How Baby Boomers Broke 1950s Rules & Hid It From Their Parents

This UPenn educator has spent his professional life considering how he and other white largely middle-class suburban baby boomer teens grew up in the 1950s. I had the chance to interview him in 1989. I asked him about the 1950s and the unwritten rules that we were all aware of back then. His responses fascinated me and I present them to my subscribers in this clip. He pointed out how the rules that he remembered could be broken by those the school favored – athletes etc. He talked about how the parents who articulated these rules to their children did not live by the rules that they had strongly advocated. How they broke the rules and lied about it to their children. Teenagers growing up at that time knew that their parents were lying and they very often lied to their parents. It seems normal. Teens lied about so many things. Did they do their homework? Were they having sex of any kind? What clothing were they wearing when they went out? Did they smoke cigarettes? These issues and so many others were not discussed with adults, parents or teachers. Dr. Marvin Lazerson, the speaker, is an education historian who spent his professional life largely connected to University of Pennsylvania. He was rated the number one teacher at U Penn by the student body. He has written books and spoken publicly and when I interviewed him, I admired him for his clarity and honesty about himself and his classmates growing up back then.