Childhood Should Have Killed Us - OK, Boomer Edition

[Jerjo]

Better get this one going before the US holiday kicks in. This thread will either sink like the proverbial stone or go 87 pages.

https://www.considerable.com/life/fa...ood-dangerous/

I have often thought about being a kid today and how dramatically different growing up in the 50s through 80s was. Free range parenting was the norm and god, we took insane risks even in grade school. My family had a farm and I have tales of epic stupidity and risk-taking. I don't think I used a seat belt until well into high school. Anyone else interested in this?

[rcarlberg]

I remember riding my bike to Seward Park, about 13 miles from where we lived, when I was eight or nine. And I rode the bus -- alone -- into the U. District (20 mi.) to go record shopping when I was 15. Played outdoors in the rain all day when I was little, to the point that my mom had to hose me off before I could come in the house.

My dad had a kerosine weed burner that we used to burn up all the grass in the vacant lot next door.

On the 4th of July, my dad used to like to put firecrackers under tin cans and make 'em jump 40 feet in the air. I remember one time starting to do the same with a glass jar... and he stopped me. Damn over-parenting!

[Dave (in MA)]

On the 4th of July, my dad used to like to put firecrackers under tin cans and make 'em jump 40 feet in the air. I remember one time starting to do the same with a glass jar... and he stopped me. Damn over-parenting!

Firecrackers were illegal in MA so we used to try to make our own explosive fun by collecting the gunpower from caps.
funny-pictures-if-you-remember-these-your-childhood-was-awesome-758x479.jpg

[rcarlberg]

Firecrackers were illegal in MA so we used to try to make our own explosive fun by collecting the gunpower from caps.

We scraped sparklers.

At scout camp, we held competitions for axe throwing, into a tree. If you didn't hit it dead-on, it glanced off and went... elsewhere.

[Dave (in MA)]

At scout camp, we held competitions for axe throwing, into a tree. If you didn't hit it dead-on, it glanced off and went... elsewhere.

We played baserock in the woods. We had no bat or ball, so we used a log and a rock. The pitcher would throw a pitch standing next to a tree and then duck behind the tree to avoid getting killed.

[Tangram]

Firecrackers were illegal in MA so we used to try to make our own explosive fun by collecting the gunpower from caps.
funny-pictures-if-you-remember-these-your-childhood-was-awesome-758x479.jpg

Place the roll on the ground on the sidewalk and hit it with the end of a baseball bat

[Dave (in MA)]

I walked to kindergarten fairly regularly when I was 4 either with my 7 year old brother or usually with the 4 year old girl down the street, and/or her 5 year old brother, in Boston about 1/2 mi. away from home, and I'd sometimes walk home alone.

[rcarlberg]

kindergarten was ... about 1/2 mi. away from home, and I'd sometimes walk home alone.

Weenie. A few years ago I returned to the neighborhood where I grew up, and used the odometer on my car to check the distance I walked every single day between home and elementary school. It was 4.2 miles each way.

[Dave (in MA)]

Weenie. A few years ago I returned to the neighborhood where I grew up, and used the odometer on my car to check the distance I walked every single day between home and elementary school. It was 4.2 miles each way.

And it was uphill in both directions.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Weenie. A few years ago I returned to the neighborhood where I grew up, and used the odometer on my car to check the distance I walked every single day between home and elementary school. It was 4.2 miles each way.

Hah. When I walked to school in Connecticut it was 6 mi or so. Up hill both ways. In the snow.

[Poisoned Youth]

I walked to kindergarten fairly regularly when I was 4 either with my 7 year old brother or usually with the 4 year old girl down the street, and/or her 5 year old brother, in Boston about 1/2 mi. away from home, and I'd sometimes walk home alone.

Contrast that to today. One of the bus stops in the morning is at the end of our block about 100 feet away that's for K-5 kids. The vast majority are accompanied at the bus stop by the parent. If it falls below 50 degrees, some of the parents chauffeur their kids in the car. Most of the homes are within 2 blocks of the stop.

[Progatron]

Contrast that to today. One of the bus stops in the morning is at the end of our block about 100 feet away that's for K-5 kids. The vast majority are accompanied at the bus stop by the parent. If it falls below 50 degrees, some of the parents chauffeur their kids in the car. Most of the homes are within 2 blocks of the stop.

Yep, this is what I see as the norm around here now. It's also hard to get a taxi around 8-9 am on weekdays, and if you ask any of the cab drivers why, they'll tell you they're on 'school runs'. I never set foot in a taxi until I was about 20 years old, LOL!

Walking to and from school with various friends was one of the healthy parts of growing up, IMO. And there were plenty of times I walked home alone too, even as a young child.

[nosebone]

Contrast that to today. One of the bus stops in the morning is at the end of our block about 100 feet away that's for K-5 kids. The vast majority are accompanied at the bus stop by the parent. If it falls below 50 degrees, some of the parents chauffeur their kids in the car. Most of the homes are within 2 blocks of the stop.

Yup

School buses now drop kids off at their front door.

Sometimes I'll get stuck behind one on a long road and I swear it stops every 100 feet!

[rcarlberg]

To this day, I blame my parents' 1965 Buick station wagon with the rear window that rolled down for my ovbious drain bamage. Carbon monoxide poisoning.

[Bartellb]

Riding bikes and skateboards at all hours without helmets in the middle of busy streets.

Playing baseball all day long without
helmets or sunscreen and no adults anywhere in sight for supervision.

Tackle football with no pads or helmets

Ice hockey with no pads or helmets on barely frozen ponds

Hitchhiking

Walking around all summer without shoes

Sleeping outside all night in parks and the woods

Driving without seatbelts while drinking beer

Diving off steep cliffs into lakes

Sledding down steep hills swerving between oak trees

Setting off firecrackers at concerts

[rcarlberg]

Sledding down steep hills swerving between oak trees

Cornell Avenue is a steep, steep hill about 7 blocks long. It ends in a busy intersection.

[rcarlberg]

Cornell Avenue is a steep, steep hill about 7 blocks long. It ends in a busy intersection.

Not only sledding and inner tubing, but homemade go-karts when it wasn't snowy. My dad & I built one that was so heavy, I couldn't push it up Cornell. I couldn't stop it either.

Oh, and I used to spend hours dragging a plywood hydroplane behind my bike -- watching it instead of where I was going.

[Garyhead]

Matches.....EVERYWHERE! Heck....they were Always laying in the tray of the cigarette vending machines...Right at the convenient kid-level. If you had enough money, you could even buy a pack as no one was watching that machine. Parents and their friends ALL smoked so matchbooks were everywhere.

[Lopez]

Matches.....EVERYWHERE!

I used to play with matches when I was little. It's a wonder I'm not a professional arsonist today. What cured me was lighting up the dry pine tree in front of the barber shop where I was supposed to be getting a hair cut. I was in my Cub Scout uniform, too. When I saw the flame go out of control, I ran into the shop yelling that the tree's on fire. The fire engine arrived, and the cops arrived, and my mom arrived, and I was in hysterics. All I could think of was getting committed to Sockanosset, the boys reform school in Cranston, R.I. near where we lived. My mom let me have it when we got home, and then so did my father when he got home.

[Steve F.]

I had a very boring childhood, although....

I remember very vividly (unusual for me) being about 4 or maybe 5 and playing with play-doh and after I had mashed it around for a while and gotten it all warm and pliant, taking a big hunk of this warm, pliant goo and going up to the open electric outlet and smooshing it into it while holding onto the doh.

The play doh was pink/red.

There was a buzzing / humming sound and I watched the radiating electricity slowly turn the play-doh from pink to brown/fried as it semi-slowly made it's way through the gloop and towards my hand. And as it got closer and closer Iwatched in fascination and dread and then when it got really close to my hand, I pulled it back pulling the doh out of the socket.

I thew the fried dough away and no one ever knew.

[Vic2012]

I guess I was a youngish teen at the time, mid 1970s. A group of us took a long bike ride to Mt. Tamalpais. It was an 11 mile ride up a winding road to the top.

We all hitched a ride on a huge flatbed truck. All of us just threw our bikes on the truck and hopped into the bed and road all the way up to the summit. Insane. It was snowing up there too.

We didn't stay up there very long. We all sorta scattered and got separated as we made our descent, 11 miles down the winding road with hairpin turns and all. At one point my brakes were down to bare metal. Somehow i got home okay. Most fun i ever had in my life.

[Plasmatopia]

We used to do lots of stupid things. We'd be gone for hours riding bikes, wandering in the woods, fishing at the river, building hay forts and swinging on ropes in the barn with no adults around.

I saw this recently and thought the stories from the guy at the 11:50 mark were pretty funny. When he says "brook" I'm pretty sure he meant the Connecticut River:

[Supersonic Scientist]

Age 5: Kindergarden

I walked to school: Path: walk down our dirt road, cut across a farm, which opened up to the back of the High School parking lot, cut through the parking lot, cross a street to get to the Elementary school....today, that would be child endangerment !!!

...never used sun-screen until I was an adult.

Mom had only one rule: Be home in time for dinner.

[Progatron]

The house I grew up in backed onto a large, open field with lots of hills (which meant tobogganing in the winter, often resulting in injuries from kids who would inevitably wind up face first into a rock in the creek) and little patches of wooded areas. It was an amazing part of childhood for all of our neighbourhood. There were many hours where my parents wouldn't know where I was - no cell phones back then. We rode our bikes along the train tracks, we jumped from the trees into what I now realize was quite a shallow creek, we played sword battles with broken hockey sticks. We walked to and from school, and whipped icy snowballs at each other with all our might.

But we always made it home in one piece for dinner. Evenings were 'indoor' time. Nowadays, I'd wager most kids spend considerably more time indoors in the daytime than we ever did, and get driven to school. When I was in school, the only kids who didn't walk to school were the ones who took the school bus. I never once saw someone's parent drop them off, or arrive in taxis.

Last time I visited the area I grew up in, I was dismayed at the urban growth. That enormous field is now row upon row of houses and commercial buildings. There isn't even a hint of what it used to look like. Only the old pioneer cemetery remains, and even that is tucked behind a plaza. The whole area is a different world, it was almost shocking to me to see it.

I don't know if my childhood was 'better' than the ones today, but I know I wouldn't trade mine for theirs. They have a lot of conveniences and amazing technology that I didn't have, but all I really needed back then was my bike and a few friends to go exploring with.

[rcarlberg]