# Things that were done in your childhood that would never be allowed today **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650 "2020-09-02T23:00:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2020, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/361 "2020-10-11T08:39:26Z")
But it’s safety, not exposure. They want to make sure your toes are protected should you drop something on them, and that your shoes will not come off easily. There was a window from about 1976-1990 when you could wear flip-flops to school. I went to high school then. I used to wear Birkenstocks a lot (Na’ots, actually), even in the winter. I just wore them with wool slipper socks. Sometimes I’d take the shoes off in class and walk around in the slipper socks. No one said Boo. Crocs didn’t exist yet, but both Birkenstocks and Dr. Scholl’s sandals without socks were very common. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/362 "2020-10-12T18:29:48Z")
I wore flip flops to school in junior high and high school. Hell, I still wear flip flops everywhere. I work from home lately, but I wore flip flops to work in the office, too. I hate shoes. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/363 "2020-10-12T19:06:56Z")
You should have been a politician? ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/364 "2020-10-12T19:43:44Z")
Took me a minute… I couldn’t figure out what shoes had to do with politics! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ranch\_Dip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranch_dip/32/5238_2.png) [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/365 "2020-10-12T23:42:36Z")
My mom worked as a server in a bar on weekends. If she didn’t have a babysitter, she would take my sisters and I and drop us off at the movie theater. Afterward we would go across the street to share a plate of fries til she got off work. We were probably 7, 10 and 13. I was youngest. I remember one movie in particular: Drink The Blood Of Dracula. I spent most of the movie out in the hallway crying. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/366 "2020-10-13T03:30:22Z")
We couldn’t even wear loafers in school. Boys had to wear regular shoes with laces, not sneakers. And of course the girls couldn’t wear patent leather shoes or heels. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/367 "2020-10-14T09:00:27Z")
74-76 I was barefoot at school. It was a relaxed environment, and nobody thought it was important. In retrospect, the fact that my parents didn’t think it was important was a contributory factor. Looking back, it’s clear that _I_ didn’t think it was important. I wore shoes on the days I did Chemistry, and I didn’t think I was doing it to please anybody. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/368 "2020-10-14T15:59:44Z")
When I was in school, from first grade on up, if you forgot your lunch, and didn’t happen to have money on you, you went hungry. In the younger grades, your teacher _might_ take pity on you and let you call home for your forgotten lunch, and a parent _might_ bring it in (or just notice you’d forgotten it), or you might get someone to lend you five cents so you could buy milk, and then your friends would give you unpopular items from their lunches, so you’d get milk, and lots raw vegetables, if you were lucky, 1/4 of someone’s sandwich, or a cookie, if they had coconut. A teach once saw me not walking to the cafeteria with the class, but to the library, and asked if I felt OK, so I told her I’d forgotten my lunch, and didn’t have any money (it was really bad luck, because I usually had some money on me), and she didn’t say anything, just gave me the $.75 from her pocket that a school lunch cost. I happened to be getting picked up that day-- I must have had a lesson of some kind-- so I got my mother to give me money to pay the teacher back right away. It was the only time in school in three years of junior high that I ever saw inside the teachers’ lounge. Anymore, it’s not allowed to let a kid go without anything for lunch. They have some kind of cheap sandwich and milk they will give to a kid who forgets both lunch and money, even if the kid isn’t on a free lunch program. And that goes all the way through high school. The school is supposed to keep track of who gets one, and bill the parents, but from what I have seen, it doesn’t happen, and lots of kids who just miss qualifying for free lunches, eat a lot of these towards the end of the month. Where I grew up, it was way too cold to go barefoot during the school year, but I went to a preschool summer program where everyone was permitted to be barefoot. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/369 "2020-10-14T16:12:32Z")
It costs very little for a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Of course, I’m guessing the “nut allergy epidemic” has made that a less attractive option. ---
**Author:** ![moes\_lotion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/370 "2020-10-14T19:34:13Z")
> [@digs](#): > > I’ll bet you got a couple canisters of aluminum (powdered so fine it had the consistency of flour) to go with those… That was from the auto repair shop, it was supposedly for adding bulk to epoxy putty, but we knew better… ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/371 "2020-10-15T05:14:22Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > It costs very little for a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Of course, I’m guessing the “nut allergy epidemic” has made that a less attractive option. Kripes, I forgot about peanut butter. When I was a kid I estimate about 75% of us had peanut butter on our sandwiches, trailed by bologna and then tuna fish. This is a long thread, don’t know if anyone else brought that up. From grade through high school (graduated 1979) we had vending machines in our cafeterias selling all sorts of junk. I remember once in 3rd grade I had forgot my lunch box at home but I had a dollar my grandma had given me. Instead of getting the hot lunch I had 2 ice cream sandwiches, 2 bags of potato chips, and 2 cans of soda, and 2 giant five cent gumballs (the kind which now cost a quarter). When I got home that day my Ma pointed out that I forgot my lunch. I told her what I had instead and she said “at least you had something to eat for lunch. You could have gone hungry!” ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/372 "2020-10-15T12:25:23Z")
Speaking of school lunches, throughout almost all of elementary school, we didn’t have a cafeteria - everybody walked home and had lunch there, then walked back to school. I don’t think that happens any more (in the last year or two of elementary school, the school used the gym as a cafeteria, but still allowed enough time for lunch for kids to go home to eat and get back). ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/373 "2020-10-16T19:46:12Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > When I was in school, from first grade on up, if you forgot your lunch, and didn’t happen to have money on you, you went hungry. I remember this as well. When I got bussed to an “inner city” school in the early 70s, the bullies were much bigger than my old school, and took my lunch money every day. I eventually learned to hide it before school and just gave up eating lunch for those years. Interestingly, telling the bullies my parents were out of money was a totally normal reason to them, and they stopped hassling me. I just ate more at home and used my “savings” to buy models and stuff at the local five and dime. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/374 "2020-10-16T19:48:22Z")
You should be running the Federal Reserve instead of the guy we have. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/375 "2020-10-16T19:55:38Z")
I was 12 at the time, and mowed lawns and had a paper route. I put the unused lunch money in the cigar box with my mowing/route money so my folks wouldn’t notice the extra 4 bucks each week. I learned to cook the books and launder money before I went on my first date. 🕶 ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/376 "2020-10-16T20:51:59Z")
Are kids who live on farms still free labor (I realize family farms are a rarity nowadays)? I worked 12 hour days before I turned 12. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/377 "2020-10-16T21:41:52Z")
When I was a kid in the early/mid-60’s Goo Goo Clusters were still advertised as “A Nutritious Lunch”. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/378 "2020-10-16T21:49:03Z")
I remember (early 80s) some kind of candy (Now & Laters?) had, on it’s label “Candy is Delicious Food. Eat Some Every Day.” Googling that phrase turns out it was a slogan from the Confectioners Association in 1920, and another top hit goes to the Goo Goo Clusters FB page. So they’re consistent in nutritional advice. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/379 "2020-10-16T21:51:23Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > When I was a kid in the early/mid-60’s Goo Goo Clusters were still advertised as “A Nutritious Lunch”. 🎵 _Those were the days!_ [Archie Bunker voice] 🎶 ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/380 "2020-10-16T21:54:57Z")
I don’t know why the past seems so shocking. Parents still feed their kids a big bowl of sugar and marshmallows with a little milk on it every morning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650.md?page=20)