45 Pictures That Prove Your Parents Were Hotter And Cooler Than You

For a lot of people, it's hard to look at our parents as anything else but the adults who reared us and made us eat our peas and who still help us pay our phone bills (thanks mom!) and who never did anything cool or crazy or ridiculous because now they are settled and reserved and slightly boring (sorry mom!). But our parents were, in fact, way f*cking cooler than any of us when they were younger. And let's be real — they were way f*cking hotter, too.

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a drop dead gorgeous photo of a friend's dad in tiny denim shorts from the 70s and 80s — I would use those hundreds of dollars to buy all of the rosé to drown myself in sorrow because dudes these days will just never look that effortlessly cool. What's a girl gotta do to get bros to hike up their shorts and lower that toxic masculinity?! It was a simpler time before the internet and memes — our parents would actually go explore the outdoors and go to music festivals that weren't sponsored by Doritos and smoke weed every gahd damn day get in touch with the earth. My dad was a chef and surfed all day when he was my age. I literally look at memes all day for work. Oh well.

So let us take a ride back in time and ogle our parents in all of their feathered hair glory. Let's swoon over the grainy photographs, breezy attitudes, and take a cue from the summer of love and light up a joint. I can't imagine what our children will say when looking back at our iPhone 5 selfies and Instagram stories, but hopefully they'll look back in awe and not disgrace. HA, who am I kidding? The way the world is headed now, we'll all be dead from a nuclear holocaust in 10 years anyway. So selfie on, my friends!

If these 45 pictures don't prove that mom and dad were the pinnacle of coolness and #BABEGOALS, then I don't know what will:

1. “My mother skateboarding barefoot in California, 1974.”

2. “I found a photo of my dad cooking a barbecue on top of a moving submarine.”

3. “My dad sculpting a bust of my mom in the 1980s.”

4. “A friend of my father's, telling off a Klan member. Auburn, AL, 1985.”

5. “My dad skateboarding at Hyde School, 1982.”

6. “My mom at 16 years old with her Camaro in 1975.”

7. “My dad being infinitely cooler than I'll ever be (1980).”

8. “My mother when she was a tank instructor in 1984.”