27 Things '60s Kids Did That Would Horrify Us Now

What snowflake helicopter frau wrote this nonsense?

It's all true.

Just a bunch of pussies born after 1975.

r1 Assuming its the same Laurie Sue Brockway. And how many can there be?

In the 70s we spent entire summers all day at the beach with no adult supervision most times. Long Island Sound and Cape Cod Bay. The Sound has no undertow that I remember. It was salty and warm and kids float and we all knew how to swim anyway. I don't remember a single accident all those years. As a teen we used to swing out on a rope on the Palisades and drop into the Hudson River. That was more risky and we knew it. Not the really high cliff but still. I shudder when I think about it. We skied all day in packs, no adults. Sled riding and ice skating, no adults. There were sledding accidents. I'm not sure the presence of adults would have prevented that. When adults came sledding many were reckless.

I like intergenerational conflict listicles!

Around 1971 my mother would drop me off at a park and drive down the road to go shopping at a department store.

[quote] Cereal with Lots of Sugar. Cereal was breakfast. It came in multiple forms of wheat, corn, or oats. Some cereal was pre-sugared, like Trix and Cap'n Crunch. Others, like unsweetened corn flakes, needed vast amounts of spooned sugar to taste good. The sugar bowl sat on the table and you could probably spoon in four tablespoons before Mom warned you about getting a bellyache.

Sure glad those days are gone.

It's a STUPID article. It says there were LOTS of latchkey kids in the 1960's because their mothers starting working out of the house. This was not ubiquitous until the end of the 1970's.

[quote] "Just a bunch of pussies born after 1975."

Hey now, R3. I'm with you on this, but was born in 1980.

Also, I'd love to see this bitch author's own home movies!

The 60s did see a lot of moms working in metro areas

There were maybe 5 things I didn't experience in my childhood -- I was born in the 80s. I'd say a majority of my friends were spanked (beat), we bounced around the back of vehicles with no seatbelts (even in the truck bed), no nets for trampolines, had family that smoked, etc.

[quote] we bounced around the back of vehicles with no seatbelts

Subaru tried to give that a little more dignity

Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, that describes my childhood pretty well.

"Pregnant Women Smoking and Drinking"

This must explain their brain damage and why the country is so fucked with their politics

I'm surprised they didn't mention riding in the open back of a truck. That was fun.

Even though we were outside playing without supervision, my mom did want to know where I was going.

I can attest to all of it.

Born mid-60's. No car seats. Smaller kids were shoved into the back window, called the "Cheap Seats." Walked alone to school, even in kindergarten. All the parents smoked and drank a lot, although the message about lung cancer was reaching some.

On Lake Michigan, we were allowed to spend the day on the beach from the time we were 9 or 10. Make our own lunches and head down. And it is the most dangerous Great Lake--lots of undertows and rip current. Our parents had no idea. We wore baby oil to fry ourselves in junior high/high school. Made and used aluminum foil reflectors to amplify the rays!

We skied, sledded, snowmobiled after school with no parental involvement, even dragging inner tubes on the back of the snowmobiles over great hills around trees.

My parents felt it was teachers' job to teach, so no academic help. My parents never even read to me.

They were in favor of corporal punishment at home and at school. The hairbrush, belt, and wooden spoon.

Some of this was good and some of this was bad. Some of my fondest memories are of being out with my group of friends until 10 pm under the streetlights. We walked along for blocks singing Beatles songs and showtunes. We flirted and shared secrets until our parents yelled it was time to come home.

My point is the parents were poorly informed and equipped and the kids found a way--in a world with no cell phones, no cable, no internet, and no video games--to escape into one another.

Total latchkey kid in the 60s.

However, it was still cool to go to anyone else's house and fill up on food or just hang out.

I remember eating fluffernutter sandwiches and fruit loops, two items strictly verboten in my health nut family.

I can relate to all except for two things.

I never came home to an empty house because my mother picked me up from school through the 6th grade.

Since when does Country Living sound like Buzzfeed?

NO SEAT BELTS! The belts in the backseat didn't even work in my mom's car! I would sit on my knees so I could see over the front seat and watch the world go by!

My dad had a truck and we would scramble into the bed of truck and he would drive 45 mph down Pacific Coast Highway and we would stand up, holding on to the cab of the truck, to experience the thrill of the wind hitting us in the face at that speed!

Those boomer children may have gotten more scrapes and bruises but they weren't weak, fat, and afraid of the world.

Another child of the '50s and '60s, when the world as described in OP's link was an unknown place for exploration and education. Free to roam, free to be and free to learn from mistakes. It taught us resilience, responsibility and prepared us for whatever would come next. I may not have had a happy childhood, but it sure was a fascinating one.

I was born in 1965 and distinctly remember as a small child standing up in the front seat of the car like it was nothing. And yes to my dad's arm across me for a sudden stop, quite amazing when you think about it.

Yes! The "arm bar" across the chest during sudden stops! As if that would save your life!

I can relate to most of the article. Both mu parents were smokers and they didn’t go outside to smoke back then either, just sat around the house puffing away. I’m paying the price for breathing all that secondhand smoke now years later. And sunscreen wasn’t heard of back then, getting sunburned was just a normal part of every summer.

My mom would take my brother and I swimming at the only pool in town. It was located at a sketchy motel by the highway. She'd leave us there while she went to pick up lunch. We were about 5 and 10 at the time.

My parents wouldn't pick me up from soccer practice and I would be left in front of a random grammar school as all the other kids parents' kids got picked up, one by one, until I was all alone. I would sit there for hours as the sun went down, crying, not knowing what to do. Then one of my parents would come roaring up, as I sat there sobbing and terrified, and act like nothing happened, and I was being a pussy!

I quit soccer.

How funny. The Greatest Generation thought they were coddled pussies

R17 very beautifully stated.

R28 aww...that's very sad (but very cute)

Most of the shit was normal then. You could leave your kids alone then and most times they were fine. Kids could go explore on their own. They could walk to school alone.

Today’s kids are coddled but the world has changed for the worst too.

PS there is this tiny kindergartner Jewish boy who used to live near me who would walk to school alone. I used to see him sometimes. He was adorable but I found it strange in to have him going alone in today’s world. But he knew where he was going and walked fast. Looked like a little man. I was impressed.

You would sometimes see him walk home alone too. I wouldn’t have been good for that at 5 (I was 5 in 1991). I would probably get lost. But by the time I was 7 or 8 my mom let me go to school alone.

Our house was across the street from the schoolyard, so walking home alone was no big deal. However, as it was a very busy road, there was a crossing guard at the far corner. I have 5 older siblings, so there was usually someone there when I got home.

I did feel bad for the people who had longer walks during the winter months.

r28, a pain I knew too well. Coaches and friends parents would vent to me about how thoughtless my parents were. I used to cry, too.

Eldergay alert!!! The amount of Eldergays in this post is insane! Someone bring the nurses they have escaped.

One of the crazes at my school in the 60s was clackers.

These were pink or blue glass/hard plastic balls attached by strings to a ring that you held in your fingers.

You clacked the balls together. Many kids got their fingers trapped between the two balls, or hit in the face, causing bruises or worst.

Finally, clackers were no longer allowed at school during recess. But another example of different safety standards in the 60s.

Kids are too coddled now. It’s ok to get bumps and bruises. Maybe we would have less whiny punks crying over stupid shit

[quote]It was salty and warm

That must explain your need to recapture that sensation by becoming a bukkake bottom.

I was born in the 80s and my mom thought nothing of letting us sit in the front seat. My brother and I also fought over our favorite spot in the back seat - the “hump” - aka the armrest. My mom let us sit on the hump as a booster seat and strap the middle seat belt over our lap.

I sat in the front seat growing up, no seat belts either. We had a big old tank of a Chrysler. Cars from that vintage were all thick steel, no? Maybe a collision at 40 mph (in town) would not have been that serious.

R39 yes, cars back then were made stronger and thicker than now.

I remember when lap belts became the norm, and some cars would ‘ding’ or ‘buzz’ until they were fastened. I’d just fasten it and slip it behind me, thinking nothing of it. I used drive barefoot, or in flip-flops, stoned, smoking cigarettes and carrying on like a monkey.

Now, I’m scared to even glance at the radio when I’m on the road.

This is also true of people who grew up in the 80s and most of the 90s.

I’m not an Eldergay. I don’t remember these dark dark times.

I was born in 1962 - yes I'm old and rich.

When I was 4 years, I remember traveling with my mother in her Buick Wildcat convertible with the top down and with me standing in the front seat so I could see over the dashboard. And yes, she would grab my arm to steady me on a curve.

I also remember traveling with my family on vacations with me lying on the rear package shelf so I could see the stars at night. Luckily, my father only drank beer when driving.

I grew up in the 60's in a suburb of a major city. It wasn't built up until my late HS years. We would roam for hours in the fields and woods. Drank from the hose. My parents didn't smoke, but some in the neighborhood did. We peed outside when away from home and got naked and jerked off together in the woods. My dad would rarely give me a swat on the butt when appropriate. The shop & gym teachers as well as the principals had paddles and infractions netted one to three swats. We showered naked in gym and swam naked when a pool was built. Boys only, of course. My dad installed seat belts in the back seat for us kids.

Everytime I see a meme on social media celebrating the good ole days when kids could pile into the back of a pickup truck or station wagon I think about some parent out there who lost a child because of this dangerous activity. There are usually good reasons why some laws get enacted.

My dad would drive with a cup of vodka in his hand and have me work the stick shift because he didn't want to spill his drink!

I remember in the 1960s being dropped off at the movies alone when I was like 5 since they had movie matrons at the theater until like 4 or 5 in the afternoon with their flashlights to keep an eye on the kids. They were kind of like cheap babysitters in a way, but I just in retrospect can't believe my folks left me alone in the theater I think my mother once warned me to move away and towards a matron if any older man tried to sit next to me. Yikes! I guess most of these matrons were kind of butch middle-aged to older ladies who would keep us in line a kids' section.

It's all true! I grew up in the 1960s and my parent's let me bum smokes off of them, as long as I went to the store and bought them their packs. When I was ten my mom let me spend the summer with this guy she knew from work. He had just lost his job, but his family had a summer home in Nantucket and my mom felt bad for him and he asked if he could take me. No background checks or anything.

Born in 1965. Fond memories of getting disciplined with large paddles in school. Some even had ventilation holes for a more aerodynamic swing. Boys would brag about who received more swats. Also remember houseguests firing up cigarettes. My parents didn't smoke. But didn't bat an eye and offered up a very large ashtray. Drownings were rare. But summers were spent swimming in most anything that had water.

[quote] When I was ten my mom let me spend the summer with this guy she knew from work. He had just lost his job, but his family had a summer home in Nantucket and my mom felt bad for him and he asked if he could take me.

Are you two still together?

I remember in the early 80s we'd go miniature golfing and trampolining at this outdoor sports complex type place. The trampolines were built in-ground on a huge section of concrete. No pads or anything. Great times!

Born and raised in NYC in the 1960s and 70s I have great memories of playing tag, stick ball and cooling off with fire hydrants in the city streets. Mind you there were perhaps 50 percent less car traffic then.

[quote] and my parent's let me bum smokes

Oh, dear!

r52 The Family Fun Center on Warner and Magnolia?

R31

You're reminding me of the girl who rode her bike to grade school. Everyone else either had a parent pickup or rode a bus.

On a hot summer day we'd ride our bikes to a swimming hole. Nobody had pools.

I was born in 1971, and most of this was true for me. It was fantastic.

R46 reminded me of something. As a child, I was allowed, or more like begged, to ride in the back of my grandfather's pick-up truck from time to time. It did feel sort of dangerous, but exhilarating at the same time. There's nothing quite like it.

Anyway, for a slightly less wholesome story, I'll fast forward to when I was around 18 or 19 years old, so late eighties/early 90s. I went to a free outdoor concert ( it was Sha Na Na, if anyone cares) with a friend. Our plan for the evening was to drop acid, have a good time, and another friend was supposed to pick us up at the end of the evening. Said friend that was supposed to pick us up, ended up having people over, one thing led to another, and was no longer able to drive. The only person he was hanging out with that night, capable of driving at that point was a guy with an old school/small cab pickup truck. So my LSD taking friend and I ended be driven around the city in the back of a pick-up truck while tripping and laughing our asses off at the absurdity of the whole situation. The whole night was ridiculously good time. I would not go back and change any of it, if anything I'd go back and do it all over again.

And, unlike today, if an older person took enough interest in you, then you took their groping and physical come-ons as a COMPLIMENT.

We didn't scream molestation or rape back then. You put your clothes back on and you walked it off.

As they used to say back then - Secrets are FUN!

If you think riding in the back of a pick-up was dangerous, I have you beat a thousand times over. My best friend's father delivered John Deere equipment to the local farms and we often went with him during the summer. He drove a large flat-bed truck with no sides. After he delivered the machinery, we would ride in the back. He would always admonish us to stay in the middle with our backs against the cab and not stand up but, it was incredibly dangerous, nevertheless.

Well, you had to look in the yellow pages for a lawyer back then and dial a rotary phone. Too much trouble.

My father and my uncle used to drive around in the mountains in NC, with me in the back seat, joy-riding all day long, while they consumed more than a12-pack of beer, and smoked, of course. On the steep twisty dirt roads in the National Forests, we'd have to play chicken with any vehicles coming from the opposite direction, because those roads weren't REALLY wide enough for 2 vehicles to be side by side. Nowadays, people would get shot or pushed off the side of the mountain in those situations. Of course, lots more folks got shot during hunting season by drunk hunters back then. Somehow that doesn't happen as often nowadays.

I'm sure I burned myself a few times with my Creepy Crawlers set.

[quote][Well, you had to look in the yellow pages for a lawyer back then and dial a rotary phone. Too much trouble.

Especially if there was no pencil handy to dial with.

r59 was both an altar boy and a Boy Scout.

R65 - Good guess, but I now have my own diocese!

r40, ummmmm...no

I can guarantee you no shitty article found on the internet will ever make me “scream today”. Millennials and Gen-Z are always consumed in a state of hysterics.

How did they miss getting a ride on the handlebars of a bike. Without helmets, no less.

anything as dangerous as trying to get that wonderful selfie on the cliff's edge or driving while texting?

Kids were not taking hormone blockers back then.

I remember riding on the handlebars of my friend's bike. (Early 70s). We were riding on a side street and passed a group of kids we knew on the sidewalk, shouting something now forgotten to them. We rear-ended a parked car. I ended up on the trunk. We were laughing hysterically. We thought nothing of damage to the car.

Everything is true, in my case without the spanking. Well, there was that hairbrush and that kitchen towel my mom was with after me.

Spending the whole summer at the local public pool in huge mixed peer groups thru puberty and later. Partying with alcohol in the basements in party rooms at 16. Time limit to come home was 2 am.

Oh yes, some scars from early childhood are still visible.

Killers and murders ruined the independence of a child.

Of course another thing we did back in the day was eat peanuts with abandon. Peanut allergies did not exist in my childhood.

Yes, running through the DDT-laced clouds emitted by the bug spray trucks in the cool of the evening...yes, riding bicycles probably 15 miles from home after school, aged 6 to about 9, sometimes ending up so far from home we had little idea how to get back home, and no adults seemed to give a damn. Swinging on vines out over high drops, deep in the woods, and letting go into a lake below, no adults within screaming distance. Nobody wanted to be inside except when cartoons were on tv on Saturday morning, or maybe for a football game, or watching old horror movies that no child that age should be allowed to see. Nobody cared.

r74. I don't think there were more of criminals in the late 60's and early 70s when we grew up. We all were told not to talk to strangers or go with them. We were a peer group of different ages in our neighborhood from age 4 to maybe 12 years old and we were a lot.

^That was the golden age of serial killers.

And most of the families had a family whistle. Remember that?

Ohhhh, we used to DREAM of living in a corridor! Would have been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip! We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us!

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill for fourteen hours a day week in­, week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

What year was the missing child milk carton thing? I think that was when parents started to worry.

In September 1984, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa began printing the photographs of two boys — Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin who went missing while delivering newspapers for the Des Moines Register.

Whatever happened to those 2 boys? I've worried about that FOR YEARS...

R83 I think those started after Etan Patz disappeared in NYC -- was that around 1979?

r 78, yes and through the 80s as well.

And the world has been getting smaller as a result of the media. People started getting frightened and keeping a closer watch on their kids. My straight friends that had kids kept a much closer watch on them than my parents did in my youth. As a kid in the city, I could have been anywhere between 1 and 5 miles from the house.

Yes R76, swinging on vines out over high drops! Because there was actual wild vegetation we kids could get into. Chase and Capture the Flag especially when there was fog. Drinking beers in a grandparents' basements. No parents around and not because they were working.

I was a gayling but also a jock. I was into the smell of boys. I loved the smell of sports and it could range from rank to sweet. I remember this because of the "drinking beers in basements" reference. I LOVED the smell of my buddies' beer breath. Even better, hard sweet liquor breath. Mix in a bit of testosterone and the smell of colognes we wore - pre-axe. Dads colognes. I loved the smell of keg parties. Even better with a fire. In college, I loved the smell of frat parties and booze and sex soaked frat houses the morning after parties.

Sister Batrille would never smack, you stupid bitches.

[quote] Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.

You think that’s bad, we had nothing to eat but the smegma from Jayne Mansfield’s vagina. We would collect the drippings. On Christmas, Easter, and Charles Nelson Reilly’s birthday we would let it congeal, slice it like a cake and eat it with a fork.

Bodysafe Silicone Sex Devices weren't invented yet, so whatever you put up your butt was a major gamble!!!!

I grew up in NYC in the 1960s. Because in the 1950s there was an abduction and murder of a 10 year old boy from my neighborhood while he was delivering newspapers, many parents were extra cautious and would not allow their kids to go out alone to play, they had to be with a sibling or close friend.

Growing up in that era we didn't have the internet and we not exposed to porn. It was fun and a thrill to see a bum, cock or boob with ones innocent slowly being eroded.

Poor kids of today exposed to shit I'm glad I didn't see until I was an adult and even then it was rather tame compared to what is around now.

R80, R81, r82: Luxury ...

But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

A few of these things are still pretty normal in the UK.

Certainly walking to/from school on your own, going out to play all day and going to the park/swimming pool/friends house without your parents. Even latchkey kids to a degree, especially if you have slightly older siblings.

Italy is pretty similar (I live there part of the year), I haven't seen much 'helicopter parenting' anywhere else in Europe either.

R1, I loved the "snowflake helicopter frau" description. I am going to use it for my straight frau acquaintances who are turning into 🚁 mom frauen.

I was in public school in the 3rd grade and the teacher would take students who talked in class or chewed gum out into the hall and 5 times she would strike your palm with a ruler.

^What about when they ate a meatball sandwich right out in class?

They bottomed without lube. Fucking hardcore back then.

There is a genre novelist, Dan Simmons, who used to be a teacher and wrote an essay essentially saying the same things in this article, but he pulled up some study where the average roaming radius of kids before the mid 80’s was something like 2-5 miles, and present day kids were a block or less. At home video games, the internet, and urban development made a huge impact on that.

I was born and bred in Chicago, and used to take the buses and the El all the time by myself to/from school from grade 6 on (so 76-83). I had sketchy men following me all the time, or offering me rides, but I knew how to shake them off. My younger brother, born in 79, used to get men offering him rides, and that point, « Stranger Danger » was a big thing already. He used to point and scream, « MOLESTER » and run away.

R101, Chicago boy here myself. There was a big push for “STRANGER DANGER “ in the late 60s. We even had police officers come to the school warning us. They gave us coloring books too.

Paid attention to where they were driving and walking

[quote]There is a genre novelist, Dan Simmons, who used to be a teacher and wrote an essay essentially saying the same things in this article, but he pulled up some study where the average roaming radius of kids before the mid 80’s was something like 2-5 miles, and present day kids were a block or less.

My kindergarten was three blocks away, no busy streets. I walked it myself.

Elementary and junior high were near each other, maybe 3 miles away with LOTS of busy streets and no bike lanes. I rode to and from without a bike helmet.

I also remember the Thanksgiving when my cousin showed up smoking; he was 14. Of course his father smoked and decided 14 was mature enough, so he bought my cousin cigs. You could also smoke in high school in the "smoking pits." The poor janitors who had to clean THAT up.

Oh got yes anyone who wanted could smoke in HS. 3-5 miles seems about right. We couldn't go out of the suburban development into other ones, without saying something, BUT, strangely, we could go into the forests and quarries that backed up to ours and they were many dozens of square miles with warn paths for motorcycles, minibikes and snow mobiles. Also we could go to the Country clubs which were across the highway.

worn

In high school we could go anywhere. To the city, to the mountains, to the beach. We could go to beach houses and ski houses for overnights alone - with girls! - but not for a week alone.

My parents liked camping, because it was the cheapest vacation going. When evening came, the parents would send us kids out into the woods to look for wood for a campfire, starting when I was like 5 years old. Since the woods around the campsites had usually been picked clean of firewood by previous campers, the parents would yell at us and send us back out to look some more.

Can you imagine a modern parent, in the evening woods, yelling at a small child to "WELL GO DEEPER INTO THE WOODS, THEN! YOU'RE JUST LAZY!!"?

Most things on that list are things everybody did, not just kids. Some of it is easily explained:

Seat belts were in their infancy and there was no such thing as a baby capsule or special seat. You can't use what you don't have. There was also a lot less traffic on the roads, so even though of course the way kids were seated in cars was way less safe than now, there was also less chance something would run into them.

Sunscreen didn't exist in its present form, and tanning was considered the height of attractiveness, especially with miniskirts coming in. Even so, kids where I live were all sternly told to put Zinc on their faces for a day at the beach. Adults didn't do this unless playing sport for extended periods. It was a really thick white paste that you could just as easily use as warpaint while playing Cowboys and Indians (another shock horror thing kids did then).

I was a latchkey kid in the 60s but it was incredibly rare. I never met anyone my age who also was. We were lower middle class, though. I daresay it was more common in the working class because of necessity.

The early 60s was the height of the baby boom, so playing all day with other kids in your street and walking to school or the beach with a group of just kids were different propositions, because there were kids everywhere and they mostly moved in bunches. You didn't have to walk past twenty houses that were empty or had only old people to visit a friend, because every second house was teeming with kids. Also, nearly all the mothers were still home all day and the dads were out. In the suburbs, every mother on the block would know all the block kids, so if anything went wrong everyone knew whose Mom was in the nearest house and felt entitled to go get her. Mothers and grandmothers also shopped at the corner store or the suburb's high street, so there were usually adults you knew wandering around. Until you got old enough to hitchhike the conditions were very unfavorable to stranger-danger types. (Sadly, they were far more favorable to abuse and molestation inside the home when Dad or Stepdad WAS home.)

Lots of teenagers did hitchhike in the 60s and 70s, often because public transport was pretty terrible, but even tweens knew it was seriously dangerous, and any reasonable parent would have forbidden it. By the early 70s we also knew smoking was no good for you, but the kids who took up these activities often did it to show they were cool risk-takers, so there was no getting to them.

R108, is your name Hansel?

Of course the upside to clinical neglect was a certain freedom of movement, and kids were able to go camping without adult supervision as soon as anyone could drive. As soon as kids started turning 16 and getting junker cars, my friends and I would take the cars camping for weekends. So high school kids age 15-16-17 would get in their cars, drive 4-6 hours on Friday night, camp and hike all weekend, and come home sunday night, with no adult supervision.

Try that these days and you'd be hearing from the police, but it actually made sense. This was the 70s, and the kids who were going to get into real trouble did so at parties or clubs, where there were drugs and alcohol to make things worse. Maybe the parents realized that closeted boys and nerdy girls sleeping in pup tents weren't going to do anything worse than break their legs rock climbing.

r111. This sounds very much like my own time in the late 70s without the driving, because wev had to be 18 for a car driver's license. As a fun fact, no teenager pregnancy happened in my cohort.

R112, you had to be 18 to drive a car? Where the hell did you live?

Half of my teen years would have been utterly destroyed without a license and car.

I was born in 1960. Latch key kid. I was basically left alone during the day. A couple of guys in the neighborhood my age would jack off with me occasionally. Good times.

r113. Germany. Anyway it is interesting that we share so many memories even grown up in a complete different country. And you have still to be 18 today in Germany to get your driving license. There is a thing called accompanied driving which allows you to drive at the age of 17 with an adult holder of a driving license. Drinking beer, wine, sparkling wine, cidre is 16, harder stuff 18. Smoking at 18, during my HS time it was 16 and we had smoker corners at the school. Sex at 14 with the same age and when consensual and with the older partner not older than 21.

Finding good lead paint chips to chew on is also a thing of the past.

And asbestos heaps to dive into.

The dumbing down of American education began when they took away childrens' home atomic energy laboratories.

The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106?), a gamma source (Zn-65), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a Geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual "Prospecting for Uranium."

Learned?

We had massive imaginations. If no one was around, I’d drag my Smurf collection down to a stream and set up a little village.

After “The Goonies” came out we tried to build a pirate ship, only to have it collapse overnight.

Our hide and seek games would stretch for blocks.

Skipping school and forging notes was an art form unto itself. Our Boomer teachers were terrible. A bright spot in middle school was my margin note on a test, telling the teacher to f— off.

School, for many of us, was an infinitesimal part of life. Kids get so stressed over it now. I rarely did homework, still passed and did just fine at a decent college.

Every generation thinks younger people are "soft" - what a stupid thing to say, especially on a gay board since that's an insult frequently thrown at gay men

Every generation thinks their generation was the best.

You focus on the good things, but not the bad. In the 60s sodomy laws were still on the books in most states and there was still Jim Crow in the South. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness.

My parents, aunts and uncles grew up in the 60s and they spent a lot of times playing by train tracks. My moms friend lost his arm and my uncles friend died. I grew up terrified of trains after hearing these stories.

Gen z may be soft and annoying but I like how kids have a voice now and their parents treat them with more compassion. They aren’t afraid to tell their parents if something feels wrong.

[quote] My dad would drive with a cup of vodka in his hand and have me work the stick shift because he didn't want to spill his drink!

My dad made me drive him to the liquor store as a tornado was heading our way because he was out of whiskey. In fairness, he was too drunk to drive, so he was being responsible.

Lesbian born in '69 here. I relate to most of this. Except that my parents were paranoid evangelicals so we got plenty of warnings about not letting strange men approach us or not being allowed to stay over at a friend's house if they had brothers, etc. We used to sit in the back of my dad's truck...sometimes on the tire hump when he drove us around. It was so fun. No one ever thought about it being dangerous. Mom was a stay at home mother throughout the 70's so she was always around but most days we were outside playing or riding bike. We walked a mile down the street to the Junior High to go to school, often on railroad tracks with active trains. We knew not to fuck with the trains but we would often leave pennies on the tracks to get squished. Always hard to find them after the train went by. We would go out trick or treating alone with a group of our friends...always around the neighborhood. I remember driving an hour each way to see my grandma and sleeping on the way home next to my sister with the back seat down of the station wagon down, blankets and pillows laid out for us. Dangerous, but the feel of the wheels spinning underneath us always put us to sleep quickly.

I remember drinks from the hose many times throughout the day if we were outdoors. And my grandma smoking constantly (lung cancer killed her). I got busted one time for going to get a beer for my Uncle once from the fridge. Mom had a cow as he was a nasty alcoholic but he asked and I went and got it for him and got in major trouble. He had come home from Vietnam an alcoholic.

We played outdoors more than we played indoors. And always with our friends from the neighborhood. The only rule was we had to be home when the street lights came on because mom had dinner ready. And then we set the table, cleaned the table and did the dishes and dried them. We were maybe 7?

Honestly my childhood was golden...up to a point and then my parent's marriage fell apart and my dad tried to kill my mom. But I am glad I grew up when I did and survived. I have no idea how kids today grow as people if all they do is play video games and bash each other on social media.

Hey, we put pennies on train tracks when I was a kid! They'd flatten out to 2-3 inches around. I never heard of a kid getting killed by a train for all the lack of adult supervision, I mean I lost classmates to car crashes and daddy's unsecured gun, but trains? A kid would have to be too stupid to live, to not notice a train coming!

Now I live near some train tracks, and I need to see if there's a break in the fence. I've got some pennies...

Ha! R126, I do remember there was a guy in our small town who drove onto the train tracks and committed suicide like that. But I'd never heard of any kid getting killed on them. I loved walking down those tracks to school. In fact, when I went to film school, I shot my student film on those very same tracks. They are gone now as the train stopped running through there in the late 90's.

Born in 1963 living in older suburbs here. If it was during the day I rarely reported my plans, or location to my parents. I was an obedient child and was told to "use your best judgment" which I did. Basically I went and did whatever I pleased, it was wonderful.

I could smoke at home at age 15, but my parents warned me it was hard to quit and I'd have to buy them myself! At seventy-five cents a pack, it was no hardship.

[quote]This is also true of people who grew up in the 80s and most of the 90s.

I grew up in the 90s and I can't relate to about half of the stuff on this list or I vaguely remember things similar to this but they were quickly phased out.

My older sister and I used to ride our bikes without helmets but by the time my younger sister was born, that was a no-no. They actually gave the kids helmets at school.

I do remember a few times when a fireman would come and open up a fire hydrant but I was very, very young.

The coming home to an empty house happened because both of our parents worked. The hitting "stopped" by the time my little sister was born and growing up mostly because our parents knew better, as in, they knew if we told someone at school they'd be in trouble.

[quote] My moms friend lost his arm

Well, if he hasn’t found it by now, I’m afraid it’s lost forever.

[quote] There was also a lot less traffic on the roads, so even though of course the way kids were seated in cars was way less safe than now, there was also less chance something would run into them.

I would add people drove a lot slower then as well.

[quote]I have no idea how kids today grow as people if all they do is play video games and bash each other on social media.

That's not all they do, though. Surely you didn't mean this literally?

My Gilbert chemistry set had chemicals in it such as copper chloride and sodium bisulfite, which were highly toxic if ingested. They had warnings on the bottles, but still, there they were for the kid to use.

I also had an Atomic Energy Lab experiment set, which included a small packet of uranium ore and a pin in a cork, which had a tiny dab of radium paint on the pinhead. Yoi could build a "cloud chamber" as one of the experiments.

All of this would be unthinkable today.

In the UK we also used to pick a lot of 'Magic Mushrooms' in the 70's and soak then in gin or vodka. Probably still goes on now that though, they grow wild everywhere.

I disagree with R17. It all depended on where and the circumstances of your birth. I was born in 1963. I remember riding in the backseat of the car without seatbelts or between the adults in the front seat. I also remember laying a bassinet with a baby in it on the backseat -- all without seat belts. Never did they allow a kid to sit let alone sleep on the back widow of the car.

I grew up in NYC. We walked to grade school alone from the 5th grade. In high school I took the subway alone.

My parents were well educated. They read to us and encouraged us to read.

I remember being told to turn the tv off and go outside to play.

We played street hockey, touch football in the street, or stick ball there, getting out of the way when a car came down the street.

We had no problem ringing a doorbell and asking if so-and-so could come out to play.

We tanned in the sun, but I knew no one who slathered baby oil on themselves.

The Ethan Patz case changed a great deal about how parents raised their kids.

My parents used to send me out to buy cigarettes and (to my eternal shame) Ortho-Gyno crème with a handwritten note permitting me to buy them.

When we went on a driving vacation with our relatives, my cousins and I would all fight to ride in the back of the station wagon, the prize seat being the tail lift? Back door? (I don’t know the proper term) that had a backwards facing fold down seat. Since there were no seat belts, we would be squirming around playing like ferrets in a cage. It would be inevitable that someone would always barf on the journey, usually the person who was sitting backwards.

[quote] that had a backwards facing fold down seat.

Ooooh, y’all were fancy. My parents’ wagon didn’t have that. Just the floor to sit on.

My father would send me, to the cigarette vending machine. I could keep the 10 Pfennig which were attached to the box.

It seems like kids were there to serve the parents, and presently the positions have reversed.

[quote] It seems like kids were there to serve the parents

Certainly true before television remote controls were widely available

The sugary cereals bit made me laugh. It's true that there were a lot of sugary cereals, but kids then still weren't as fat as the ones today.

Adults never accompanied us when Trick or Treating. That would have sucked. There were always four or five or us and we walked all over the place.

I know my boomer mom (a year off from being Gen X) had a smoking lounge in her high school for the students. I couldn't even imagine.

R142 Same here. We were only allowed to go trick-or-treating on our block and across the street but no further, and our parents left us alone. Afterwards we would gather in one of our basements, go through the candy, and have a small party.

The article seems pretty tongue-in-cheek