32 Specific Memories From Childhood That Millennials Will Understand (But Gen Z Will Not)

The amount of fake pets we all took care of is actually hilarious in hindsight.

Growing up in the '90s was honestly amazing.

ABC

Us '90s kids got to experience the dawn of the Internet, fad culture at its peak, and some of the greatest films/TV/music ever made.

NBC

I said what I said!

In a world that increasingly feels like it's falling apart, let's look back on some of the best moments from our childhoods that I wish we could all relive.

Paramount

1. Hunting for Beanie Babies.

Bill Greenblatt / Getty Images

Was there any greater rush than hunting down these little bean bag freaks? I tell people that the first time I got high, I was on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, but in reality, the first high I knew was going to a backroom auction with my mom to bid on retired Beanie Babies. When we got in the car to go home, she made me swear not to tell anyone how much we paid for the Princess Di bear. And I never did.

Shoutout to the Teenie Beanies in McDonald's Happy Meals!

McDonalds/TY / Via youtube.com

It's hard to mention the big boys without giving a little shoutout to their kid siblings, the Teenie Beanies. These were HOT HOT HOT and hard to get. My poor dad had to suffer through me calling him AT WORK, begging him to stop at McDonald's on the way home because Pinky the flamingo was finally back in stock, and my 8-year-old spirit would leave my body if I didn't have him in my collection. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, DAD?!

2. Seeing Titanic for the first time.

20th Century-Fox / Getty Images

This was the first time that many of us understood what CINEMA was. This was a cultural moment that was impossible to escape. In my hometown 8-screen theater, this film played for SIX MONTHS. And I went through a weird period in life where I would watch the ENTIRETY of this film EVERY DAY before school. That's two VHS tapes' worth of movie before I even ate my Fruity Pebbles. #JackAndRose4Eva

3. Feeling like summer was endless instead of 5 seconds long.

Disney

Remember summer vacation as a kid? Those scorching days and balmy nights seemed to stretch on forever. There was nothing but time to drive our parents crazy until they begged us, "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE GO OUTSIDE, AND DON'T COME BACK IN UNTIL IT'S DARK." Now, summer feels like one of those impossible-to-hold water tubes that slipped out of your hand no matter how hard you tried to keep it still. Take me back.

4. Hearing "...Baby One More Time" on the radio for the first time.

Jive Records

DUN. DUN. DUN. (You can hear those opening chords, can't you?) I remember being absolutely pinned to the backseat in my mom's 1995 Ford Aerostar minivan when this song came on the radio. This is what music can be??? The song took over the culture. My dad knew it! MY DAD! And then, when the music video dropped? FORGET ABOUT IT!! The effortlessness of switching between a fuzzy pink school girl into a yellow crop-topped P.E. babe taught me everything I needed to know about coming of age. (Actually realizing in realtime that this is probably why I have so many crop-tops in my closet.)

5. Christmas mornings.

Jake Farrington

My favorite thing as a kid was Christmas. Still is TBH. When I was young, I would start my Christmas list in August. I would wake up at 4 a.m. every Christmas morning because I was too excited for sleeping, and I neeeeded to see what Santa brought. I was so attached to the magic of Christmas that I would not stop believing in the man in the red suit, no matter how hard my mom tried to drop not-so-subtle hints that it had been her the whole time. It was just a crazy coincidence that my mom and Santa had the same handwriting and used the same wrapping paper. Crazy! 

Photo: Me and my fam from sometime in the '90s. I'm the spooky one in the reindeer sweater.

6. Taking care of various fake pets.

Xavier Rossi / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Tamagotchi. Furby. Neopets. What do these three words have in common? They were all fake pets that were infinitely more fun to take care of than our real one (until they weren't). Cleaning up little Hershey Kiss poops? A dream! Your Furby waking you up in the middle of the night mouthing off in some demonic language? A nightmare, but a fun one! Taking 15-minute turns checking in on your Neopets so that you wouldn't tie up the phone line too long while using dial-up internet? Priceless. What I'd give to play one more round of Meerca Chase.

7. Seeing the Disney Channel Circle of Stars perform "Circle of Life."

Disney Channel

People like to say that we don't have royalty in the US, but I ask you, who are these people if not queens and kings? Watching this group come together to perform "Circle of Life" from The Lion King was a bigger and much more important moment in history than even the moon landing. I didn't even know you could ask for something like this. These STARS came together and sang a song so enchanting that it was one of my top listened to songs on Spotify last year (I was really going through something, lol).

8. Collecting Pokémon cards.

Picture Alliance / picture alliance via Getty Images

Gotta. Catch'em. All. Collecting Pokémon cards was like a dr*g addiction to me and my friends. We couldn't get enough of the stuff. Hunting down those rare holographic cards, hoping that kid at school will finally trade you for that Mew because he doesn't even keep it in a protective sleeve (!!!); I remember it all so well. And although my collecting days are behind me, I've recently become addicted to watching people open Pokémon cards on TikTok, signaling to me that maybe therapy isn't working as well I as thought it was.

9. Party calls on a landline.

Disney Channel

In the days of landlines and cord phones, this was a BIG DEAL!!!! To be able to talk to TWO of your besties AT THE SAME TIME, all in DIFFERENT HOUSES?! Welcome to the future, babe!! I have no idea what three 10-year-olds even have to talk about TBH, but I know I wanted to be like Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo, and I was, so that's all that mattered.

10. Decorating your school textbooks.

RubberStamps .com / Via youtube.com

How are you going to show off your INDIVIDUALITY at school if not through covering your textbooks in brown paper bags and then taking to it with markers, crayons, Lisa Frank stickers, and the like? Maybe you print out a picture of the Spice Girls or S Club 7 and tape it to the front. You had to STAND OUT, but in an effortless way. Like, "Oh this? It's just some holographic yin-yang sticker my auntie sent me. NBD."

Shoutout to buying new school supplies in general.

Philippe Lissac / Getty Images

And while we're on the topic, let's talk about school supplies. There was always such a bittersweet feeling when it was time to get the old back-to-school checklist back out, because it meant that somehow, summer was over. But what a joy to get a SpongeBob SquarePants spiral notebook and a Little Mermaid pencil box. I'll be forever chasing the rush.

11. Book Fairs/Book Orders.

AnnainCA/ Flickr / Via Flickr: annainca

Whether a book fair was set up at school and you got to frolic around the library like it was a magical secret garden of books, or your teacher handed out a Scholastic book order pamphlet at the end of the day for you to take home and badger you parents with, there was something so intoxicating about books. "But mommmm! I neeeeed to get Hamster in the Holly! It comes with a free hamster keychain!" (For the record: I got it, and the drama of that hamster going missing on Christmas Eve has stayed with me to this day.) BRB, going to go cry because I'll never be this happy again.

12. Pizza parties.

New Line Cinema

How do you reward an 8 to12-year-old? Why, with pizza, of course! There is no better motivation to complete any task than the promise of a Pizza Party™. Finishing your reading list? Pizza party. Everybody turns in their end-of-year assignments on time? Pizza party. Got through a single season on the soccer team? Pizza party. (I quit soccer before the pizza party happened. I am weak and sad.)

13. Snow days.

Paramount Pictures

Oh, the sweet relief of a two-foot snowfall overnight. Waking up to a crisp blanket of white covering the yard, huddling around the TV to see if your local newscaster would announce your district as one of the lucky ones to be closed for the day — it was a thing of magic. Hearing your school's name announced felt like you had won the goddamn lottery. Let freedom ring, baby! No school today! The closest I've ever gotten to a snow day in my adult life was when I lived in Chicago, and it was so cold that the news warned going outside could make your eyeballs freeze. I didn't have to go to work, but it didn't have quite the same magic to it.

14. Opening a "puffy case" Disney VHS.

They Call Me Obsessed / Via Flickr: 88143907@N08

You know what I'm talking about. The little squeak that the Disney VHS puffy case made was really something special. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. How did Disney know that these cases would turn a seemingly normal 7-year-old into an absolute RABID ANIMAL? IDK, but they unleashed them upon us, and if we didn't collect every single one that we could get our grubby little paws on, then there would be hell to pay. HELL, I TELL YOU. 

15. The release of the Nintendo 64.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images, Nintendo

The Nintendo 64 changed the video game landscape forEVER! Remember gathering around to play Mario Party with your friends? Bashing your fingers into the buttons, rotating the joystick so viciously that you'd end up with scabs, all in the name of trying to be the victor of "Hexagon Heat"? Or, maybe GoldenEye was more your vibe. Picking your friends off one by one (or in my case, being the first one dead every single time, but just happy to be a part of something). And if it wasn't those, it was definitely The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Sheik reveal will have me shook to the end of my days.

16. Getting a Kid's Meal at a fast-food restaurant.

McDonalds

So, you're telling me that not only am I eating a burger and fries, but I also get a toy?? SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH! My 6-year-old self would call all the fast-food joints in town asking what toy they were offering for the week, and then decide where I wanted to eat based on the intel collected. I have to laugh at the idea of those people picking up the phone and humoring a squeaky-voiced child on the other end of the line, but I did what I had to do to get my color-changing Miss Piggy from Muppet Treasure Island.

Shoutout to the Play Places.

McDonalds

I'll be honest, I didn't really get to spend a ton of time in the Play Places at McDonald's, Burger King, etc. We were more of a "to-go" household. But when I did get myself into those tubes and ball-pits, you better believe I was REVELING in it, baby.

17. Reading Highlights magazine at the doctor's office.

Andersen Ross / Getty Images

Sure, going to the doctor's office as a kid wasn't...great. Honestly, there was such a feeling of distrust that arose between you and your parent when they told you why you were getting in the car, like, "How could you do this to me? Why not just throw me into the fiery lakes of hell while you're at it, mom?" But there was one bright spot: Highlights magazine. There was a feeling of peace when you cracked open the cover that had been coughed on by at least 100 other kids. You'd be praying that nobody used a pen to do the "spot the difference" or the "hidden pictures." To this day, if I see a Highlights magazine, I will still see what Goofus and Gallant are up to, but I'm sure to use a bit of hand sanitizer afterwards.

18. Field trips.

Rubberball Productions / Getty Images

The best part about going to school were all the times you got to leave school to go somewhere else. Let me go to an aquarium instead of learning my times tables, please! Or, maybe to the fire station to go through a simulated house fire (I definitely thought that was blast, and probably should have treated it less like a funhouse and more like a potential life-threatening situation). And if not those, let's go to the theater and watch A Year with Frog and Toad which was somehow both boring and sexually-charged? Either way, it was all better than going to class!

19. Building pillow forts.

ABC

The giddy feeling of gathering up every pillow and weird blanket in your house to build a fort is a high I'll be seeking until the day I die. Draping sheets and throws over chairs and card-tables until there was a special enclosure made just for you and your friends felt like falling out the back of a wardrobe and stumbling into Mr. Tumnus. Anything was possible in a pillow fort, and I don't know why we thought we all had to give them up. (My BFF makes pillow forts on 4/20, aka "Fort/20," and it's pretty great. I encourage you all to try it.)

20. Discovering book series that became your entire personality.

Portland Press Herald / Getty Images

Look, do I think Joanne R. is a P.O.S.? Yeah, I do. But reading Harry Potter for the first time was like having a full-on brain orgasm. Same with Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Golden Compass, and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Getting transported into a whole new world using only words and your mind?? I guess magic is real after all! I would lose myself in books for hours and hours, and they would be all I could think or talk about for weeks at a time (do I have an obsessive personality? Ask my therapist!).

21. Getting $5 in a birthday card and feeling RICH!!!!

Elva Etienne / Getty Images

Birthdays were BIG as a kid. Remember hitting "double digits" for the first time? Momentous. Sure, the parties were fun, the goodie bags were exciting, and the ice cream cake was delicious (if you ate around the weird gel icing), but opening a birthday card having money fall out of it? FORGET IT! It was a beautiful time when you still didn't understand the real value of a dollar, and five bucks seemed like A LOT! And if you had $100, you were a millionaire (don't ask me how that math works, just accept it).

22. Water fights.

Hasbro

I've got two words for you: Super. Soaker. Water fights were really peak '90s culture. Gathering all your friends in your backyard and absolutely going to town on each other with water guns, water balloons, hoses, sprinklers, Crazy Daisies — any water based thing you could get your hands on would work, really! There was no objective other than soak and be soaked in return. So simple. So easy. I'm actually getting emotional thinking about it right now, and I need to move on before I start crying.

23. Getting into a screaming match with your friends over a game of Monopoly.

Parker Brothers

Board games were a big staple of childhood, and for some reason, we all wanted to play Monopoly even though it was too long to finish, and it always ended in someone's feelings getting hurt. My friends and I had a "rule" that if you stole money or cheated in any way during your turn, and somebody else rolled the dice before you got caught, you got away with it. It didn't do great things for our relationships. Lol. And I know this was not a problem unique to us. I've met so many friends in my adulthood, and all the stories they have surrounding this game are eerily similar. Weird that a game about taxes and rent could bring out the worst in people.

24. Drawing the worst quality picture imaginable and your parents or teacher calling you an ARTIST.

Netflix

I've never felt more confident in my artistic abilities than when I was a child. Parents and teachers will blow billows of smoke up your ass, getting you to believe that you're the next fucking Michelangelo, when in reality, you've showed them some shitty drawing of a person whose head is the size of their torso. I mean, we all have to start somewhere, and I thank them for encouraging me and not telling me the truth so I'd have the confidence to keep getting better and actually learn. But I'd give anything to feel that confident in literally anything I do now. I want heaps of unearned praise on the daily. Hook me up to an IV of "OMG, you drew that?" and inject it straight into my veins.

25. Getting either Disney Adventures or Nickelodeon magazine in the mail.

Disney Publishing Worldwide

I don't want to brag (I do), but my grandparents gifted me with a subscription to Disney Adventures magazine for my birthday one year, and it was a life-changing occurrence. Going to the mailbox and seeing that booklet of monthly goodness waiting for me felt like God shat manna down from heaven. I'll never forget the Mary-Kate and Ashley issue, or thumbing through to find out about what new boyband they were trying to make happen, or the comics at the back of every issue (Little Gloomy, anyone??). I never had a Nickelodeon magazine subscription myself, but I had friends who did, and whenever I'd visit them, I'd need a little quiet time to myself to experience how the other half lived. ("I'll be ready to play in a minute!")

26. Sleepovers.

Mgm / ©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

Having a sleepover as a kid was a BIG DEAL. Getting to hang out with your friends outside of school, seeing how everyone's families operated, trying to convince your friend's parents that no one forces you to drink milk with dinner at your house — it was everything. Getting to laugh into the night with your pals, playing M.A.S.H., telling scary stories, whispering secrets you wouldn't dare vocalize at recess ("I really do  have a crush on Derek H. That's why I pushed him into the wood chips."), and pretending to be asleep when the parents came to check in on you. LET ME FEEL THAT FEELING AGAIN.

27. Renting a movie at Blockbuster or Family Video.

Andrew Marszal / AFP via Getty Images

In the age of streaming, it can be easy to forget that we didn't always have limitless movie options available with just the push of one button. You used to have to begggggggggg your parents to please, please, please drive you into town to rent a movie or two for the weekend. And it was work once you got there. You had to hoof it up and down countless aisles of movies, and it wasn't enough just to find one that interested you, it also had to be in stock! That's right, Gen Z, if somebody else rented the movie you wanted, you were shit out of luck. But I kind of miss it. It forced you to get creative sometimes, and that's how Clue ended up becoming one of my favorite movies, because somebody had already rented every copy of Fern Gully. 

28. Wearing an adult T-shirt like it was a floor-length gown.

TriStar Pictures

When I was little, this is all I would wear around the house: adult tee, no bottoms. I've never known such freedom and comfort since. Drowning in your mom or dad's old T-shirt was like being hugged by a million Plutos at Disney World (I assume, I didn't get to go until I was 20). The safety and security that came along with tripping over the hem of a garment made to hit the belt-line was unmatched. If there's a company out there that specializes in T-shirts that fit an adult in the same proportion, let me know in the comments below! I need one.

29. Jumping on a trampoline without fear of breaking every bone in your body.

Mike Brinson / Getty Images

This sentence isn't going to make sense, but nobody actually had a trampoline. You only had friends who had a trampoline, and you'd get use theirs. Illogical but true. Remember doing "popcorn?" Where you'd curl up into a ball and your friends would bounce around you wildly until your arms and legs came untucked and you'd flail off the side. Or, the "double-bounce," where someone would bounce on the tramp (what me and my friends innocently called it, lololol) at just the right moment and you'd go LAUNCHING into the air screaming? Those were the days. Now, I think if I stepped one foot on to one, I'd need to go straight to the ER.

30. Begging your mom for a quarter so you could get a weird toy out of those machines at the grocery store.

Anton Novikov / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Those little capsule-toy vending machines at grocery stores were to children as porch lights are to moths. Only a quarter or two for a toy? NEED!!!! I don't care if it's a weird, sticky rubber hand that will end up covered in hair and crumbs. I have to have it! A bouncy ball that will inevitably give someone a black eye? A necessity. A miniature figurine of what I'm pretty sure is supposed to be SpongeBob, but the paint job is so shoddy his eyes are on the side of his head? Sure! It didn't matter if they were quality; it only mattered that they were there.

31. Choreographing award-winning dances with your friends and siblings.

Netflix

When I was a kid, you could not convince me I was not destined to become a pop star. And because NSYNC or the Spice Girls could show up at my doorstep at literally ANY TIME to ask me to go on tour with them, I needed to be prepared. That's why my friends and I would spend hours creating dance routines in my basement, coming up with clever moves like "step-touch," "one-shoulder shimmies," and "I guess step-touch again"? The Backstreet Boys never did show up in rural Michigan, but it's honestly their loss. My friends and I would have rocked their worlds.

32. Being protected from the harsh realities of existence.

Oops. Too real. Lol.