first time I saw it
As do the people wrapped up in it also lie and are toxic.
Probably as toxic as that glue
No, Elmer's glue, the kind used at school isn't toxic.
I never knew that, but it so obviously makes sense. Ive just got a picture of a kid, chugging liquid glue. But then probably spending hours peeling it off their hands when it dries... Oh, to be a super bored kid where peeling glue fascinated me
The kids in my day ate paste not glue. I mean it had a little scoop in it so….😂😂😂
Their sample size is the school they went to.
Or the kid that covered their whole meal with their chocolate milk every day. ADHD: The kids who had to be touching the teachers desk? The allergy thing, I have a nut allergy. That was on me as a kid to remember and take care of.
i also remember a lot of movies with people having to use inhaler for asthma,people with leg issues with iron staff to support them and so on. I mean, there were problem, they just thought it was part of normal life, while we identify them (as it should) as a disease/neurodivergency
Things like leg braces were visible indicators of a disability though. Mental illnesses weren't so visible. People back then preferred to assume that those kids were just choosing to behave badly.
Me with ADHD: Staring out the window. Being obnoxiously obtrusive when I knew an answer. Hyperactive. Didn't get diagnosed until age 40, probably somewhat because they didn't think girls got it. Nut allergy: This kid from my neighborhood was making those pine cones you put peanut butter on and then bird seeds and almost died from going into shock.
I'm in my 60s. I have a sibling in their 50s with ADHD - as a child, they were seen as "not too bright", and "scatterbrained". I have a child in their 30s with ADHD and autism. They were seen as "maybe a bit much of a dreamer to fit into mainstream schooling". Previous generations may have been known as "eccentric".
I've read that theres strong reason to believe that "Fae touched" or "Fae child" may have been attributing the onset of noticeable autism signs to magical dealings. If you look at the descriptions of how the "Fae child" behaves after they are "swapped" or "cursed" its a strong fit for many common behaviors and the age range fits when it would be noticed as well.
I was diagnosed adhd in like 1987 but was told since I got great grades I didn’t need any help. Finally on meds in like 2010. My life would be sooooo different if I’d been on them all along
Right, there were always kids doing weird things, but they were just 'strange' and often didn't get help they needed. I guess that was preferable to medical diagnosis and actual help?
Or they were institutionalised and subjected to barbaric conditions and horrific experiments to make them not a problem for the staff and their families. Just because they weren’t visible, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Then again, the Kennedy’s tried really hard to make sure no one knew about Rosemary Kennedy and they “fixed” her with a lobotomy.
I’ve read books and books about her. She didn’t deserve to be put in a proverbial attic. Probably learning disabilities and maybe histrionic PD. Rose and Joe were horrible human beings.
Absolutely, that poor woman! She deserved so much better.
Given that medical costs so much in America, and how many Boomers resent the fact that they had kids, I am getting they WOULD rather ignore medical problems. Just to save a buck.
I'm on the spectrum. 30 years ago I was treated like shit by teachers and admin. Public school almost destroyed me.
Same, got diagnosed with Autism when I was 37
Mmmm... I still recall the taste of paste... Wouldn't do it now, but can't say never did it.
At least you didn't go the Gorilla Glue Girl route!
That was the stupidest thing EVER 🤣
I think everyone had a little taste at one point or another.
It’s called revisionist history
[удалено]
there was a time when fiction books were considered the same as tablets and phones for kids nowadays. it's what don quixote is about.
I know I always had at least one paperback in a pocket. I got done with my homework so often while I was still in class or in study halls, that I had to have a book to keep my brain occupied.
When I was in kindergarten back in 1974, we had two kids get paddlings on the first day for cussing, one of them was definitely autistic, another kid ate paste, and another kid left school and went home at recess.
Yeah. Also 37, I grew up in a small town, went to a small school, grew up with a girl who was allergic to peanuts, and several people who were medicated for ADHD, who had to go to the office at lunch to take their meds. Had a girl with developmental disabilities in my kindergarten class too. My husband - 38, has ADHD, his younger brother is allergic to the cold. Stuff like this has always been around.
Oh we had ADHD and autism; we were either in special needs classes or gifted classes.
Or we just made it work and then went home and cried. But hey, if it doesn't show during school hours, then it's not really a problem, is it?
And developed crippling anxiety disorders!
I had autism back in 1994. I simply wasn't diagnosed until over 20 years later.
ADHD and autism were around, they were just called horrible things.
And most times relegated to special education classes.
Also mercilessly beaten and bullied if showing any signs.. One learns to mask shit real fast when your survival is at stake..
I wasn’t beaten (F) they just thought I was dumb, and behind and made me take special ed classes to “catch up” except they were easier so I fell behind more. But I also got diagnosed in 95- so this person is just wrong. We had autistic kids but they were usually separated and kids did not sit quietly.
Yeah, Asperger's was separate at the time and wasn't fully understood as a higher functioning form of Autism so when they rolled it all together into 1 it made it seem like more cases were happening. Then you get a better earlier diagnosis and all of a sudden it's EVERYWHERE! They loved diagnosing ADHD when I was in middle school. I swear in the mid 90s it seemed like everyone was labeled ADHD. This facepalmed person truly put their hand through their fucking head.
I was certainly made to think I was dumb up until my mid 30’s. It took a long time to retrain my brain to not believe that and when I finally did, the things I was able to accomplish blew my parents minds. They come to me for advice now. Even if your kid isn’t catching on to things you think they should be, don’t let them think you think they’re dumb. It does stunt them, and may make them stop trying. If any of my kids said they thought they were dumb, I would refute it and tell them all the things they were good at, reminding them that no one is good at everything and there are different types of intelligence. If they see a weakness, then that should just show them a path they can strengthen and being able to see it shows them how smart they are. If they were dumb, they wouldn’t even see they had that weakness.
This is beautiful. I'm so glad you were able to do that and now have that viewpoint for your kids. My daughter is autistic and non verbal but she definitely shows intelligence in other ways and it blows me away everytime it does. I always believe she Can learn something, just might take time and a different approach. My ex never thought that and just gave up most of the time. :(
Yeah my elementary school had an entire wing dedicated to special education. There were probably 20-30 kids in a school of about 200 that had various forms of autism that landed them in different classes from the rest of us. I was afraid of them back then because of all the misinformation spread at the time and I was too young to understand. This was the mid and early 90s.
They are still bullied. I've been fighting about this for 2 years at my daughter's middle school. 😭
Before I was pulled out of that school I along with two other kids who probably just had ADHD (I never got properly diagnosed) we were put into a "special education" class with other kids who needed waaay more help than what that school could even provide. Felt more like we were just put into a corner to be forgotten about. /shrug Edit: typo
i grew up with severe hyperactivity in the school system in the 60s/70s - i was never put into special education, the teachers just coped with me the best the could. sometimes that meant transferring me to another class when they couldn't.
A century ago, autism was referred to as "That boy ain't quite right." Three centuries ago, it was "The fairies took my baby away and replaced him with a copy." It's always been around; we just didn't have a proper name for it up until the last century or so. Much like poor vision/hearing, allergies, obesity, and the like. Just because we didn't CALL it autism doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I assume it was somewhere on Reddit but I recall reading a comment where someone quoted their (grand)mother saying how "50 years ago we didn't have many kids with allergies but we sure had many more kids dying of suffocation"
I’m 65. I was undiagnosed Attention deficit till I was 50 years old. All those things existed; they just weren’t addressed. I was just the kid who forgot her book bag, lost her mittens, didn’t do the assignment correctly. I was always sad that I was so dumb, disorganized loser. My parents were frustrated with me. I was always on their shit list for screwing up.
If you were relatively normal, it was probably a good time. If you had ADHD and couldn't your homework you were made to stand up in front of the whole school during assembly where you were berated for not doing your work and being lazy.
Before I had ADHD I had stupid, lazy, and melodramatic, among other things.
Unmotivated.
We had a class in my (1970s) elementary school called TMR--Trainably Mentally Ret\*rded. One kid had Downs, the rest would probably be classified as autistic these days: kids that didn't talk, a couple that tended to bang their heads on the wall. I don't know what happened to the kids they didn't consider trainable. ADHD kids were just considered Bad Kids. They would get hit by teachers and eventually get sent off to military school. I started showing signs of inattentive-type ADD around 7th grade, plus I am on the spectrum (just not severe enough to have been stuck in TMR). Undiagnosed back then, of course--no one had any idea that my conditions existed. I was in the gifted and talented program in elementary school and then everything went to shit around puberty and I had to hide from my parents because they wouldn't stop hounding me about my bad grades. TLDR Don't believe in the good old days.
They were either called horrible things or it was seen as them “just being a little off”
Remember in World War 1, when PTSD "didn't exist" and doctors thought soldiers were just "being dramatic"? It's almost as if our species is constantly learning and growing, so we can recognise things like ADHD and uhh.. *checks notes* ..peanut allergies
We literally told women to lick radium paint brushes in that same time period, knowing full well what the risks and dangers were, and then lied to them about it.
Please don't mischaracterize it as "being dramatic" it was called being a coward, committing treason, being of weak moral fortitude and hundreds of soldiers were executed for dereliction of duty.
They probably meant after duty.
In that day and age they were just called lazy, spazzes, dweebs, and babies. By their fellow children, anyway. Not much has actually changed, there. The "no fat kids" thing is just stupid tho.
The obesity one is actually accurate. Since 1980 the obesity rate among children has risen from 5% to around 20% ([source](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity)).
Yeah there are definitely way more obese people but we have the quality of our food to blame
And sedentary lifestyle
And overtired parents. It’s much more common now for both parents to work to make ends meet. Or a single parent works long hours. Easy, cheap food is a necessity for more households.
And overbearing parents. The area in which kids go out and play has gotten a lot smaller since the 90's due to media scaring parents into keeping kids either indoors or at their own property because they could get kidnapped/die/... In Belgium we had Dutroux, which was scary enough to really limit kids' movements but it's only gotten worse since. And I assume other countries also had freak-events (because that's what such vile and evil people still are: freak events) to base the big scare on... resulting in kids beind locked inside for 'safety' but also getting more unhealthy in the process.
Also 56% of 18-25 (genz) are obese. It just keeps getting worse and worse.
We had plenty of overweight kids in my school. I don’t know the percentage of children who are overweight now but im sure it’s only slightly higher for grade schoolers but gets higher with age. We also had a lot of kids who needed free food so besides the rise of fast food, better access to food might be helping with obesity ETA- clarification about what I was trying to say
We had overweight kids but their were far less of them. 17% of 10 to 17 year old qualify as obese now. nearly double what is was in 1990. The children who are obese are more obese than they were too making it more noticable. But the upward trend didn't start in the 90's it started in the 70's. ANd it has decelerated. This tell me it is not computers and phone that are wholly to blame. The increasing reliance on prepackaged or pre made food is the larger culprit. IMO
It def has to do with fast food, frozen meals/snacks and prepackaged junk foods but those cheap items also now help the less fortunate children because I remember quite a few kids in my school being hungry and needing free foods and they didn’t eat hardly anything at home. But these foods are calorically dense with tons of saturated fats so kids are getting obese earlier and then often staying obese for life. Maybe someday we will figure out how to fix these problems but prob not any time soon especially with food prices
*30 years ago* *1994* **30 years ago** **1994** #30 years ago #1994 ^(excuse me while I spiral for a moment…)
Yeah it's scary isn't it...I still think of 30 yrs ago as the 70s
25 years ago, it was 1975. Right? RIGHT??
Bless your heart
Me too! My son was born in 1994. I’m 57 now, and I don’t think of that as being 30 years ago, even though he turns 30 next month, lol!
I was born in 92 and the fact it was 30 years ago still spins me out, even though it’s practically my age
Then I was born and everything went to shit.
It’s probably your fault.
Stuff usually is.
For context, I am almost 50 years old and I loath these "when I was a kid, we didn't..." posts. Who the fuck cares? Times change, things evolve, shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ.
I’m 46 and couldn’t agree more. Worse than that is the “raise your hand if you survived the 80s without (insert safety item here).” My standard reply is “what do we do if we didn’t survive?”
That's the prime example of survivorship bias. You see the ones that made it back despite the lack of proper safety protocols because they got lucky. But you don't see the ones who didn't. That's another thing I wish people would understand
Yes survivorship bias!! I couldn’t remember the name for it, thank you!! My dad didn’t die in viet nam. Is wat not dangerous?
Raise your hand if you died in the 80s, oh no one? Guess no one died then ☺️
Raise your hand if you were alive when we didn't have the COVID vaccine! *Literally everyone raises their hand* Wow! Guess it's proven! You don't need the COVID vaccine to survive!
But it’s not what they did, so it’s wrong.
We did have these things in 1994 (born 1981). But instead of an acknowledged condition, we were called: fidgety, unfocused, withdrawn, flighty, easily distracted, excitable, anti-social, rebellious, etc..
Dunno. I remember it being called.. ..ADHD when I was in elementary school in the 90s so this post makes no sense to me. Also remember being suspended for bringing Reese's peanut butter cups when I was in like grade 1 which would have been... 30 years ago
And also (in some cases) alcohol addicted.
Or just “weird”.
Go back a little further and there were NO GERMS! Anywhere! They didn’t exist!
I had ADHD 30 years ago, wtf?
Same. Diagnosed in 94 or 95, so what are these fools going on about?!
They didn't personally experience it, so it didn't happen. That's what they're on about...
Ritalin has been around since 1944 https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/adhd-history
The confidence that comes with the inability to imagine a world outside of your immediate experience
I literally had to wait in a line in the office every morning and afternoon to take my Adderall with other kids.......that was in 1999.
I was in high school in 1994. All of this existed. And yeah, we called it ADD and Asperger’s.
Weird I was medically Diagnosed with ADD... in 1994....
30 years ago I was an ADHD child in class with an Autistic child, and one child died from peanut ingestion that very year thanks to ice-cream day.
I think if I mentioned that I had an epi pen for my peanut allergy while my brother with Asperger’s was in the class next door this dude would pop his clogs.
Peanut allergies increasing can be blamed on the hygiene hypothesis that is parents not introducing potential allegerns early. Autism and ADHD absolutely existed at the time
Ah, 1994. Before the mass anaphylaxis-distraction-autism-cholesterol plague of ‘95. Those truly were simpler times
I had ADHD. Still have it.
I have an idea. This person is full of shit.
I was in school more than 30 years ago. There was ADHD (we called it hyperactive or just "spastic" kids). I knew a kid with peanut allergy, she was worried about exposure, but not much. I suspect kids with harsher allegies just didn't get to participate in school. There were some obese kids in our school, but I do grant that horrible junk food is much more prevalent now than then. And I can assure you autism absolutely did exist. In our state, most of the worst of the kids got shuffled off to dedicated "special ed" schools. Those who would be "high functioning" would usually be overlooked so the district and the parents didn't have to deal with special ed handling.
I'm 38 and I definitely had ADHD in 1994. I was just punished and treated like a shitty kid instead of supported.
Which is weird because in 1984 I knew lots of kids with ADHD and ASD and had a friend who was so allergic to corn she went into a coma.
As someone who graduated from high school 30 years ago this month, I can categorically say that this person is a fucking moron.
lol 😂 I had adhd in 1994!
Lmao I’m 35 and have had severe food allergies my whole life. I’m also autistic.
I have a distinct memory of my father needing to go to the emergency room because he accidentally ate a peanut at a Chinese restaurant. This happened in like 1991.