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My dad trained as a butcher through a correspondence school out of St Louis. His first real job was on the killing floor of a slaughter house. He took me to work there one day as a 5 year old. Strong strong memories of that one. It spite of my down days whining any of my worst days pale in comparison to my Dad's early good ones.My grandparents were contemporaries of your parents (they got married young and had kids young [in their teens], as did their offspring), and, like your folks, they were anything but misty-eyed nostalgics.
My grandfather snorted at mention of the "good old days." He was of what we used to call "illegitimate" birth; was raised by his itinerant meat cutter bachelor "uncles"; attended school on and off through eighth grade; passed decades of his adult life working a job he disliked, killing and cutting up hogs and cattle at a packing plant because he had kids to feed and other employment prospects for people in his circumstances were few. He buried two wives and one child and died himself at a not particularly advanced age.
He wasn't one to adopt fads, but he was all about labor-saving advancements. I recall clearly his enthusiasm for "wash and wear" fabrics back around 1964. And I remember how some years later he greeted the microwave oven (a "Radar Range," as he called it, which was Amana's trade name for its version). I can only imagine his reaction to automatic clothes washers and dryers.
But he did maintain throughout his life one "old-fashioned" perspective: he saw no reason to, and good reason not to, replace any item before it was truly worn out. He recognized baubles for what they were, and took a dim view of those who made gaudy displays of pricy possessions.
One notable exception to his frugal ways was his preference for newish automobiles. He was partial to Ford products, and treated himself to a new one every few years. But this was in the upper Midwest 60 and 70 and 80 years ago, where the roads were heavily salted and when cars typically didn't cover the numbers of miles they do today. I suspect he viewed cars as necessary to his daily life (as they were) and that his days were busy enough without the additional burden of car troubles.