Freedom as a kid by decade

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

This thread is bringing back some sweet feelings but also an ache for the current generation of children who aren’t permitted to know the joy of being completely out from under their parents’ scrutiny.

I was born in 1948 and was an Air Force brat, so lived in many places. The longest residential period of my childhood was at Otis AFB on Cape Cod. (Years ago another Doper and I-- can’t remember who-- established that we both lived there at the same time and in fact knew some of the same kids). The base was surrounded by thousands of acres of forested wilderness. Of course, the woods were totally off limits, and of course, we kids disappeared into them in the morning and didn’t come out til the 5:00 whistle that announced the end of the work day. I remember being in the woods in winter, with patches of snow and layers of ice sheets and a big frozen pond (mud hole in the summer) at the bottom of a chasm. The woods had been used for training during WWII and occasionally one would find discarded stuff from back then-- coffee cans or belt buckles. There was one place you could climb to and see the ocean off in the distance.

*Disclaimer: What follows are my own general thoughts from my own experience. I recognize that kids in different circumstances did not experience what I did. Let us not invalidate each other’s experiences. My life was not “Father Knows Best” or the “Donna Reed Show,” but the tone and mythology of parent-child relationships were not far from what those shows promoted. *

There was a different mentality back then (IME) regarding the worlds of parents and children. They were separate worlds and were not meant to overlap except at prescribed times, like dinner time, or church (if yours was a church-y family). Kids went off and did their own thing and parents left them alone-- pickup baseball, playing on swing sets, jacks, marbles, hop scotch, jump rope, or just making mudpies or lying around on blankets and looking up at the clouds. I regularly did all those things. My mother wasn’t interested and that was fine. My parents never considered it part of their job description to keep me from being bored. A kid needs a certain amount of boredom. I don’t think kids today get to be bored very much.

Parents had their own world and their own activities and kids were not invited and didn’t expect to be invited-- cocktails, smoking, conversation among adults. Not to mention politics and having to make a living. As a little girl, I was aware that wearing makeup, heels and hose, and (when still flat-chested) wearing a bra were not for me. I feel like we got to be kids and while we aspired to be grownup, we were also protected from **having **to be grownup. As we’ve come to find out, being a grownup often sucks.

I’m not saying it was a Golden Age (and it certainly wasn’t in my household where there was plenty of anger and neglect), but I’m glad I wasn’t exposed to, and in fact, immersed in the evils and ills of the world that it’s practically impossible for children to avoid now (as it is for adults).

Okay… <steps down from soap box>… I’ve just been feeling very sad lately for the state of the world and the state of our lives. This thread *(And thank you for it, BTW) *brought back a time when I hadn’t yet encountered global worries and misery. Carry on.

22

I was born in 1967
At the age of 3 (1970) our family moved from the UK to Cyprus for several years - I was allowed out to wander wherever I liked and I would go to a number of different places within about a mile radius - the area was sort of suburban with 50% houses and 50% vacant lots or undeveloped fields. I would spend half the day out there catching lizards and playing with sticks and junk, petting stray cats, with friends (kids of quite a wide age range, Cypriot and British) or on my own.
We moved back to the UK in 1974, shortly after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Back in the UK, it was the same sort of regime (just with fewer lizards and stray cats)
Once I got to about age 10 (1977) I spent most of my spare time out of the house - exploring local rivers, building makeshift shelters, lighting fires, making bows and arrows, etc. I would come home when it got dark, or I got hungry, or if I hurt myself.

23

I was born in 1959 in a small West Virginia town. My parents owned a restaurant, which required them to work long hours. So I was pretty much on my own when not in school. I was allowed to go anywhere I could reach on foot (and later bicycle). I have a brother a couple years younger than me who often joined me in those wanderings.

One thing I keep becoming more aware of as I get older and reconnect with people I grew up with: the amount of sexual abuse that many of them were subject to. I wasn’t actually abused, but there were a few uncomfortable moments from authority figures who were later busted. The perpetrators were inevitably respected figures: teachers, coaches, scout leaders, clergy. One asshole who would observe young boys who peeked at girlie magazines at the newsstand and follow us outside to strike up conversations was a religious studies professor at the university. I know this is tangential to the OP, but when we complain about how overly cautious some people have become about ‘stranger danger’. I think it should be noted that we used to be not cautious enough.

24

I was born in 1960. I spent my formative years living in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee (Hendersonville). I was allowed a lot of freedom to play anywhere in the immediate neighborhood, but most of my friends stayed in just a few yards when we were under ten. After that, in my early teens, my friends and I would sometimes walk all over town. We had quite a bit of fun on our jaunts! We were generally back in our respective homes by dinner. Fun times!

25

I spent my first 11 years in a tiny little farming town, five blocks long and three blocks wide with a stated population of 200. I have balance issues so didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was seven, then I could ride all over town by myself as long as I headed home when the street lights started turning on or when Dad hollered, whichever came first.

Before I could ride on my own, I rode double with one of my sisters. The one who took over paper delivery when my pain in the ass brother left home; she’d put me in the rear newspaper basket and off we’d go, usually to the town’s only gas station for sweets and a soda. She sure was glad when I could go off by myself!

I loved going out after rainstorms and riding through puddles but Mom eventually put a stop to that. Too much dirty water being flung up the back of my shirts. We moved away before I started riding the ~8 miles to the state park like my siblings had.

Our house was on atop a hill which was created with the backfill from digging the basement. Perfect hill for sledding in the back yard when the snow was deep enough. Had to watch out for Mom’s plants, though.

When outside but still on the property, I mainly kept to the back yard or the side yard off the driveway. That side yard was the site of a patch of dirt which I used for a sandbox, one of those saucer sleds had been left out for too long and killed the grass in that spot.

26

Oh, some of us kids turned a trio of pines into a makeshift clubhouse. Somebody planted them at the points of an equilateral triangle but put them too close together so there was a nice area with no branches between the three. The owner of the property didn’t seem to mind all these kids in their trees.

27

I was born in 1937. At 3, I could go out on the sidewalk, but not the street. At 6 I walked to school myself crossing at least one street. At 7 or so I went trick-or-treating with a friend, but no adult. When I was ten I would take a trolley downtown by myself. When I was a 11 a friend and I went to a trolley stop on a Sunday and asked a complete stranger to take us on–trolleys were free on Sundays for under 12s accompanied by an adult–and went to the Franklin Institute with free passes we got from school. From the time I was 8, when I got home from school, I threw my school bag inside our house door and went out and played on the street with friends until it got dark or until we got called for dinner. When I was 13, I went to a HS an hour away, by bus, el, and subway. When I was 15 my 10 yo brother and I took a train from Philly to Baltimore where my uncle met us and took us to his house to visit. And we returned the same way. I don’t recall how we got to the train station, but possibly by bus and el train.

28

I was born in 1985. At age 3, no way was I going out everywhere–we were in our fenced in play area or the grandparents’ yard if we were there. But we started playing in the street before the big move, so before I was 10 and my sister was 7. And once we moved out of the “city”, we were basically allowed to go anywhere on our street, and eventually to ride our bikes anywhere not on the highway.

It wasn’t until the last days of sixth grade that I actually walked from school–but that was largely because we were closer to Nana’s house. Both the junior high and the park where every teacher took their kids on the last day of sixth grade were just down the hill (and a block over for the school). And I note that we walked to the park as well from several blocks away–but that was with adults and holding hands.

But I lived in a rural area, even inside the “city.” I do think that things were usually more restricted in urban areas. I know that TV had a mixture of kids allowed to roam and kids that never seemed to, and it seemed to fit whether they were rural/suburbia vs. in the big city.

I do sometimes wonder how big the areas were where all y’all grew up, so that you were allowed to roam so much. Did you live in cities, or more rural areas?

29

Born 1970.

I don’t remember having any restrictions at all. Just be home in time for dinner.

I remember going into adults houses (and eating snacks) that my parents never met. I remember a neighbor taking me to the store to get parts for my bike. (Dude never thought to ask: “Check with your mom to make sure it’s okay” it was just: “Hop in kiddo!” Thank god I never ran into any creeps!)

My parents were out of town a lot for business. I’ve been alone in the house for two or thee day stretches as young as 8 or 9ish.

Been cooking since I was tall enough to see over the stove top. :slight_smile:

30

When I was a kid, back in the 50s, there were no restrictions at all, as long as I was home by suppertime. Come to think of it, How did I know when suppertime was, since I never wore a watch.

I was allowed to cross streets, go to stores, wander through fields and deep into the woods, no problem. Kids used to play ball in the street too; there was very little traffic on our little side street.

There were just a few houses on our street when we moved there. Over the years houses were built, and we had so much fun playing in the construction sites.

31

Jeez, no wonder I’m so backward. I was the only kid who couldn’t go anywhere!

32

Yeah, born in 1970, and I was all over town by the time I was 8. When I got my first bike, fuhgedaboudit! Oh the places I’d roam and the sights I’d see, the movies at the theaters that are now grocery stores and tire shops. I don’t think mom ever really knew where I was, though I’m sure I told her some place, I’d just never stay there long.
Worry about trouble? I was a kid, a Teflon kid, impervious to injury or trouble

33

Born in late 50s. Lived on outskirts of small southern city. Grew up in this house. Sorry for crappy image.

Once I reached 1st grade, I was expected to walk/bike to and from school. Whether alone or with friends didn’t matter. This continued until court-ordered busing provided me with a new ride to school.

Kids were to be seen and not heard, and really not seen very much. After school or summertime we just left the house on bikes/foot and entertained ourselves. Sometimes pickup games. Sometimes biking to the limits of preset parental boundaries. Sometimes just exploring the nearby woods. We were supposed to be home at either Dad’s whistle, or the porchlight being turned on.

About 3rd grade, I inherited a home-made gasoline powered go-cart from relatives. There were woods behind our house and my Dad rigged up a gate large enough to let us out the back. We spent an astounding amount of hours and Saturdays and years chasing Germans and re-enacting episodes of Rat Patrol in those woods. We wore trails thru the trees that were still visible when I visited decades later. I had another advantage that my father worked at a bicycle manufacturing plant, so we had the best bikes in the neighborhood (he got them at discount).

All-in-all, we had almost complete freedom, and spent most of our free time away from any adult oversight. Life was much like the Wonder Years series, only our 'burbs were on the edge of woodland, and we had cooler toys. We tried to recreate this with our own kids, giving them mostly unlimited freedom to roam the neighborhood, but other parents wouldn’t allow it. They could take off on bikes/go-carts for as long as they wanted, but few kids could join them.

34

Born in 1949. I grew up in a blue-collar single-family-home residential neighborhood in Portland, Oregon one house away from a street that was an informal color line (mixed on one side, all-white on our side). I don’t remember any restrictions on where I could or couldn’t go by myself at least after the age of 7, when it was decided that I needed allergy shots twice a week at our family doctor, whose office was way across town that took a walk of three blocks, two buses and an hour each way to get to. In the winter, as this was after school, it was dark before I got home on one of the days (the other day was Saturday). Of course I walked back and forth to school on my own, about 0.6 miles. Uphill, but only in one direction.

I never had a feeling of danger anywhere, which means I wasn’t taught to be afraid of anyone. The only thing I do remember is these very peculiar Public Service Announcements on TV warning boys not to hang around public bathrooms in parks, but of course they didn’t say why. It was long a puzzlement for me, even after I knew I was gay (I did not become educated about much of anything sexual until I was of voting and drinking age).

35

Born 1959. Small working class midwestern farming town. Our single block street was a hotbed of young families with small children. There were dozens of us up and down the street playing and running around. We didn’t really venture outside of that one street as little ones. My mom had a friend on the next street over who had a kid my age, and I remember once thinking I would walk over there for a visit. I got to the end of the street to turn the corner and I can remember it felt like I was stepping off into the void.

Later that year, I remember distinctly walking to school with my mother on the first day of kindergarten. After that, I was expected to walk there on my own. I was 4 years old at the time.

Mom didn’t work, and us kids were definitely free range. Just be home by supper.

Consequently, I developed a very strong independent streak, and responsible maturity in many ways. On the flip side, I was not aware of boundaries or a firm hand of parental guidance. This left me less prepared for some developmental expectations - I probably should have heard “no” more often.

There wasn’t any awareness of “stranger-danger”. Although, I do recall a few times where I may have been reckless accepting an adult’s invitation to see the neat stuff they had in their basement. Perhaps because I was self assured and a little mouthy I wasn’t the ideal target? One never knows.