Childhood in the 1960s

What was it like being a child in Norway in the 1960s? What were children’s relationships with adults like, and what was expected of them on the basis of their gender?

The child in historiography

In the 1960s, children were not regarded in the same way as they are today. No researcher took their perspectives into consideration, and history was not written from their point of view.

A typical Norwegian family in the 1960s

Parents were heterosexual and married, and each parent’s roles were defined by gender. The typical family had two or three children. Families bought or built homes with bedrooms for the children. They bought a television, automobile and modern appliances such as a washing machine, refrigerator, freezer and vacuum cleaner (hoover). Children rarely went to kindergarten. They attended school Monday through Saturday, and an increasing number of young people took higher education.