friendship

Meet the family that's stuck in the '80s

Most people who experienced the 1980s first-hand are probably content to look back on the decade's fashions and technologies with a smile, before returning to their latest 'Candy Crush' challenge.

Evidently, Blair McMillan and his family are not 'most people'.

Blair and his girlfriend Morgan decided to shun all modern technology for 12 months to experience life as parents in 1986 - the year they were born. And this is no half-baked effort, either; the Canadian couple have turfed out all their post-'86 creature comforts, including mobiles phones, digital cameras, internet connection and even clothing. That's right - Blair has committed himself to living in the 80s with denim cutoffs, a moustache, and a mullet that would make Hall & Oates proud.

Blair, Morgan and their two sons, aged five and two, now live in a home that was constructed in the '80s and go about their day-to-day lives the old school way, with in-person banking, cassette tapes, encyclopedias and the formidable task of navigating road trips with those impossible-to-fold paper maps.

Move over, Marty McFly - this is the real-life Back to the Future.

Maryam Shah of the Toronto Star visited the family at their home in Ontario. She reports:

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The family started shunning technology after Blair asked his son Trey to join him in playing outside. Unfortunately, Trey opted to continue swiping his tiny fingers on daddy’s iPad and, in the process, unwittingly sentenced his family to a year of let’s-pretend-it’s-not-2013.

“That’s kind of when it hit me because I’m like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside,” Blair said.

Morgan, who admits she thought her boyfriend was “crazy,” now devours books to pass the time and only uses a computer at work. She swears she has never cheated on the family pact.

“I remember the day before we started this, I was a wreck and I was like ‘I can’t believe I have to delete my Facebook!’” she said.

iPad addictionsimpact a child's development

What do you think - could you put down your iPhone, log out of Instagram and live like it's 1986?

- Calling your loved ones on a "landline" and sending them mail using antiquated objects like "envelopes" and "stamps".

- Lining up to see Crocodile Dundee, Top Gun and Pretty in Pink at the cinema

-  Belting out 'You're The Voice', 'We Built This City' and 'Addicted to Love' along to the car radio

- Carefully tending to your mullet/luxuriant facial hair/Madonna-esque bouffant, and piling rubber bracelets on your arms. Stylish!

- Plastering your walls with posters of Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald and other members of the Brat Pack. Or perhaps Boy George was your heartthrob of choice...

What do you think of this family's idea? If you could live like it's any year in history, which would you choose?

You can read more about Blair and Morgan's 80s life - and watch a video - here.

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