Psychology explains the resilience of people born in the 1960s and 1970s: “A model of strictness and freedom”

Children growing up in the 1960s and 1970s often had to handle everyday problems without immediate help from adults, or from a screen. Entertainment depended on imagination, much of the play happened outdoors, and independence emerged through small daily experiences.

That upbringing, very different from the one many children have today, may have shaped how older adults deal with hardship. Academic groups have observed that people raised during those decades appear to possess a form of psychological strength that seems less common among those who grew up later.

Research including “Resilience in children and young people: a review” and “The relationship between parenting behavior and resilience, as well as psychological symptoms in a representative sample” emphasizes that resilience often develops when people face real challenges, gain autonomy and learn to solve problems early in life.

The social setting also mattered. More mothers entered the workforce, childcare options outside the home were limited, and divorce rates were rising. As a result, many children spent unusual amounts of time without supervision. Long-term studies examined by U.S. sociologist Glen H. Elder found that childhood economic hardship did not affect everyone in the same way. In stable families, early responsibility could foster freedom, competence and resilience. In highly conflictual homes, the consequences were more often harmful.

This resilience was not necessarily something parents deliberately taught. It may have been a necessary response to an environment in which emotional health received little attention. Children spent much of the day resolving conflicts in the street, taking on household duties and coping with boredom without screens, a process academics call “stress inoculation”.