I mean, they're not wrong

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Smokeythemagickamodo@reddit

Yeah I am lucky I didn’t get run over biking across a big city.

Also finding forest porn was something else

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jaymzx0@reddit

Younger generations think we're full of shit when we say there was porn in the woods. There absolutely was. We all had a sixth sense to find it. Like a built-in dousing rod.

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Smokeythemagickamodo@reddit

Lol it was almost like our rite of passage. It was an upgrade to the TV boobs lol

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Turbulent_Tale6497@reddit

There was literally a TV commercial to remind our parents to see if we were alive. They’d legit forget otherwise

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jaymzx0@reddit

I want to see this commercial.

I bet it played during those sucky hours between The Price is Right and Tiny Toons.

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Turbulent_Tale6497@reddit

It ran at 10pm

https://youtu.be/PTCrgovX3mc?si=NvY5V14nyX4xknba

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jaymzx0@reddit

So that's where that came from! I've been here on the West Coast my whole life so we only heard echos of it though pop culture.

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drewbaccaAWD@reddit

How did we get to now though? What the fuck happened?

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Kain-rpg@reddit

not only that

the world alos became less secure

Not that nothing ever happened before, but with times shit became more and more dangerous.

With kids been less and less independant/ready to fight, so parents really had to look after them as they where afraid to let them go.

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drewbaccaAWD@reddit

In what ways has shit become more dangerous?

The only significant change for the worse that I can think of between the 90s and now is the increased number of distracted drivers due to chronic cell phone usage.

I don't think things are worse, we just hear about them now. Things like the George Floyd protest only happened because 90% of us are walking around with video cameras in our pockets so abuse from authorities is now being recorded and shared and if the situation is bad enough, that leads to protests. Likewise, we all witnessed Alex Pretti and Renee Good being shot because so many of us have the ability to capture video in the moment.

I do think things are worse for kids, specifically. Bullying from peers has reached an entirely new level due to the internet and social media. Large numbers of them can coordinate using social media too, sometimes to bad outcomes. But like in Pittsburgh where I'm at we have large gangs of teens roaming around downtown after school and causing chaos but I can't even blame that on social media, the bus system is feeding into that, and it's still an isolated problem in a relatively larger city and not a common problem everywhere.

We've always had methheads, needles on the ground, etc. in larger cities. That existed in the 80s too. Again, just more boosted by social media. We have a greater awareness, not more drug addicts (that I'm aware of).

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CokBlockinWinger@reddit

In the US, you were statistically more likely to be murdered between the 1960’s to the 1990’s then now. What’s changed is how we handle the constant and immediate stream of information informing us of every incident, making it seem more frequent now. It’s driven us all to paranoia.

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Kain-rpg@reddit

true

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CharlieMoonMan@reddit

Couldn't cross Yuma and Odana. Those were the rules. I mean we did, but those were the rules as written.

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jaymzx0@reddit

But Yuma had that convenience store on the other side with the $0.25 Red Vines and nobody would know if you stopped there for just a sec...

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Diligent_Kitchen7705@reddit

Me and the kids on my block never left the boundaries... but the woods in between the neighborhoods were always hosting a pine cone/man hunt war!

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whinniethepony@reddit

Man hunt. That's a game I haven't thought of in decades.

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VicYuri@reddit

Yeap after morning chores it was get out of the house and don't come back till the street lights are on.

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Seattle_Lucky@reddit

Yep, and I’d go out and do stupid shit, come back bleeding or with a broken arm and no one would question my parent’s capabilities…

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DirtyBirdDawg@reddit

One time when I was kid, I was climbing a very small tree in the front yard with a neighbor kid who lived a few houses down from me. I somehow fell out of that tree and really hurt myself. My parents... didn't really care all that much. You would think that their nine-yearbokd child laying motionless in the front yard might be a cause for concern but it was the 80s. There was no concern.

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jaymzx0@reddit

"What's he doing out there now?"

"Who knows"

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VicYuri@reddit

I came home after actually breaking my arm and my mom grumbles and reluctantly got me to the ER. Like sorry my unsupervised butt got hurt.

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xt0rt@reddit

I was racing a friend around a factory parking lot on our BMXs and at the last moment I call "first one to hit the sign wins!!" WHAM! I backhand the sign and nearly cut my middle finger in half.

8 go home and my mom and dad debate taking me to the ER because "they'll want to him him stitches, and that will scare/upset him". Needless to say that we didn't go to the er and didn't get stitches. To this day my right hand middle finger has a scar and a decent amount of scar tissue making it look a bit different than my left hand.

It was fine. It would have upset me lol

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Somegirls85@reddit

Normal summer day in the 90s

gif

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jaymzx0@reddit

Those were great times. Eventually mom stopped asking about the skinned knees and elbows during the summer.

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Gunslinger1925@reddit

I grew up in a small border town. We were asked to stay off the highways and keep within a several mile zone. There were plenty of desert fields with bike trails to race down and areas to explore.

When we got older, we'd bike to the middle and highschools and race around the tracks or explore some of the other sports fields.

I remember this one time, we kind of ignored the highway rule and road out to D-hill. That was fun, especially the ride back as we were flying.

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LackingUtility@reddit

I have more friends my age without kids than with.

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djsynrgy@reddit

The thing that kills me about this, is it's pretty much on us. We're the parents denying our kids' childhoods.

Conversely, it's our parents' generation(s) that ruined it for us, somehow switching from raising us be wherever/whenever, to calling CPS anytime they happen to see a kid outside.

It's all so disheartening/depressing.

"But the world is so much more dangerous, now!" - Helicopter Parents

Except it's actually infinitely safer, by just about any metric/statistic; the difference is we have more access/exposure to scary information. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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DashSnowden@reddit

I think the reason Gen X parents are so overprotective is because they remember how much shit they were getting away with when their parents weren't watching.

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NoInvestment3870@reddit

There were times I called my parents at like 9 to say I was spending the night at a friends house, “Okay, are you staying the weekend?”.

It was such a different time.

I don’t have active tracking/monitoring on any of my teens phones out of principal, but it’s somewhat expected to at least update on what’s going on without being a chore.

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Kain-rpg@reddit

this

as i got older and i was amongst the 1st generation with cellphones ( good old Nokia 1610), she only required of me to call her if i changed location and with whom i was and their number, so that if something happened she knew where to go and pick me and if she couldn't reach me at least try to get the other person and also what kinda clothes i had, so that she could identify my body if something happened.

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Ok_Evening2804@reddit

Yep, and her putting into your mind that she might have to I'd your body made you be more careful while you were out. The system worked.

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rearwindowpup@reddit

They were asking you if you were gone the weekend hoping you would be and planting the idea if you werent, lets be real

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NoInvestment3870@reddit

Yeah, that never flew over my head. I had some good friends whose parents understood that mine were going through issues.

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Texas_Kimchi@reddit

We had a Thomas Guide and my Mom drew a border around where I could go. Probably a 10 mile radius. Me and my friends would get on our bikes and just roam around. We lived in a bad neighborhood too but things were different. Talk about it takes a village. If you did something wrong, some random neighbor down the street would tell you parents and you'd have no clue your parents even had friends! Was incredible and it teaches you a lot of responsibility and life skills being able to roam.

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strangesam1977@reddit

From the age of 7-8 in the mid 80s I’d walk to friends houses, school or the shops by myself.

By the age of 12 hopping on public transport to spend the day in central London by myself shopping or in museums at the weekend was quite normal.

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sacrelicio@reddit

I feel like this is overblown. I wasn't allowed to leave my block until I was probably 9 or so. We ran around outside until dark but it was a dead end street. Some parents were overprotective back then too.

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Inevitable-While-577@reddit

Overblown as fuck, and probably an American thing. I was never allowed alone outside and honestly wouldn't have known where to go. A good part of the year would be too cold for this, too, where I live.

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Charrbard@reddit

Probably depends on where you live. It was extremely common in rural areas.

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Sad-Structure2364@reddit

I grew up in upstate NY, suburban leaning towards rural. I basically had free rein to go wherever I wanted from after breakfast to nighttime. I will say I did enjoy TV and video games so it wasn’t just me being feral 24/7

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Kenway@reddit

I live in Canada, we would go explore in the winter too. Just get bundled up.

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tedsgloriousmustache@reddit

Even better, I was the youngest of three, by the time I was 9 or 10, in the summer I stayed home alone with very little supervision from my sister who was 3 years older because my parents both worked!

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militant-hippie@reddit

News flash, mammals are supposed to watch their own kids all day. It's the shipping them off to indoctrination camps while we slave that's unnatural.

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DBZDOKKAN@reddit

I was in the woods alone a lot as a kid. I have no survival skills. I was just out there ready for danger.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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elonmusktheturd22@reddit

The porch this was probably around 1986 or 87. My youngest sister wasn't around yet. So my mother was probably around 30 at the time, and may have been on her cycle, why she had explosive anger for seemingly no reason. Though my father had similar explosive anger, never would know what set them off. Like just walking across the room would piss them off.

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ailish@reddit

I used to just take the bus all over town by myself.

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TK-385@reddit

I was told when it's gets dark on weekdays and by midnight on weekends. But I'm in California which still has Daylight Savings Time so at 7:30 pm, there is still light.

As for dumb shit. Well, a friend and I took those red Radio Flyer wagons up the steepest street in the neighborhood. We put these collapsing seats we found in his garage in the wagons and rolled down the street without any method of slowing down or stopping. We stopped only when we hit the curb and went flying out into someone's yard. The street was part of a T shaped section meaning it a vehicle could've hit us from either direction. I think we were trying to replicate the Beavis and Butthead episode where Beavis kicks Butthead in a tire downhill.

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Sirtriplenipple@reddit

Kids back then weren’t hopelessly fucking stupid. And the internet didn’t exist.

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Charrbard@reddit

12 riding your bike to the store. Sometimes to the post office.

I'd go to my cousin, and we would pretty much go out into the mountains on four-wheelers. oldest of us being like 14. No phones. no helmets. No cares. We'd go back at sundown to play video games.

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Ghoulie_Marie@reddit

When I was 7 I'd be gone on my bike all day. The only rule was don't ride on or across the highway. Let your kid do that now and you'll be arrested

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moving2mars@reddit

This is so obnoxious. You know the truth because we have fucking computers in our pockets. Is it so hard to fathom that we had the freedom to do what we wanted?? How old is Thrilla the Gorilla or is it a bot??

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JorgeMcKay@reddit

I lived in a rural area. I was allowed to go in certain fields or woods as long as it wasn't a hunting or planting season, and I was allowed to go bicycling within a certain radius of my house. I just had to have morning chores done, be back by dinner, then evening chores

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21n39e@reddit

there was less predators, more neighborhood watch I imagine.

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ZestycloseProject130@reddit

Not true, actually!

But there was far less unfounded fear, and more trust.

There was also an outside you could play in. It wasn't all HOA's and parking lots back then. There were fields, and woods.

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MarsR0ve4@reddit

I can't believe kids don't roam around freely anymore. Thats crazy! I had 1 rule in the summer - call before it gets dark. And half the time I'd forget and my parents still didn't care.

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Kain-rpg@reddit

My mom would give me a watch and tell me the time i needed to be back or call her i was like 7.

Having the watch on my wrist bothered me so i took it off and either put it in my pocket and lost it while playing

or i would put it someplace and forget about it.

So yeah i never actually bothered with the actual hour, i just knew that in the summer the streetlioghts where going On around 20h and that was the time to go back.

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Kain-rpg@reddit

My Mom saw me around the house only 2 hours in the morning while i was eating breakfast, watching the morning cartoons.

Then 4 hours in the evening when i came back home at 20h, covered in Mud, dirt, with scrapped Knees and a bloody nose and a missing tooth, while she asked me if i had any fun today, and then tell me to get washed up and seated cause dinner was ready and there was a rerun of Indiana jones or Robocop on TV, before going to bed while i fell asleep reading Dragon ball.

So yeah, for nearly 14 to 16 hours a day, My Mom had no idea where i was and i left her alone to do whatever she had to do.

Happened a couple of times that my Grandpa was taking me from the boarding school while my Mom was at work, i would throw my bags in the house, then run to the Arcade cause i came up with a new strategy to beat my friends at Killer Instincts or MKII, spending the whole darn weekend out of the house and then on Monday morning before going to school it was the first time that i saw my mom and she saw me.

Now, She was kinda pissed that for the whole weekend she barely saw me and i din't go and say hello to her after been for the whole week at school, but yeah

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portmanteautally@reddit

My neighborhood was just a roaming tornado of children spinning in a chaos spiral from one family's house to another. It was awesome.

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CSweetfever@reddit

Digging is ditches is the only way to find shark teeth

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MoarFlavor@reddit

As extremely young kids, my friends and I were picked up by the police in the middle of the night, miles away from our homes. We were caught with eggs and toilet paper, laying waste to houses and vehicles in a random neighborhood.

The guy lectured us, asked us where we lived, drove us close to our houses, and dropped us off on our street without ever saying a word to our parents.

If any youngsters would like to repeat this process and report back, please let me know how it works out for you! I’m betting we’d find out quickly how much the times have changed. The hype is real.

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q120@reddit

Riding bikes, hiking, standing under waterfalls, playing video games at friends houses, water fights, rising water slides at the amusement park for hours, fireworks… ahh the stuff I did during the summer time as a kid

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DirtyBirdDawg@reddit

After church on Sundays, my parents may or may not see me for the rest of the day. There were at least five different friends' houses that I would go to. Either that, or off in the woods somewhere, or just riding our bikes all around the neighborhood. Our parents had us on the barest of leashes.

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Hefty-Prize5713@reddit

Once I was gifted a bike and taught how to ride it…I was exploring the city 😆

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Elandycamino@reddit

Mom always told us to try not to die. We didn't let her down.

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Kandlish@reddit

We were so lucky that our grandma lived within walking distance. We spent a lot of time just wandering over to Grandma's house.

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jtho78@reddit

Not to mention parents absent from sports practice/games, +1 to birthday parties, or rides to school.

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DegTrader@reddit

My parents didn't use a tracking app; they just assumed if I wasn't dead, I was probably having fun somewhere they didn't want to know about.

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salsanacho@reddit

How many of you were latchkey kids too? We'd come home from school and watch cartoons until our parents came home at dinner time.

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Boring_Pace5158@reddit

We would go “skiing,, go down hills on rollerblades

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Josephthebear@reddit (OP)

Devil's backbone

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DasKittySmoosh@reddit

I am incredibly blessed to live in an apartment community where the kids get to experience this. It’s a smaller gated apartment complex with inner courtyard and balconies that overlook. So starting at 6 our own (and other) kiddo was able to go out and play without parents RIGHT THERE, but also we can see everything from our balcony so there’s still way more supervision than we had, but they still feel more independent

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Just_Another_AI@reddit

Yeah. On bikes as kids, and we had dirtbikes as teens

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RipErRiley@reddit

My mom would just point in a direction if a friend visited to look for me. “He took off that way”.