Parents From 1970s Sought for Documentary on Childhood Neglect

To the parents of the 70s: I am looking for your perspective Hi all. This is a sensitive topic and I’d love to hear what you all have to say. I am making a documentary about the long-term effects of childhood abuse and neglect that have dogged me since it happened in the 1970s when I was a little boy. This is a very personal project, and I would like to get some perspective on people who were parenting at that time. After years of suffering, in 2023, I finally had a treatment that worked for the psychological issues that have haunted me for decades that resulted in lots of self-hate, alcohol, and drug abuse, etc. which were a coping mechanisms to survive. Post treatment and with a clearer mind, I began to look at what happened through a different lens. Rather than constantly fixated on the abuse, blame and anger, I began to ask why. I’m a lifelong male feminist. My closest friendships have always been with women. That's why I so deeply want to understand. From my perspective, there was a tragic duality to the 1970s. Cultural icons like That Girl and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, whom my mother idolized, told women they could have it all, but those characters did not have children, thought it seems the independence messaging eclipsed that part of the characters. Equally, the structural safety net was gutted when Nixon vetoed the 1971 Childcare Act. So, those early waves of divorce and working mothers had little support and certainly no guide how to navigate those uncharted waters. My mother emulated that thriving independence, but it created a supervision void at home. While she was thriving in the foreground, I was silently drowning in the background, and my older brother became my predator from the age of 5 to 13. This is not to blame the women’s lib movement. It was a movement long overdue. As with any great strides in history, there are casualties though, and that’s what I want to examine in a segment of the documentary. The necessity of the movement, but also what happened to us latchkey kids. I’d like to hear from those who were parenting then. Did the messaging of that era make you feel like the kids would just be fine while you found your independence? Looking back, do you see the gaps where children like me fell through? What are your thought and memories?