Close your eyes for a moment and imagine your childhood home. You are there, in a neighborhood house, in an apartment with a terrace, in the typical townhouse on the outskirts. The place doesn’t matter too much: what you will surely remember is the atmosphere. That smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning, the eternal after-dinner conversations in the kitchen, the television presiding over the living room from its wooden altar. Do you have it?
The childhood of those who are now between 40 and 50 years old was marked by very specific objects. Things that were in almost all middle-class Spanish homes and that spoke of the same thing: working families, with fathers and mothers who did everything possible to give the best to their loved ones. So, if you recognize these ten objects without effort, it is because you were born into a middle class family between the 70s and 80s.
Tableware reserved for special occasions
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If we talk about everyday dishes, it is clear that Duralex takes the cake. Every middle class family from the 70s/80s has eaten on these amber plates that were unbreakable and very cheap. “One of those that are no longer made”, as my grandmother would say.
However, it is even more typical of the era to have special tableware reserved for special occasions. In the new family models of generation But in those last decades of the 20th century, it was common to reserve a complete set of disheswith its flat, deep, dessert plates and even its matching bowls, for special occasions: Christmas, weddings, communions and other important events.
TV cabinet with sliding doors
The television (tube, of course) was much more than a household appliance at the end of the 20th century. It was the nerve center of the room. And it was not “bareback” on any piece of furniture that you can buy and assemble at home. No. It was on a sturdy piece of furniture, with sliding doors that opened to reveal its secret.. And on it, all kinds of easily recognizable elements: a crocheted rug made by some aunt, a vase of dried flowers and four, five or six photos of weddings and communions.
The encyclopedia that no one touched
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When it was time to do some schoolwork, when an argument broke out at home about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, or curiosity simply knocked on the door, The Internet was not there to solve it. There was the Encyclopediaoccupying a privileged place on some of the bulky furniture in the living room. It could be Espasa, Laraousse or Salvat, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it had all the answers, although in reality it was rarely used.
The oilcloth on the kitchen table
If you close your eyes and travel back to the foods of your childhood, you will notice an aroma, a texture, that you may not find in the present. It’s the smell of the rubber that your mother quickly wipes over before serving you the plate.. The texture of the skin in summer that sticks to that plastic with drawings of oranges, apples or flowers. It is impossible to forget those tablecloths.
Little by little they fell into oblivion, but it must be recognized that they withstood trotting like no other fabric. You could eat, do your homework, knead croquettes, cut crafts and they resisted. without fear of stains and even plasticine. And they always had that shine that reflected the light from the kitchen. Today they have been replaced by resin tablecloths which are made of fabrics such as cotton, linen or polyester and are treated with resin to repel stains, while the rubber was a waterproof and rigid plastic usually made of PVC.
Italian coffee maker
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At the end of the meal, your mother would get up and take out the queen of the kitchen: the Italian coffee maker. The smell of coffee rose throughout the house and Its bubbling warned that it was time to enjoy an indisputable Spanish classic: the after-dinner meal after eating.. In the mornings, its bubbling alerted you that the day had begun. It was the house clock.
At the time «espresso», capsule coffee machines, did not exist. What there was was his “chup, chup, chup”, which called those who wanted a shot of caffeine to the kitchen. Old fashioned coffee accompanied with some María cookies.
Bar cabinet OR DISPLAY CABINET with glasses that were not used
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Have you ever used that complete glassware that stared at you from the epic-sized bar cabinet that you saw every day of your life when you passed by the living room? Glasses for wine, thin glasses for champagne or cava and glasses of other sizes that you don’t even know what they are for yet..
If you go to your parents’ house, they are still waiting there for you, wondering if someone will ever take them out of the display case and pour some liquid into them. Why are they preserved? It is quite a mystery, but there they remain, trapped in their identity as glasses that are never used. And all because of the «fear of them breaking.» A paradox because they will probably outlive you.
Ludo and goose game
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Not Nintendo, not PlayStation, not phones, not tablets. On Sundays, when the television was turned off, all that was left to do was sit down as a family and fight playing Parcheesi. And if you got bored, you turned the board over and, hey voila!the goose. If you were really lucky, you might even have the ladder game. Nothing killed the passing of the hours more than the sound of the dice bouncing inside their colored cups and that “from goose to goose, and I shoot because it’s my turn.”
Tear lamp or tulips in the living room
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The touch of sophistication of every middle class living room of the 80s was the elegant, beautiful, impressive, teardrop lamp or tulips on the dining table. The one that, of course, has a crocheted tablecloth or rug on it that is removed when it is going to be used, because it is for decoration, not for use. Elegance in its purest form. Surely when you inherit it, you will put it in your living room, because there is nothing more beautiful and less ornate in the world.
Cola Cao cans with things stored inside
Did you drop a button? Do you have to sew a shirt? Do you need a nail? Would you like a cookie? Are you looking for the movie tickets you bought yesterday? Any of these options could be found in a can of Cola Cao that was waiting on the living room sideboard for someone to claim it.. Not even Doraemon’s pocket can hold so many different objects. If something didn’t have a particular place, it was in the Cola Cao boat, because “nothing is thrown away here.”
alarm clock radio
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If you were born between the 70s and 80s and lived in a middle class family, you heard that unbearable beep that warned you that you had to wake up. If you showed it now to a child from the Alpha generation (born after 2010) they would start crying without being very clear why that device has numbers and beeps. «Oh! And it also has a radio!», you would say proudly. The child would look at you even more confused, wondering what kind of podcast that you call “radio” is. But when you were the child, the radio hosts would say good morning to you, and at night, those red numbers would light up your room.