How did we survive our childhoods?

[amc80]

Another thread prompted me to start this thread. With all of the safety rules and regulations we have now days, how did any of us survive our childhoods? What crazy/dangerous things did you do (or did your parents do to you) that would be frowned upon today? I'd love to hear your stories. Be sure to include the year! I'll start.

I was born in 1980. My mom had a VW bus. She took out all of the rear seats and put a play pen in there, and that's how my brother and I drove around.

Another great story, must have been around 1984, so I was 4ish and my brother was 7. We went to visit our grandparents, who live in the forest (Lake Tahoe), 3 hours away from where we lived. My parents dropped us off. My grandparents, after my parents had left, told us they had forgotten we were coming that night and they had plans. So they told us to go next door (not a normal neighborhood, so it was a bit of a walk) and that the neighbors would watch us. No problem. Except when we got there, the neighbors also had plans, so they sent us back to my grandparents' house. Who had already left and locked the doors. So my brother and I were locked outside, alone. Thank GOD it was summer. We ended up taking shelter in the dog house! I don't remember being scared, I think we thought it was fun.

Could you imagine today? CPS would have been called on all of them!

 

[SB621]

I used to sit on the center console of my dad's mini van while he was going 85mph down the highway. My parents both worked full time so my brothers and I were also home alot without adult supervision. I also definitely remember walking alone at night after practice when I was 7. it was only a mile or so but it was late for me and sometimes I would get a little confused about which way to go since the street didnt' have lights. This was probably 1989 or 1990.

 

[kenny]

Odds.

The odds of kids dying in a car accident of a car with a playground instead of safer seats are higher ... but the odds are not 100%.
... and those who did NOT survive childhood during less-safe times won't be posting here.

The most now-shocking thing I recall is we were given mercury to play with in kindergarten, probably to introduce something about science.
I'll add that this was a very expensive and highly-rated private school around 1960.

 

[AmeliaG]

Being allowed to rent a horse for an hour without an evaluation ride and allowed to take him wherever I wanted without a escort.

Also doing round the world on bareback while the horse was moving. The insurance companies would have a field day today.

 

[Haven]

amc--Your mom's VW bus with the play pen in back is HILARIOUS! I bet our parents would have really gotten along--I slept on a futon and wore sandals year-round (in Chicago) as a child. I was also born in 1980.

I went to sleepover camps from age 6 to 15. (My mom sent us to Girl Scout sleepover camps starting at age 6 because they were cheaper than day camp! Seriously.) Anyway, the Girl Scout sleepover camps were basically run by teenagers. We slept in these four-man tents in the middle of nowhere, and once a week our counselors would give us smaller four-man tents, a bag filled with food, and trek us out into the middle of the forest surrounding the camp grounds, tell us the pitch the tent, and then they'd leave us there for two nights! We'd camp out in groups of four with nobody else nearby. It was for some survival badge I'm sure, but seriously, anyone could have just come into the forest and taken us.

All sleepover camps kind of feel that way to me, to be honest. A bunch of kids sleeping in tents in wooded areas. The camp I attended for eight summers didn't have any kind of fence around the boundaries, it was in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, and literally anyone could wander onto the grounds in the middle of the night. It's the same way to this day, actually.

We walked everywhere when I was a kid. I remember leaving the house in the morning and not returning until it got dark. My parents had no idea where we were, and if they wanted to find us they really wouldn't have been able to. I grew up in Chicago, and then in a suburb of Chicago. I think people are a little more over-protective in the suburbs.

 

[amc80]

amc--Your mom's VW bus with the play pen in back is HILARIOUS! I bet our parents would have really gotten along--I slept on a futon and wore sandals year-round (in Chicago) as a child. I was also born in 1980.

Ha, probably!! Your camp story is great. It reminds me of my childhood camp. It was a 2 week sleepover horse camp. Aside from riding horses, we also shot guns, did archery, and had a rodeo. In order to qualify to ride on a bull for the rodeo, you had to go on the Buckin' Barrel...which was a 50 gallon barrel suspended by 4 springy ropes. You would sit on the barrel and the counselors would pull on the ropes in order to make you fly all over the place. Yeah, safe. I remember one kid fell off and broke his arm. No lawsuits were filed, imagine that.

 

[ame]

I got spanked and whapped. I survived just fine. More kids could use a few spankings and whappings these days.

 

[Dee*Jay]

If I posted even a fraction of the crazy sh!t we were allowed to do the DCFS would go back and arrest my parents, even though it all happened 30+ years ago, and I obviously survived!

 

[GoldFish8]

I got spanked and whapped. I survived just fine. More kids could use a few spankings and whappings these days.

+1

 

[MichelleCarmen]

There were soooo many things...One of them: We were on vacation in Mazatlan and my parents want to do some hanky panky in their hotel room, so they told me to go walk around down on the beach by myself! (and we were not in a resort part of town!) I was a little girl, ALONE, in Mexico wandering around. And, YES, a guy started bugging me!

 

[iheartscience]

amc--Your mom's VW bus with the play pen in back is HILARIOUS! I bet our parents would have really gotten along--I slept on a futon and wore sandals year-round (in Chicago) as a child. I was also born in 1980.

Ha, probably!! Your camp story is great. It reminds me of my childhood camp. It was a 2 week sleepover horse camp. Aside from riding horses, we also shot guns, did archery, and had a rodeo. In order to qualify to ride on a bull for the rodeo, you had to go on the Buckin' Barrel...which was a 50 gallon barrel suspended by 4 springy ropes. You would sit on the barrel and the counselors would pull on the ropes in order to make you fly all over the place. Yeah, safe. I remember one kid fell off and broke his arm. No lawsuits were filed, imagine that.

I also took archery and shooting classes at my 4-H camp! I was the best shot in the shooting class, too. I wonder if they still have those classes? LOL at the Buckin' Barrel!

I grew up in a rural area and would play in the woods constantly. My sister and I got lost in the woods several times and had to keep walking until we made it to a road a couple of miles away from our house, and then we'd have to walk along the edge of the road home. We would also always visit and play at this abandoned house in the woods and find cool stuff like blue glass bottles in the yard.

The one time I remember us getting in trouble was when it flooded and my brothers took us in the woods and let us wade in water-filled Civil War trenches. My mom was not pleased with that because we probably could have drowned pretty easily!

 

[gem_anemone]

Cramming 8 or 9 kids in the back of pickup trucks or station wagons was done often by us back in the 90s and is a big no-no nowadays. Also in the 90s my little brother and I roamed the streets of the neighborhood on our bikes or rollerblades with no helmets around when I was age 11 or 12 he was 8 or 9, so yeah not a good idea now. I have another little brother who is 16 now and I don't think he has yet to go anywhere unsupervised or ride a bike with no helmet!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

amc--Your mom's VW bus with the play pen in back is HILARIOUS! I bet our parents would have really gotten along--I slept on a futon and wore sandals year-round (in Chicago) as a child. I was also born in 1980.

Ha, probably!! Your camp story is great. It reminds me of my childhood camp. It was a 2 week sleepover horse camp. Aside from riding horses, we also shot guns, did archery, and had a rodeo. In order to qualify to ride on a bull for the rodeo, you had to go on the Buckin' Barrel...which was a 50 gallon barrel suspended by 4 springy ropes. You would sit on the barrel and the counselors would pull on the ropes in order to make you fly all over the place. Yeah, safe. I remember one kid fell off and broke his arm. No lawsuits were filed, imagine that.

I also took archery and shooting classes at my 4-H camp! I was the best shot in the shooting class, too. I wonder if they still have those classes? LOL at the Buckin' Barrel!

I grew up in a rural area and would play in the woods constantly. My sister and I got lost in the woods several times and had to keep walking until we made it to a road a couple of miles away from our house, and then we'd have to walk along the edge of the road home. We would also always visit and play at this abandoned house in the woods and find cool stuff like blue glass bottles in the yard.

The one time I remember us getting in trouble was when it flooded and my brothers took us in the woods and let us wade in water-filled Civil War trenches. My mom was not pleased with that because we probably could have drowned pretty easily!

There are still archery activities for kids! The difference now is that parents have to sign waivers. lol We have to sign waivers for EVERYTHING, even laser tag!

 

[kenny]

As kids we enjoyed Lawn Darts, which were banned in 1988 in the US.

 

[sapphirering]

I was born in 1975. I just remember being left in the car with my sister and brother a lot while my mom ran errands. And I was like maybe 7 or 8 and my siblings were younger. My DH's sister had a bad accident when he was around 4 or 5, and his parents drove to the hospital and left him in the car alone for almost 2 hours! I also remember reading a book by Anthony Bourdain where he talked about waiting in the car for 3+ hours while his parents had a long lunch at a fancy restaurant in France! lol. Nowadays, you can't even leave your kids in the car for one second.

 

[Enerchi]

I remember being out all day as a kid - and I was raised in the 60's. Out "playing" --- you know--- running, skipping, biking, hanging out, hide N seek, etc. and when my mother rang a bell, it was time to come home and wash up for dinner. We did have to help out - we had to tidy our rooms (this relates to the thread on teenagers) and we had to be polite and call our parents friends (or anyone older) MR & Mrs so and so. We drank water from a hose, we didn't wear helmets, we walked to school unattended, came home at dusk, rode in the backseat with the windows open & no seat belts, played in dirt and then ate snacks at a dolly tea party! It was amazing what we didn't know then, but we survived till now!

I'm sure all sorts of things did happen, but we also didn't have the media bombarding us with the info 'as it happens'. Simpler times, that's for sure.

 

[Puppmom]

Some of these are funny! I was born in 1977 and, while I survived childhood, I'm not sure how far into adulthood I'll make it with all of the secondhand smoke I inhaled! Two parents smoking two packs a day probably does a number on your lungs.

I'm sure I can think of others but:

- I've been burned by more cigarettes than I can count...accidentally. Not life threatening but really?
- My mom smoked and drank during two of her pregnancies. Lucky for me, I wasn't one of them! She said it made no difference. Who knows if she's right but the two "smoking" siblings have asthma and allergies and my brother and I don't.
- I can think of at least 5 pictures of us as toddlers where my parents are giving us beer because the face we made was SO hilarious.
- We came home from school alone for lunch and after school for two hours starting at age 5. My elder sisters were in after school activities so literally my brother I were home alone for a few hours a day at age 5 and 6. At lunch, we would walk home, make sandwiches and watch Divorce Court. When Hogan's Heroes came on, we knew to start walking back to school.
- My parents let us have old expired medicines to make what we called "concoctions". One of my "concoctions" stained all of my "My Little Ponies" blue. I think I made it with Coca Cola Syrup (not sure what that was for but it was always in our medicine cabinet) and a few other items from our medicine cabinet.
- My mom suffered from migraines when we were kids (crazy how those went away when she quit smoking) so she would often stay in bed for hours a day. So we would just walk to the playground or ride our bikes around the neighborhood while she slept. We were probably somewhere around 5-7.
- We would ride in the back of our pickup truck in lawn chairs. I confess - we really thought this was fun!

FWIW, I don't hold any of the above against my parents...seriously.

 

[JewelFreak]

When we were 5 or 6 our dentist used to give us mercury in a tiny paper cup to take home & play with. I pushed it around the floor with my finger, thought it was very funny how it rolled along.

If we were noisy or threw tantrums in the store (usually the grocery store & there were 4 of us) & didn't listen when Mom told us to stop, she grabbed the bad kid by the hand, walked him or her to the car in the pkg lot, & left him there till she finished shopping. In the meantime the rest of us hung out by the comic book section waiting for her to come back. It was a feared punishment because then you couldn't look at the comics, stuck in the boring car. Nobody was at all shocked -- in fact, occasionally you'd pass a car in a parking lot w/a little kid in it alone & figure he had misbehaved. (I have friends who, about 3 yrs ago, were put through hell by DSS for months, threatening to take their children away, because the husband left a 9-yr-old child in the car while he picked up a pizza that was waiting for him -- gone about 3 minutes, car right in view, in a tiny town. )

We also ran around the neighborhood all day without supervision, built forts, dug some underground in vacant lots, climbed trees, fell off rocks. The only rule was to get home NOW when my parents rang a ship's bell they had on the front porch; confined to your room if you weren't front & center immediately. Nobody died, though a neighbor kid broke his arm once & my sister fractured both wrists when she fell out of a tree; she was proud of her casts!

--- Laurie

 

[amc80]

- We came home from school alone for lunch and after school for two hours starting at age 5. My elder sisters were in after school activities so literally my brother I were home alone for a few hours a day at age 5 and 6. At lunch, we would walk home, make sandwiches and watch Divorce Court. When Hogan's Heroes came on, we knew to start walking back to school.
- My parents let us have old expired medicines to make what we called "concoctions". One of my "concoctions" stained all of my "My Little Ponies" blue. I think I made it with Coca Cola Syrup (not sure what that was for but it was always in our medicine cabinet) and a few other items from our medicine cabinet.

These two are amazing!

 

[maccers]

1977, I'm two months old. My grandparents from Toronto are visiting to see ME for the first time, the NEW BABY! My parents and grandparents go out to dinner...They decide to leave me IN THE CAR in the parking lot at the restaurant while they have dinner. To this day, my mom says "What's the problem? We checked on you every half hour and there was a parking lot attendant."

ETA: This was in Vancouver, not a small town.

 

[Gypsy]

My family was pretty conservative with my safety. But obviously there were exceptions.

My grandpa used to let me sit on his lap in the driver's seat and steer.
I often sat in the front passenger seat, no seatbelt, with my feet dangling off the floor.
Sitting in a car with a smoker for long trips, sometimes if it was cold the windows would be down.
I rode in the bed of a pickup truck a couple times (never with family though).
We did archery in middle school.
Got spanked. I too agree that I've seen several kids that could benefit from a single firm tab to the rear.


My favorite story is... I read TOO MUCH as a kid. And my mom would catch me reading at night (with flashlight) and would set the book she caught me with on fire as punishment right there in the trashcan in the bathroom until it was ash. True story.

 

[Skippy123]

I was a latchkey kid and would hang out at home until my parents got home; I must of been in 3rd grade? We also cooked! lol

My grandma had a big ranch and during the summers we would hike all over and we would be gone for hours!!!

I use to ride on my dad's handle bars of his bike! I never see parents doing that.

My mom had a VW Bug and during the drive from CA to TX, I stood next to my during the drive; I was probably 1/2 years old.

We played outside around the neighborhood around the age of 7

 

[aviastar]

I was born in 1983; my parents owned an RX-7- only two seats! So they just wedged the baby seat in that space behind the seats if they both had to be in the car. Or put it in the front seat otherwise; they sold it a few months in for a bigger car, but I was in it a lot in those first few months- it was the only way I would sleep. They drove me around the neighboorhood every night!

We also lived in a neighboorhood that had a pool; the pool policy was that you could sign yourself into the pool under your family's membership once you were ten. So I would walk several blocks down to the pool, sign myself in, play for several hours, and then walk back home.

We moved out to a much more rural area when I was 12; we roamed the woods, completely unaware of property lines, jumped off rock formations, drank from creeks, built secret hideouts. We always had the dogs with us and we thought it was the greatest!

 

[lulu]

My family was pretty conservative with my safety. But obviously there were exceptions.

My grandpa used to let me sit on his lap in the driver's seat and steer.
I often sat in the front passenger seat, no seatbelt, with my feet dangling off the floor.
Sitting in a car with a smoker for long trips, sometimes if it was cold the windows would be down.
I rode in the bed of a pickup truck a couple times (never with family though).
We did archery in middle school.
Got spanked. I too agree that I've seen several kids that could benefit from a single firm tab to the rear.


My favorite story is... I read TOO MUCH as a kid. And my mom would catch me reading at night (with flashlight) and would set the book she caught me with on fire as punishment right there in the trashcan in the bathroom until it was ash. True story.

Holy crap, Gypsy. My mom would yell at me to put down the book and play outside but she never burned them!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

I was a latchkey kid and would hang out at home until my parents got home; I must of been in 3rd grade? We also cooked! lol

My grandma had a big ranch and during the summers we would hike all over and we would be gone for hours!!!

I use to ride on my dad's handle bars of his bike! I never see parents doing that.

My mom had a VW Bug and during the drive from CA to TX, I stood next to my during the drive; I was probably 1/2 years old.

We played outside around the neighborhood around the age of 7

skippy- I was latchkey, also. I was home by myself after school until around 6:30 or 7 pm at the age of 5! I would cook things and forget to turn the element off and my parents would come home and yell at me about it! Not sure what they were thinking. I also ate tons of sugar. Just plain sugar, licking my finger and sticking it in the sugar bowl! Lol

Just a note, there is a neighbor here that is old-school and would let her toddlers play outside by themselves for hours. Almost every neighbor I've talked to has almost run over one of that woman's kids! Finally, she started sitting out and watching them. Makes me think someone spoke to her about it. The first time I saw her actually watching her kids, she was sitting on her front porch during the dsy, looking bored and drinking a glass of wine! Lol

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Some of these are funny! I was born in 1977 and, while I survived childhood, I'm not sure how far into adulthood I'll make it with all of the secondhand smoke I inhaled! Two parents smoking two packs a day probably does a number on your lungs.

I'm sure I can think of others but:

- I've been burned by more cigarettes than I can count...accidentally. Not life threatening but really?
- My mom smoked and drank during two of her pregnancies. Lucky for me, I wasn't one of them! She said it made no difference. Who knows if she's right but the two "smoking" siblings have asthma and allergies and my brother and I don't.
- I can think of at least 5 pictures of us as toddlers where my parents are giving us beer because the face we made was SO hilarious.
- We came home from school alone for lunch and after school for two hours starting at age 5. My elder sisters were in after school activities so literally my brother I were home alone for a few hours a day at age 5 and 6. At lunch, we would walk home, make sandwiches and watch Divorce Court. When Hogan's Heroes came on, we knew to start walking back to school.
- My parents let us have old expired medicines to make what we called "concoctions". One of my "concoctions" stained all of my "My Little Ponies" blue. I think I made it with Coca Cola Syrup (not sure what that was for but it was always in our medicine cabinet) and a few other items from our medicine cabinet.
- My mom suffered from migraines when we were kids (crazy how those went away when she quit smoking) so she would often stay in bed for hours a day. So we would just walk to the playground or ride our bikes around the neighborhood while she slept. We were probably somewhere around 5-7.
- We would ride in the back of our pickup truck in lawn chairs. I confess - we really thought this was fun!

FWIW, I don't hold any of the above against my parents...seriously.

Puppmom - these are crazy! Did your parents get you drunk, then? Lol oh my!

 

[zoebartlett]

I was born in the early seventies and I remember crawling in my mom's car without a seat belt as a kid. I also rode my bike without a helmet. I didn't own one. I rode my bike for miles and played in the woods near our house for hours without my parents keeping close tabs on me. I can't imagine that happening today.

 

[Skippy123]

I was a latchkey kid and would hang out at home until my parents got home; I must of been in 3rd grade? We also cooked! lol

My grandma had a big ranch and during the summers we would hike all over and we would be gone for hours!!!

I use to ride on my dad's handle bars of his bike! I never see parents doing that.

My mom had a VW Bug and during the drive from CA to TX, I stood next to my during the drive; I was probably 1/2 years old.

We played outside around the neighborhood around the age of 7

skippy- I was latchkey, also. I was home by myself after school until around 6:30 or 7 pm at the age of 5! I would cook things and forget to turn the element off and my parents would come home and yell at me about it! Not sure what they were thinking. I also ate tons of sugar. Just plain sugar, licking my finger and sticking it in the sugar bowl! Lol

Just a note, there is a neighbor here that is old-school and would let her toddlers play outside by themselves for hours. Almost every neighbor I've talked to has almost run over one of that woman's kids! Finally, she started sitting out and watching them. Makes me think someone spoke to her about it. The first time I saw her actually watching her kids, she was sitting on her front porch during the dsy, looking bored and drinking a glass of wine! Lol

oh wow, that is crazy! I have toddlers and they get into EVERYTHING so I can't imagine letting mine play outside by themselves.

oh no, at 5 we weren't allowed to cook! lol for getting in trouble too. I think we were 7 or 8 though.

 

[LAJennifer]

Oh boy, where do I start?

I was born in 1973 and grew up in rural West Virginia. As kids we played all day without supervision. That included never wearing shoes and swimming in creeks where there was broken glass and snakes. We were allowed to ride our bicycles on the "hard" road when we turned 7 and we often played in the woods until after dark. It was not without incident, however. I was bitten once by a dog while riding my bike on the road - it broke the skin and left a nasty bruise. I was run over by a motorcycle when I was ten years old, while walking on a gravel road. I had tread marks up my leg and over my back for about 4 weeks (and stitches in my head). I never got lost in the woods but some of my neighbors did. It was a fun childhood, though.

I also remember being left in the car a lot. That sure was boring.

As a teen, we often rode in the back of pick-up trucks - even on the highway.

When I was 13 and my brother was 16, the school bus driver rear ended another vehicle on the last day of school. He told us that it would take about 3 hours for another bus to arrive so he just let us all off the bus. We hitch hiked home.

 

[packrat]

I'm a 1974 baby, so a lot of the things mentioned earlier are things I did. Rode in the back bed of the pickup truck zooming down the highway. Grampa gave us rides in the tractor loader all over the gravel roads and fields. We used to ride our bikes down to their house and play in the corn crib by ourselves. I'd have heart failure if my kids did that now-it's like as tall as a three story house, but man oh man did we have fun-it had three sections and if the middle section was empty we'd climb up the slats of the other sides and jump over, falling into the corn, which was sometimes waaaay low, and then climb back up and do it all over again. Or we'd each take a section and throw corn cobs at each other..only Iowa farm kids would think it's fun to have corn wars. We're a simple folk.