With "Ratched" on Netflix you begin to get just how insane the 1950s actually were. Even more insane than now

People locked up in mental institutions on a whim just because their husband or parents didn't want to raise them usually for really stupid reasons. It was a terrifying time to grow up for this reason and many others.

Children were to be seen and not heard to the degree that most dogs in the U.S. are treated 100 times better now than children were treated in the 1950s. I saw how bad it was in many friends homes first hand.

However, I was one of the very very lucky ones. I didn't know many people as lucky as I was then growing up. My father had been valedictorian of his high school class. My mother had supported her mother by working since her father left home when she was 18. They were very good and noble people who didn't smoke or drink at all. They were very kind to me but I saw in my friends lives the horror that the 1950s really were for most people growing up then.

So, the Ratched series is more like how bad it really was in the 1950s. If you were a white male with good parents like I had you might survive okay and live to adulthood. But, if you were anything else but a white male with a good family you shouldn't expect anything to be okay ever in your whole life.

Even with a good family I still expected to be dead as a soldier in a war by age 18 to 20 years of age, likely in a nuclear war in the U.S. or abroad.

So, I was very very surprised to be alive still at  26 and to be married with a son and a real future then in 1974. 

And then on top of all this many parents (especially fathers) were major PTSD from World war II. As a child almost no one ever gave you any attention or respect and you were mostly treated like a dog (worse than a dog) by most people then.

I remember thinking I would rather die than grow up and be as miserable as most adults then. So, dying in a war seemed better than what I was expecting.

But then, the world changed and we didn't nuke the whole human race out of existence like I thought we would and this gave me hope for a real future. I was one of the lucky ones. I grew up and life got better and I have actually had a real and good life.

Thank you God!