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more 1980s topics Nostalgia Cafe main page Nostalgia Cafe site map | 1980s Lifestyles, | ||
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 Activities & Trends Hobbies, attitudes, daily life and home trends |  Products, Technology & Advertising Consumer products, electronics, technology and advertising | |||
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Activities & Trends
 reading materialbooks Stephen King Color Me Beautiful Martha Stewart how-to books The Official Preppy Handbook Cosmos magazines & newspapers People Vogue Cosmopolitan Victoria Seventeen Time Newsweek USA Today 1980s Bestsellers | ----- |
 Carl Sagan's landmark PBS series and companion book taught us to look beyond our horizons  In the early 1980s, the Official Preppy Handbook started out as a satire of preppy style, and wound up setting the style comic books & funnies The X-Men Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Far Side Garfield Calvin and Hobbes Bloom County Ziggy    
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 yuppies Young, Upwardly-mobile Professionals were college-educated, career-oriented and status-conscious, and the 1980s wouldn't have been the 1980s without them! Yuppie Cartoons All About Yuppies You Might Be A Yuppie If.... ======================================== ======================================== signs of the times Parents of newborns proudly attached these signs to their car windows. -----  The dangers of second-hand smoke were becoming apparent, and most public buildings addressed this issue by creating non-smoking areas. | ----- |
 getting in shape The fitness craze inspired us to exercise with our Jane Fonda Workout videos, attired in our leotards, leg-warmers and sweatbands. It also gave us a new word: aerobics.  Many people joined health clubs like Nautilus and Bally's. Other popular programs included Jazzercise, Dancercize and the weight-loss plans of the eternally peppy Richard Simmons. Richard Simmons Nautilus Jazzercise ======================================== ========================================  Check out Fads & Fun for video games and other awesome stuff! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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focus on children  In the 1980s, the average family was a dual-income family. More women were entering the work force every year, and fewer women were putting their careers on hold to be homemakers. In 1970, 40 percent of mothers worked outside the home. By 1984, this figure had increased to 60 percent. In addition to this, the soaring divorce rate created many single-parent households. The number of children living with only one parent nearly doubled between 1970 and 1983, going from 12 percent to 22 percent. This created a need for quality child care that went beyond nursery schools and babysitters. State-licensed daycare centers answered that need. To accomodate working parents, these centers stayed open during extended hours, and sometimes offered before and after-school programs for older children. Staff members were college-educated, holding degrees in Child Development and Early Childhood Education. Most daycare centers were privately owned, but a few childcare center chains became popular in the 1980s, including Kindercare and Children's World. |  For drivers, the 1980s introduced the first mandatory seat belt and child safety seat laws. In 1982, New York was the first state to enact a child safety seat restraint law. Kindercare Children's World Child Safety Seat Restraint Laws Seat Belt Laws  most popular baby names of 1985
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======================================== | ======================================== spending money These were the days of conspicuous consumption....in other words, you can never have too many toys! Here are some 1980s innovations that made it easier to part with your money....  Home-shopping channels on TV In 1977, a Florida radio station held an on-air auction of merchandise they received from an advertiser in lieu of payment. This was the birth of the Home Shopping Network (HSN). After moving to cable TV in 1981, the network went nationwide in 1985. The QVC cable shopping channel made its debut in 1986.  Although some banks had primitive automatic teller machines in the 1970s, ATMs really hit their stride in the early 1980s.  The increased use of credit cards provided instant gratification for the consumer. Why save when you can get it now? History of the Home Shopping Network Home Shopping History
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======================================== | ========================================  collegewhat's your major? In the free-thinking 1960s and 1970s, it was very cool to major in a subject simply because you loved it. Whether or not you could make a decent living with a degree in Asian Studies was beside the point. In the 1980s, many college students were guided by the new yuppie attitude. Careers that netted big salaries after graduation were becoming more popular, and the students who chose these majors didn't hide the fact that they were doing it just for the money. Popular fields of study in the 1980s included Business, Computer Science, Physical Therapy and Marketing. Liberal arts courses like History, Foreign Languages and Ethnic Studies survived only because they fulfilled the general education requirements of most colleges. new career trends Careers that didn't guarantee high salaries but had tremendous growth potential were also popular. Fields like Journalism, Early Childhood Education, Nutrition, Physical Fitness, Social Work and Teaching fell into this category. Anyone with a degree in these fields would probably have no trouble finding a job, if they didn't worry about making a lot of money.  residence halls Most college freshmen were required to live in the residence halls. After that, they were free to live off-campus if they wished. When the strict rules of the past were abolished in the early 1970s, dorm regulations became a bit too permissive. By the 1980s, things had settled down. Each floor had "quiet hours" and an R.A. (resident assistant) to keep things under control. Although co-ed floors were becoming more common, you could still request a same-sex floor. You could also choose to live on a study floor, special interest floor or over-21 floor. Dorm residents equipped their rooms with mini-fridges, black & white TVs, stereos, boom-boxes, carpets, wooden lofts and beer signs. In the mid 1980s, some students brought their computers from home, and in the late 1980s they also brought answering machines and VCRs.  party!Drinking had always been a popular student activity, but the problem of binge drinking got steadily worse during the 1980s. On Greek Row, hazing (humiliating new pledges) was also a problem. In the late 1980s, there were several highly-publicized student deaths caused by binge drinking and hazing, and this led to some changes in the 1990s, especially for fraternities.
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bed & bath
in the living room
