Parenting today meets the nostalgia of growing up in the 80s and 90s. From VHS tapes and Saturday-morning cartoons to Bluey on demand and smart speakers, Retro Dad rewinds life’s simpler times and fast-forwards them into the chaos of raising three kids under six. It’s a tongue-in-cheek time machine — where floppy disks meet floppy toddlers, and late fees meet late-night tantrums.
Back in the day, making a mixtape was basically print registration for music. You’d sit there with your cassette recorder, one finger hovering over the pause button, waiting for the DJ to stop talking over the intro. Timing was everything. One slip and your romantic mix for “that girl from science class” had a Weather Report, boom-smack in the middle of November Rain.
Back in the 90s, graphic design wasn’t a few clicks and a Wi-Fi connection — it was blood, sweat, rulers, and Letraset. You needed patience, precision, and sometimes a prayer. If you wanted to kern type, you literally cut it out with a scalpel and shifted it under a magnifying glass.
Back in my day (yep, I’m officially old enough to start sentences like that), “family movie night” meant a trip to the local video shop. Rows of plastic cases, that smell of stale carpet, and the stress of choosing between Airheads or The Mighty Ducks 2. The real drama? Hoping no one had rented the last copy — or worse, forgetting to rewind it and copping the dreaded “Be Kind, Rewind” fine.
