In The 1950s There Were Lots Of RULES

this buoyant girl coming home from school looked quite content with life they're looking forward to an important date dinner at home with the family though they seem artificial today educational films like this one which was shown to schoolchildren all over America accurately reflect the attitudes and values of white middle class society in the 1950s when real-life documentaries were few and far between doesn't that sound exciting to you their purpose was to teach kids the proper way to behave and to repeat and reinforce a set of rules the rules were were were things you talked about on the telephone with your friends and and they were they were imposed by your parents parents talked about it a lot there were high school counselors who told you what the rules were and even if they weren't written down everybody really knew and you could almost read them out cite them and I think looking back on it from the 60s what we what what people did in the 60s was self-consciously break every damn one of them the women of this family seemed to feel that they owe it to the men of the family to look relaxed rested and attractive at dinnertime brother notices the time and realizes that he must put things in order and clean himself up in time for dinner what were the rules one of them was obey Authority don't ask questions in the 60s millions of young people would renounce that one these boys greet their dad as though they are genuinely glad to see him as though they had really missed being away from him during the day and are anxious to talk to him this is the time for pleasant discussion in a thoroughly relaxed mood they don't pick this time of the day to spring unpleasant surprises on dad we are molding our boys the way we feel they should be molded in the 50s I think you have to start molding right away when they're just infants and so that was our influence we tried to make this a very influential time a constructive time through Boy Scouts through church to Cub Scouts through Little League or not a little late but the Little Pony leagues or whatever they had you know these little kids was off the queue they were fun times with our kids with our boys we had a great time but father and mother guides the conversational trend if they desire after all they made all this possible my impression of that time was that a child was to be seen and not heard and that we were never allowed to express anything that was negative we were never allowed to talk back in any way even to question why should I do something or could I do it later we weren't treated as we as if we were people we were another species another rule control your emotions in the 60s masses of baby boomers would reverse this one and quote let it all hang out what kind of that crazy chess sister Oh Jeff don't be that way notice how mother seems to become angry herself because of Jeff's anger perhaps she shouldn't but anger is a violent emotion and we often see an induction of behavior or spread of emotion to other persons almost like a contagious disease if you misbehave you weren't normal and and the idea of normal is it is a kind of vegetative state where nothing happens but that's what everybody tried to aspire to but I think I think it's a word that people are constantly using to to exhort you to behave better why don't you be normal it's not normal to it's not normal to wear your hair long it's not normal to to wear Levi's it's not normal to listen to rock and roll it's it's not normal to to read comic books it's there's a whole list of a million things that everybody does that isn't normal well what makes you think you look at your clothes oh because the other fellas wear sweaters are just shirts not a regular suit like mine well wears what are they another rule fit in with the group don't stand out conform in your actions and your appearance in the 60s great numbers of young people would quote do their own sing pick out the most popular boys and girls in school keep an eye on them try to figure out why people like them not that you'll ever be just like any of them but you might learn something well see it there many young people found these restrictions painfully repressive but they struggled to obey them anyhow because if they didn't they know there'd be unpleasant consequences from society or from their peers yeah Jenny thinks that she has the key to popularity parking in cars with the boys at night when Jerry brags about taking Ginny off he learns that she dates all the boys what about Jenny cuz that makes her really popular to the boys and girls like her is she welcome to join this group hi Betty Ellie your breasts hurt right here Jenny for better sang say Rolly how's the play coming along oh ok Jenny here Jenny no they're parking cars are not really popular not even with the boys they park with not when they meet at school or elsewhere nothing like being miss popularity yeah yeah I think that there was this sense that yeah well sure they're using sex to be popular now but you know what about in the future they're going to be like thrown on the rubbish pile and I and I think that that did happen because I think that that boys did maintain an attitude of you know they wanted to get laid but they wanted to marry a virgin yes isn't that Eileen it sure is baby and all hey I haven't seen her since she left school and maybe this was the biggest rule of all don't even think about having sex in the 60s young people all over the country would proclaim if it feels good do it very wait in the height of emotion it's not always easy to stop and think things through but if you if you just slow down the rush and pressure of your feelings a little then judgement has a better chance to take hold and guide you away from wrong behavior it was sort of a nightmare looking from the outside I'm sure it didn't seem that way to observe her but for me I felt so lonely while they was popular and I didn't have those problems I wasn't a nerd or anything like that but there just wasn't anybody from my planet is the way that I kind of described it I felt like I had so much bottled up inside of me

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 1,149,148

Rating: 4.8081603 out of 5

Keywords: early childhood, suburbs, American school kids, growing up, high school, normal, American history, white kids, suburbia, American social history, 1960s, 60s generation, the 1950s, filmmaker, suburban, middle-class, 50s, 1950s America, 1950s, Bewitched, generation, growing, morals, society, teaching, youth, bewitched, individuality, educational, maga, trump, make america, american history

Id: CrYX9j3Tqzw

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2013