# 50s/60/70s: What was it with kids' bedtimes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 8, 2025, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778 "2025-10-08T10:50:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/1 "2025-10-08T10:50:04Z")
Like many kids, I had a bedtime. But I always found it to be absurdly early. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t ready for bed, I’d go to bed at 7 pm or 8 pm as my parents demanded, and lie awake for hours (often until 11 pm) staring into black space until sleep took me, and then I’d still be up at 0600 or 0700. This bothered my father, who would not let me get up until … well, that’s besides the point. Point is, that if you want kids to go to bed early, why do you complain when they get up so early? Why do/did parents institute absurdly early bedtimes for children, and then complain when the kids got up absurdly early? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/2 "2025-10-08T10:51:57Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t ready for bed, I’d lie awake for hours staring into black space until sleep took me, and then I’d still be up at 0600. This bothered my father, who would not let me get up until … well, that’s besides the point. Point is, that if you want kids to go to bed early, why do you complain when they get up so early? It sounds like the goal is to get the kids out of the way so they won’t inconvenience the parents. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/3 "2025-10-08T10:52:01Z")
I was the oldest of 5 siblings. Hell, if I had 5 young kids in the house I’d want them asleep or at least sequestered in their bedrooms all the damned day! Added: Ninja’d by @Der_Trihs but we’re basically saying the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/4 "2025-10-08T11:07:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It sounds like the goal is to get the kids out of the way so they won’t inconvenience the parents. Inconvenience the parents doing what? Oh, I know what you’re saying, and I agree. My folks had two kids and then quit making love. Really. And that’s enough about that; I do not wish to discuss it further. But I know what you are saying. Back to the OP: what purpose can be served by making kids go to bed so early? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/5 "2025-10-08T11:09:28Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Inconvenience the parents doing what? Reading. Talking. Watching TV. Playing cards. All sorts of things. A kid who is silent and out of sight is one that isn’t a distraction or inconvenience. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/6 "2025-10-08T11:31:30Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It sounds like the goal is to get the kids out of the way so they won’t inconvenience the parents. That was it for us. Having kids around all day can be exhausting. We had no qualms about sequestering them in their rooms at a relatively early hour. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/7 "2025-10-08T11:33:16Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I’d go to bed at 7 pm or 8 pm as my parents demanded, and lie awake for hours (often until 11 pm) staring into black space until sleep took me Especially annoying when it’s summer and it’s not fully dark out at 10 p.m.! I wish I had true blackout curtains as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/8 "2025-10-08T11:38:30Z")
In the 60s I could go to bed whenever I wanted, but that usually meant around 9 pm. I needed a good 10 hours of sleep a night when I was a kid. On weekends I would sleep in till noon as a teenager. Nowadays I automatically wake up at 5 am, or even earlier, each morning, so to get a good 8 hours of sleep I have to be asleep by 9 pm every night. Some things never change. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/9 "2025-10-08T11:47:04Z")
I honestly don’t remember my bedtime in my early childhood days but, from about 3rd grade on, it was after the news (11:00 pm EST). I could get 8 full hours of sleep even getting up at 7:00 am. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/10 "2025-10-08T12:55:06Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Having kids around all day can be exhausting. We had no qualms about sequestering them in their rooms at a relatively early hour. My daughter and her husband have declared “relax time” - their 3-y/o son gets to watch a story on TV, and their 7-y/o daughter gets tablet time. That way both kids are quiet and Mom and Dad get some wind-down time. When I was a kid, bedtime was 9, and that habit followed me almost to this day. It’s rare for me to be up past 10, and I’m 71!!! ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/11 "2025-10-08T12:56:41Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Especially annoying when it’s summer and it’s not fully dark out at 10 p.m.! I only had a bedtime on school nights. I could stay up and watch scary movies at one in the morning during the summer for all my parents cared. Bedtimes were for making sure there was no drama getting ready for school in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/12 "2025-10-08T13:16:15Z")
Child of the 70’s our bed time ranged from 9-10p but was not a hard limit and I also remember staying up till the TV network went off the air for the night, not usually but yes sometimes. But around 7-8p it was really venture into your own bedroom time, play Atari a bit, play a bit and mostly watch TV, till falling asleep with the TV going which my Dad would then shut off after I went to sleep. Morning time, sometimes there are a request to go back to bed, but usually it was TV watching in my room morning time so not a big deal. I think that generational shift from an all in one family room to fully equipped self contained individual child life pod bedrooms was a large factor here. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/13 "2025-10-08T13:25:01Z")
70s child here. Ours was 9pm. I always wanted it to be 10pm. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/14 "2025-10-08T13:27:30Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I think that generational shift from family room to fully equipped bedroom was a large factor here. Yeah. As a little kid in the early 1960s there was one TV in the house and it was in the living room. Bedrooms had toys, books, & a bed. And a sibling. My memories are fuzzy, but ISTM school-aged bedtimes were mostly driven by the early wakeup time needed to prep multiple kids and have them all out the door for the ~7am bus. All that would be torture for a congenital nightowl. OTOH it would be excellent training for their following 40+ years working. 😉 I also grew up near the US southern border. Net of DST, sunset was never much after bedtime even in July. Somebody immediately on either side of the US/Canada border, and/or at the far western edge of their time zone would have a very different relationship between sunset and kidly bedtime. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/15 "2025-10-08T13:29:22Z")
If you were seen as a tiresome, unwanted nuisance (like me) you would be put to bed as early as possible and walloped if you dared get out. Later, I would be treated to a symphony of moans, groans, and headboard banging from the other room for what seemed like an hour on my cell wall. ---
**Author:** ![Nyvaak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/16 "2025-10-08T13:32:15Z")
To be honest, I don’t think it was _always_ just to get a break from having kids underfoot. My mother was a firm believer in - well, nearly any medical advice she had heard when she was a kid in the 20s. I can’t count the number of times I heard that children needed 10 hours of sleep in order to grow, and that “every hour of sleep before midnight is as good as _two_ hours after midnight.” I can’t conceive of the physiological basis for that latter, but she had heard it somewhere, and thus it was gospel. (Along with breakfast being the most important meal of the day, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/17 "2025-10-08T14:10:19Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Somebody immediately on either side of the US/Canada border, and/or at the far western edge of their time zone would have a very different relationship between sunset and kidly bedtime. Yep - when I attended summer camp in northern Michigan, the combination of DST and our location within the time zone made pre-sunset bedtimes routine. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/18 "2025-10-08T14:28:38Z")
Born in the mid-70s. My “school night” bedtime was 9-9:30 p.m. for the longest. For most of the year, that was not an issue, but at the beginning of the school year in August, it was torturous, as it was still quite light outside and I could look out my bedroom window to see some of my friends still outside having a good time. We could petition to stay up later, usually if there was a special “movie of the week” that we wanted to watch. Approval would mean taking an hour nap earlier in the day though. These bedtimes were gradually increased as we got older, and IIRC was 10:30pm by the time I entered High School. In HS, it was 11 pm unless we wanted to watch the 11 O’clock news. This is actually how I got into actively watching the news and getting into world events :D. By my Jr year in HS, I was often up late completing HW, writing papers, or studying, so my bedtime was waived altogether as long as getting up in the am for school didn’t become a problem. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/19 "2025-10-08T14:30:53Z")
I was an only child and there was no getting me out of the way. I needed sleep for school. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/20 "2025-10-08T14:51:16Z")
Born in the early 50’s. I don’t remember the hour of bedtime, but it was probably around 8, because I was only put to bed before dark during the longest days of summer. I complained about it some, but I don’t think I actually stayed awake all that long. Most of the year I had to get up early for school, and I needed a lot of sleep as a child. (I still needed nine hours until I was in my sixties.) I do remember demanding a night light, reading by the night light after lights out, and then calling my mother to turn out the night light when I was ready to actually go to sleep. For some reason, at the time, I didn’t think my mother was on to this, even though I did it often. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778.md?page=2)