# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/41 "2025-10-08T23:20:05Z")
By the time I was a teenager my parents frequently returned from work much later than whatever actual time I went to bed, if they returned at all. Sometimes they just slept at work. I am very much a night owl and always have been. I’d usually stay up late scaring the shit out myself with _Unsolved Mysteries_ before trying to get to sleep. This was the 90s. ---
**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 9, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/42 "2025-10-09T00:49:09Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > was 90+ degrees at that time of the for most of the year, and air conditioning was rare In those days. For 2-3 months it might be 100+ most days. It wasn’t really safe to play outside. > > Taking a nap was de rigueur even for many adults in physical jobs I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t have taken naps. I meant that the longer sleep time at night went with not taking naps. Sorry that I wasn’t clear. Yes, societies in hot areas often sleep in the afternoon for good reason; and then, having gotten some of their sleep during the day, are able to stay up late at night. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I used to have a “play nap”, where i was expected to play quietly. I had something like that too; a while during the afternoon when I was expected to be in my room and quiet, but not necessarily asleep. My oldest sister apparently resented this greatly. I rather liked it; there were lots of books in my room, and various toys. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2025, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/43 "2025-10-09T04:05:17Z")
I liked it, too. It was a treat to get to use the fancy record player, that automatically dropped the next record. And i had other toys i was allowed to play with just during my “nap”. My mother said that when i was younger, i also liked my play pen, because it kept my baby brothers out. 😀 ---
**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 9, 2025, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/44 "2025-10-09T10:08:58Z")
Thanks, all, for your comments. I well remember when my bedtime was 8 pm, then 8:30 pm, and on weekends, it was 9 pm. This far north, the sun was still up at bedtime. Phew! But I still got up at an ungodly hour (according to my parents), and they never connected it to the fact that they made my bedtime an ungodly early hour. I was a night owl anyway, and my parents eventually gave up on trying to make me an early-morning person. My Mom and I used to enjoy “Stardust Theatre” on a local channel, which was old 30s and 40s movies on a local channel after 11:30 pm. I was at high school, and as long as I could get to school on time the next day, neither Mom nor Dad cared. And those movies were great (the real, original, accept no substitutes Frank Capra’s _Lost Horizon_, for example), and I enjoy them to this day. Thankfully. No more bedtimes once I got to high school. ---
**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 9, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/45 "2025-10-09T13:44:57Z")
As I noted earlier my recollection of the details is basically gone. But as best I can say, fixed organized bedtimes ended before I turned 9. Coincidently we moved to a new house right around that birthday and I can recall being told “It’s bedtime” and resentfully stopping watching the old TV then dutifully shuffling off to my old room, but not our new TV or my new room. The fact I’ve always been an early bird probably helped make my little kid bedtimes rather undramatic. Unlike poor @Spoons just above. Like all teens I went through a phase of nightowl, but that only lasted about one semester. Thank goodness or I’d have flunked out of college. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2025, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/46 "2025-10-09T19:09:36Z")
I didn’t have a bedtime or curfew. I came in when I wanted, maybe watched TV if the family was watching something I was interested in. Then went in the bedroom and did my own thing. My younger brother had a curfew and a bedtime. He asked my parents why he had curfew/bedtime when I didn’t. They told him it was because I never got into trouble. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/47 "2025-10-10T02:00:25Z")
When I was in second grade, we had a bedtime of something like 8:00, which has terrible in the summer with several hours of daylight left. For my kids, when they were small, we had a bedtime of 9:00, mostly because my wife gets really sleepy early in the evening. Now they are teenagers, both my wife and I tend to fall asleep before them, and I just tell them to not stay up too late. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/48 "2025-10-10T02:06:40Z")
I think my bedtime was determined by when an adult oriented TV show came on. Probably 8.30. Though by High School I was allowed to determine my own rules. Not that I stuck to them. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/49 "2025-10-10T11:43:34Z")
Bedtime for me in high school was about 10 pm, since I had to be up at 5:30 am to deliver newspapers. No TV was allowed on weeknights unless it was something special. Of course - if the parents were out, on came the TV, with one of us looking out the window for the approaching car. ---
**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 11, 2025, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778/50 "2025-10-11T10:16:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The fact I’ve always been an early bird probably helped make my little kid bedtimes rather undramatic. Unlike poor @Spoons just above. Like all teens I went through a phase of nightowl, but that only lasted about one semester. Thank goodness or I’d have flunked out of college. Heh. My parents got sick of me when I was in my undergrad. The university was a 20-minute subway ride away, so there was no need to live in residence; I could live at home. And given my nightowlness, I’d be up until three or four in the morning studying while playing the radio softly. Or worse—using my manual typewriter to type out essays. Clackety-clack-clack-clack! At least once, my Dad said, “I wish you had gone to the university a couple of hundred miles away, so I could get some sleep.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50s-60-70s-what-was-it-with-kids-bedtimes/1023778.md?page=2)