I am SO glad I grew up when I did.

[Aqua Letifer]

https://ruinmyweek.com/parenting/vintage-parenting-photos/

I really do feel sorry for kids today.

[89th]

Love it!

Looking back, I’m surprised I’m still alive. I was lucky to grow up with brothers, and we’d often explore creeks for hours, climb trees to their very top (around 50-75 feet up) and sway back and forth, jump off roofs, and sled down hills towards an icy stream. It was a cold walk back for those who didn’t eject in time.

FWIW, my brother in law in wisconsin lives in the country a bit, and has a young son who they let live with little helicoptering. No kidding, he’d be walking around with screwdrivers in one hand, and later would come back carrying a big ass chicken. He’s 4 now and I think he’s wayyyyyy safer around dangerous situations since he’s always grown up around them and learns how to act as needed.

[Mik]

That’s how I grew up too, 89th. It was great.

[Rainman]

Great fun, thanks for posting the link!

Darwin would approve, it all makes sense (or makes sense if you lived through it all).

[Aqua Letifer]

If I grew up with today's restrictions I think I would have been committed or died. Not because I was that crazy or anything, just a combination of how terribly not okay some of my shenanigans were, and how helicopter parenting likely would have driven me insane. What saved my parents and I in high school was my starting work in restaurants with older guys, some of whom were on work release. After being told for hours on end how much of a sociopathic miscreant I was, it was nice to hang out with actual sociopathic miscreants telling me how lame I was. They also gave me a ton of awesome CDs to borrow.

[Jolly]

Wait, you weren't committed?

[Aqua Letifer]

@Jolly said in I am SO glad I grew up when I did.:

Wait, you weren't committed?

My folks threatened to do so more than a few times. I remember very clearly a drive back from my grandmother's with my dad: he threatened to drop me off. He was simultaneously threatening and actually considering it. I even remember thinking at the time, hell, you're that mad? I've done tons worse shit than this.

I wasn't really that bad, actually. (Not by past standards.) My folks just had a ton of stress at the time.

[Catseye3]

In addition to what I've already said about my freedom to run around unsupervised, I have always been grateful for my parents' uninterest in what I redd.

They themselves were not great readers, although my father occasionally redd historical fiction. He especially liked Thomas B. Costain. I think it never occurred to them to vet what I was reading. Thank god.

[George K]

"Where you going?"

"Out to play."

"OK. Come home for dinner when the streetlights come on."

"Will do. See ya!"

[Axtremus]

Nah, there were no wireless Internet, no smartphone, no Minecraft back then.

[Mik]

@Aqua-Letifer said in I am SO glad I grew up when I did.:

@Jolly said in I am SO glad I grew up when I did.:

Wait, you weren't committed?

My folks threatened to do so more than a few times. I remember very clearly a drive back from my grandmother's with my dad: he threatened to drop me off. He was simultaneously threatening and actually considering it. I even remember thinking at the time, hell, you're that mad? I've done tons worse shit than this.

I wasn't really that bad, actually. (Not by past standards.) My folks just had a ton of stress at the time.

If my dad could have sold me into white slavery he'd gladly have done it in the teen years. And not without cause.

[Larry]

I was always told that if I wasn't in bed by 10pm.....

To just come home.....