The Golden Rule: "Be home before the streetlights come on."

[WhyCzar]

I can hardly imagine a modern day kid trying to survive that level of free-range parenting today.

What was normal for you when you were a kid that a kid today would find almost unbearable?

As a grade-schooler I would hitch hike or ride a bike (without a helmet) into town (without a dime in my pocket).

When I did get home (if I was allowed to use the landline) I had to stretch the phone cord as far as I could to try and talk to a friend in private.

What kind of unmonitored chaos did you get away with during those days?

 

[Luce NDs]

If dangerous operation is supported ... what chance do we have of some responsibility surviving?

It is like the principle of destroying your friends and hoping to do well ... but then those searching for power will determine that I am wrong ... regardless i.e. without a sight!

 

[BetteTheRed]

There was a huge expectation that older children would care for younger siblings.

As a child, probably from age 7-8, I was booted out of the house fairly early on a summer morning. With a packed lunch for 3, and expectation that our day might be centred on the beach 500 m down the road, and I had responsibility for my two siblings until dinner time. Minimal instructions: don't drown, listen to the life guard. Of course, we went MUCH farther afield than the beach, and the railroad tracks and tree climbing were hot features.

And we all had bicycles (no helmets of course) and knew our way around our world.

 

[ninj]

I often spent great swaths of time on my bike, riding kms out in the country to my uncle's farm or the swimming hole. I had a favourite unsupervised dump too, with lots of treasures.We encountered dogs running loose, perverts trying to get your attention and I ate whatever berries were ripe, or wild apples and drank from a spring sometimes. Back for supper.

 

[BetteTheRed]

We were enormously fit, in a totally natural way. I live on a bay, so the City is very hilly, and biking is hard work. We also swam a lot, dodged trains, climbed trees.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

It was also the times when nobody would enter a school and start shooting or run into a crowd with a truck.
Movies were harmless cowboy and indians stories and the the scariest were from Hitchcock. Not the constant show of brutality and gory dead bodies. We were “shooting” at each other with plastic guns, but mostly pretend play was about spying out the other’s camp and communicating in made up conflicts.
I remember one incident when a creepy guy tried to talk to a classmate - and we were all warned in school about it.
And yes, older ones were stuck with the younger ones ( which was me).
For summer vacation, we got books from the library ( max 6 at a time). As teen, we had sleepovers indoors or in the yard in a tent.
We paddled on the river behind the house or skated in the winter- again, the older ones in charge.

 

[Luce NDs]

Life was like that ... extenuated X hor tat ion ... exercised out by maturity until it returns to yah ... when you have more time to ponder ...

There as a senior Driver's Instructor speaking on this lack today on the Ra Dio ... youth wouldn't check anything begore dash off ... didn't even check the belts or Mir cease ... hor did ... for later consideration! Then it came back at yah ... de Lama ... like a paradox! De scented ... no essence ... insolvent!

Not to be resolved ... that's hard ... stony persistence ... the great heaping ... as it piles up ... Mont Anahi, near Montana ... (Anahi' plural form of Monah, equivalent to monks/monx).

You can never know all this stuff because of everything that is out there ... overw helming ... oversteered, etc. Un directed? Over bored ... milieu and chaos ...

 

[BetteTheRed]

It was also the times when nobody would enter a school and start shooting or run into a crowd with a truck.
Movies were harmless cowboy and indians stories and the the scariest were from Hitchcock. Not the constant show of brutality and gory dead bodies. We were “shooting” at each other with plastic guns, but mostly pretend play was about spying out the other’s camp and communicating in made up conflicts.
I remember one incident when a creepy guy tried to talk to a classmate - and we were all warned in school about it.
And yes, older ones were stuck with the younger ones ( which was me).
For summer vacation, we got books from the library ( max 6 at a time). As teen, we had sleepovers indoors or in the yard in a tent.
We paddled on the river behind the house or skated in the winter- again, the older ones in charge.

I don't think we knew anyone with a "gun". Long guns were pretty common, especially among farmers. My dad had one, to go to a farmer friend's lot and shoot groundhogs, get the odd hare.

Domestic violence happened, but it was very hushed.

 

[Luce NDs]

Hushed Charlotte ... there's another twist ... tough lady ... Swedish ...

 

[KayTheCurler]

I never saw any type of gun until coming to Canada. I was then 22. On the other hand I was sexually assaulted by a neigbour and encountered several unpleasant men.

 

[Luce NDs]

Imagine unpleasantness in an enlightened land of what's-his-name ... light forgotten when cut off by brute activity of excess power ... generates considerable humility in hidden places ... denied by great power!

Power is said by some texts to incarnate as danger to the populace ... average norms that can destroy everything ... when the Joe is killed off?

Josh You wha'? Wallis considerable ... ponder it ... nothing remains but algae and slime ... froth on the pond? Untouchable Eire ... nothing to it ... a life cycle of ignorance ... stupidity needs to be observed ... awesome DIN ... chaos to get through ... then the still ...

After the boil ... sleep it off ... that dark cloud!

 

[Mendalla]

Movies were harmless cowboy and indians stories

I'm sure you did not mean it, but to the indigenous people of North America, those were hardly harmless. They promoted the idea of them as savages who had to be "tamed" and almost always ended with them "losing". The end of that type of Western was not a loss to our culture.

On topic, yeah, from a fairly young age, I was walking to school (15 minutes) on my own, going to friends' places there were not right next door, going over to the park near our house once it was built (I forget when they put it in now but it was during my childhood), and so on. Not sure if it was safer or if parents were just more willing to deal with the risks.

My son, by contrast, we mostly going for organized playdates. That was partly us being more cautious but also because he went to some specialized education programs and met kids from a fair distance away. One of best friends when he was little was a good 15 or 20 minute drive from us. His dad worked at Children's Hospital (pediatrician with a specialty of some kind, might have been critical care) so they lived close to the hospital campus.

There was a huge expectation that older children would care for younger siblings.

Yeah, there was a lot more of this back then. Of course, kids were more likely to have older/younger siblings back then, too. Birthrates hadn't fallen as far as they have now. My neighbours have three kids and do get the eldest (herself only like 10) to keep an eye on the little ones. But most families I know have two at most, many are onlies like mine.

PS. That's Children's Hospital of Western Ontario here in London, not the more famous Sick Kids in Toronto.