Do you remember the things you swore you would never do to your future kids, then heard your own voice say them last week?

Same.

I grew up in the tail end of the 70s, and now I am a single mom raising a thoughtful, curious boy in a world that moves at warp speed.

The older I get, the more I miss the very inconveniences I could not stand back then.

Why?

Because those “annoyances” quietly built muscles we still need: patience, resilience, creativity, community.

Here are ten we grumbled about as kids, and why I think they are worth reclaiming in small ways today.

1. Waiting for photos to be developed

We used to drop off a roll at the drugstore and wait days to discover who blinked, who laughed, and which shots our thumbs ruined.

I hated the wait.

Now I miss the anticipation.

Deliberate delays created a ritual. We chose moments carefully, lived the experience first, and relived it later when the envelope finally arrived.

Today, I print a dozen photos every month.

My son rolls his eyes.

Then he sits and tells me the stories behind each picture.

It is the pause that makes them ours.

2. Being bored (with no screens to save us)

Saturday afternoons could stretch forever.

No YouTube rabbit holes. No endless scroll.

Just boredom.

And boredom can spark creativity. After a long, dull hour, your mind starts to make its own fun.

When my son says “I’m bored,” I do not rush to fix it.

We turn boredom into a doorway.

He sketches. I journal. We see what shows up.

3. Saturday morning cartoons (and that was it)

If you missed your show, you missed it.

No streaming. No on-demand menus. No second chances until next week.

The scarcity made it special.

You learned to plan, to wait, and to share the couch with your siblings without declaring war.

That weekly ritual, pajamas and cereal and commercials and all, taught us a skill we still need. We learned to tolerate delayed gratification without spiraling.

4. Busy signals and shared landlines

Calling a friend meant negotiating with parents, siblings, and the mysterious force known as the busy signal.

It was frustrating.

But it taught us to leave succinct messages, to respect other people’s time, and to practice a lost art, the graceful goodbye.

In an age of instant replies and read receipts, those micro-skills still matter at work, in relationships, and pretty much everywhere.

5. Paper maps and getting lost (a little)

We argued with atlases, folded them wrong, and turned them upside down as if that would help.

But we also noticed landmarks, asked directions from strangers at gas stations, and built a mental map of our world.

When my GPS dies, I can still feel north.

My son laughs, but I am teaching him to spot the bakery on the corner and the mural two blocks over.

It is not just navigation; it is attention.

6. Tinfoil antennas and channel dials

We had three, maybe four channels, and getting a picture sometimes meant a sibling holding the antenna like a statue.

Inconvenient? Absolutely.

But there was a family choreography to it, a negotiation of shows, a willingness to make do, to mess up, to try again.

That scrappy problem solving shows up later. It helps with projects, with budgets, with parenting.

We learned to fiddle until something worked.

7. Hand-me-downs, mending, and making do

I used to hate the bag of clothes from my older cousin.

Now I see how those little sacrifices made us inventive.

We cuffed, stitched, traded, and personalized.

That spirit is alive in my house.

When my son rips a knee, we sew on a patch together.

Could I click “Buy Now?” Of course.

But small acts of repair teach care and resourcefulness, and those two skills never go out of style.

8. Long-distance calls you had to keep short

“Make it quick, it’s long distance!”

Remember that?

Time pressure trimmed the fluff.

We said the important parts first.

In a world of endless chat threads, that is refreshing.

Sometimes I set a five-minute timer before a tough conversation.

It is surprising how clearly you can speak when you are not allowed to ramble.

9. Riding bikes until the streetlights came on

We roamed.

We made rules, broke them, and learned.

Unstructured play was not only fun, it built executive functioning, social skills, and the kind of friendships that buffer stress.

I will not turn back the clock on safety, but I do protect white space for my son to explore with friends.

He comes home flushed and proud, usually with a plan for tomorrow.

10. Snail mail, mixtapes, and waiting for your song on the radio

Mixtapes took hours.

Letters took days.

Songs took luck.

All that friction gave love and friendship an artifact, a thing you could hold, rewind, and reread.

When everything is instant, the effort we put in matters even more.

The deeper why (and how to bring a little of it back)

I am not romanticizing everything.

The 70s had plenty I do not miss.

But the best parts of what we hated then, the slowness, the boredom, the scarcity, were also the parts that strengthened us. They trained patience and presence. They taught us to savor.

And this is not just sentimentality.

Nostalgia can lift mood and meaning. Boredom can fuel creativity. Play builds the very capacities we want in our kids.

If you want to fold a little of that goodness into a very 2025 life, start small:

Choose one ritual with built-in waiting, like printing photos, writing a postcard, or planning a Saturday-only movie.

Plan a weekly boredom hour with no screens.

Protect open-ended play, for you and for the kids, and let it be messy.

You do not need a rotary phone or a rabbit ear antenna.

You just need a little friction.

A quick note on nostalgia’s upside

Missing the past does not mean we are stuck there.

It can be a bridge, one that helps us carry what mattered forward.

Sometimes that simple act of remembering makes today feel a little larger and a little kinder.

Before we wrap up, here is the piece I am still learning

I am learning as I go, just like you.

As a mom who juggles deadlines, dinner, and a child I want to raise as an open-minded free thinker, I have to choose this slower way on purpose.

Sometimes that means telling my son we are leaving the phone at home for our walk.

Sometimes it means telling myself the same thing.

And when we get back?

We sit with a pen and a stack of prints and write the stories before we forget.

Conclusion

Maybe the things we hated as 1970’s kids were not obstacles.

Maybe they were quiet teachers.

Pick one to bring back this week.

Wait for the photo.

Let yourself be bored.

Play.

The rest will follow.