There may be some parents who still allow this today but fewer. Heck, we didn't even have bike helmets in the 60s and 70s. I think people started using them in late 80s or so.

Never wore a helmet. I think I dodged death or permanent brain injury several times. If I had my childhood to live over, I would definitely wear a helmet when out riding my bike.

at my NJ cousins' houses 1960s.


Even riding a rented bike in my late teens, early 20's in Central Park no helmet. Very early 1970s.

Bike riding without helmets; I don't remember whether bike helmets even existed. Disappearing all day to God knows where, fine as long as you made it home for supper.

fifties, you could "hosey" the wayback or a window seat. However, a "hosey black magic" took precedence and your siblings would comply. Not sure of the spelling. It could have been a mispronounced José..

is that what you mean?

8, 9 years old.

In general, from age 5 on, we and all the other kids we knew were free-range children. Gone all day till suppertime. Went wherever, did whatever.

Free-range children. Great description.

and she lived right next to a thick woods. When we (siblings, cousins, and neighbor kids) weren't swimming we were playing in that woods, climbed some pretty tall trees, just ran around and explored for hours and hours, unsupervised. We were pretty feral in those days.

And gorge on it.

I didn’t get an allowance either but got a nickel for each chore I did.

... pesticide fog trucks.



Especially if they sprayed the toxic DDT, like in the 50's and 60's.

My brother is still alive and well in his mid-60's, though, despite repeatedly riding his bike through thick DDT fog in the past.

RFK Jr. will probably try to legalize it again, just because DDT was used in the "good ol' days", science be damned.

We figured we were completely safe, of course, because we took the precaution of pulling our T-shirts up to cover our noses and mouths...

We had 40 acres in the wild forest of the Armstrong Redwood area in Sonoma... NO people. I'd pack a snack and say goodbye after breakfast and wander off into the woods by myself... folowing deer trails, sitting it the trees for hours. They never worried.
I used to let my kids and the neighbor's kids would do the same in the creek and meadow near oput house in Tahoe, they built "houses" out of deadwood etc and would then drag me to come look!

I let my Gen Z kids ride without helmets and climb trees! *gasp*
They were monkeying around on the aspen in our yard once and my friend was visiting with her kids and wanted her daughter to wear a helmet to climb! I reminded her we were not that coddled in our youth...

distance and yes my mother didn't walk me. She had my 3 year old brother and didn't drive.Believe it or not there were kids who walked a greater distance ---same age without their parents.

Did your parents give you money to stop and get something from the store too? Was it a small town?

walk home with as we all started from the school. But getting to school, I was on my own.---kids left at different times from their homes. PS, It was a town of around 15,000 near the steel mills,

Those of us who lives at the top of the hill walked and those at the bottom of the hill took the bus. once you were over a mile, you got to take the bus.

As far as trucks go - when I was in college I got a job at a low income neighborhood community center - as part of my job, I would load 20 little kids in the back of my Ford pickup each Fri to take them to the swimming pool.

We also took the teen kids floating down the Rio Grand (0f course no tires or life vests) - we would get dropped off and another staff member would pick us up miles down the river.

When I was around 12 & lived in NJ- we were told never to swim in the bay which was 15 minutes away by bike. Of course, my girlfriend & I were in a row boat drifting way away from shore when thankfully some boaters rescued us. We were told not to play in the woods or on RR tracks & of course we did. We just needed to be home by supper time.

near our home to beaches and houses only accessed by water or hiking. The bluffs were along the straights (which anyone could fall in to) and the woods were full of bears and cougars, none of us feared them. As long as we were back for dinner our parents never seemed to worry. There were many other things we did as kids that our parents did not know and would have freaked out about but not that.

I could climb from yard to another. I would get to a part of the backyards in my neighborhood and I’d get almost to the middle of my block and there was a mean lady that would threaten me with a broom. I told my Mom who said I shouldn’t be climbing fences anyway.

The same also had a small hill incline to drive up to her garage and we’d ride our bikes on that incline at fast speeds to become airborne. She came out one day and hit me with that broom while I was watching another kid racing his bike over that incline. I went home and told my Mother who went up and confronted that woman. her husband was a nice man and apologized to me and told us his wife suffered from mental problems because she couldn’t get over the death of her child 15 years earlier. After that I never rode over that incline nor climb on the fence near her home.

We played a version hide and seek at night. In this version of hide and seek, you could "liberate" others caught before you if you out touched the object used as the "base" (lighting pole etc) before the seeker did. If you were bigger than the seekers(and the last one found) you could out run them to the base and the poor kids would have to be seekers all over again. Which mega sucked because we're talking sometimes over 20 kids playing in the space of 3 street blocks.

Basically the last one to be found would become the seeker in the next game.

Hard to believe I survived to adulthood.

left sticking out of ya? Uh, never mind. Don't answer that question!

and drive 70 miles to the beach where we spent the entire day getting home around 7:30. I was 17 and she was 16. No contact with the parents for the entire day.

to a dentist appointment (I got an excuse from school) or to the library on Saturdays.

The rule was, watch for cars and get out of their way when they approach

Sometimes we would pop back home for lunch. If we cut or scrapped ourselves out would come the orange stinging mecuricrome (sp?). Climbed trees, rode bikes down hills, no helmets. Drank water from outdoor hoses, stung by bees, had so much fun.

And at 10 yrs old - dared each other to take off our shirts & run down the block & back.

I was the first latch key kid in my third grade class early 60’s when my late Mom became the first female salesperson in appliances at our Sears (she also became one of the first female real estate brokers in San Antonio mid 60’s)

Sleeping outside on especially hot nights (no air conditioning), setting off fireworks without supervision, going barefoot, riding bike to school, driving at 14 without license to grocery store, purchasing groceries, then cooking dinner cuz both my folks worked. (We may have had more freedom but we also had more responsibilities)

Grandma would let me sleep out on the fire escape on hot nights.

Also tops, marbles and yo yos. The girls had jacks.

I rode on the longest bus route in our school district. The driver lived at the far end and kept the bus under a shed. He was the chief bus mechanic.

There was a country street not far from the end of the route. He would stop and the few kids left if they had any money would buy soda and/or candy.

The real thing that wouldn't be allowed. We also would buy BBs, 22 and shotgun shells. No body ever threatened anyone with a knife of firearm. It just wasn't done.

Infant and child seats:

I did NOT have an infant or have to sit in a booster seat until I was like 8 years old.

I also remember kids piling up in the bed of a pick up truck or El Camino and going out for ice cream after a hard played coached sports team games.

We didn't have seat belts on the school bus either.


Dodgeball:

Dodgeball use to be a regular game played in P.E. and recess at school. I don't think it's allowed to be played anymore because of potential injury liabilities.

Birthday Treats:

Moms use to drop off cupcakes and cakes at school when a classmate had a birthday. I don't believe that schools allow this too much anymore due to food allergies.

Halloween Celebration:

I don't believe that Halloween costumes and treats are allowed at too many schools anymore either. I'm glad that I was able to celebrate Halloween during my grammar school career!


Prank phone calls:

I was the type of kid that use to call appliance and appliance repair stores and ask if they had running refrigerators. I wasn't the only one who likes to make prank phone calls. Today, you can't do this unless you have a spoof app.

He's going to paint the town up with his chisel chest!

Holy shit! You're a person after my own heart!

They ran on methanol based fuels spinning unguarded 8" propellers at 10,000 rpm. Nobody thought anything about a 12 year old kid carrying a can of fuel and starting and operating the engines.

Parents weekends didn't revolve around what the kids wanted to do, and we were expected to entertain ourselves with very little supervision. Sports and other activities were usually spontaneous, and unscheduled with little structure. I think it was a much healthier time to be a child than it is now.

playground and my buddy and I caught it and put it in her lunchbox. We carried it into class before the bell rang and put it in the desk of a boy who was bedeviling us. When class restarted, he opened his desk and let out a shriek that was surely heard from Vegas to Berdoo and about wrecked himself getting out of his seat! When the teacher saw what he was shrieking about, she let out a scream they must surely have heard plumb on to Albuquerque! Kids were yelling and we all got cleared out of the classroom and the school custodian called upon to de-tarantula the classroom.
It was epic! Well worth the spankings we got!

Was that the end of that one kid pestering you?

He laid low after that.

We could climb untethered all over the seats without a care

Spent Summer day’s adventure down by creek,
In people’s backyards walking everywhere,

Fishing in local ponds

Jump over a neighbor’s fence , a neighbor we did not know,
jump in their swimming pool to cool off for a few minutes

Everyone has a story about someone getting thier hand or foot impaled by that plastic missile with a metal spike for a tip. It wasn't until the 80s that someone realized that this was a dangerous game.

They didn't know what the hell we kids were doing, lol, unless somebody came home covered in mud or wet if one of us fell into the creek in the woods.

We lived a mile from the elementary school my siblings and I attended, in the 1960s, and walked home most days.

I have the knee scars to prove it!

Also “sidewalk surfing” aka skateboarding on a homemade skateboard. Gotta use up old skates!

Last edited Wed Apr 16, 2025, 08:44 AM - Edit history (1)

8 miles away for a movie. We could see a double feature monster movie and go to Isley's for ice cream
all for like 50 cents. I never see kids hitching a ride today or even walking. Correction this was when I grew
up in the late 50s and early 60s. There were things that happened to kids back then I am sure but today with
the internet and 24 news people are scared of their own shadow.

Playing with toy guns. My sister and I would play "Honey West", using cap guns. I never let my kids play with toy guns. Nope. Other than that, just the usual stuff. We would take off in the morning to go play in the spillways and not come home until we were dying of thirst or starving. I don't think we were actually supposed to play in the spillways, but no one really pressed us on where we were all day.

I'm especially chatty today because I'm home with covid (again) and bored. LOL.

A parent today would go to jail.

And as many other posters have pointed out there were no bike helmets, no baby car seats and I remember when seatbelts were first required in cars. There were no cell phones so your parents basically had no way of reaching you (and vice versa).

I stopped. I remember kids throwing them in the grill after the cooking was done.

a bit scary to me. But if you had friends, or siblings you got along with - that would work out.

I and my friends if around would play in our two by two block park. And actually we did walk on the stone concrete l capped "fence", built around it, and climbed on these big back rocks with a gap we had to carefully maneuver that our parents never saw, bc they were behind this higher up built section with a stairway: so yeah, we had a of bit of that, too.

At the age of 5

We bought the chemicals from a drugstore, sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, crushed them in a mortar and pestle until my cousin burn his eyebrows off then they put a stop to that one. good times

but when I was in high school, there was a smoking court......... FOR THE STUDENTS!

40 minute ride too.

As long as they came home for dinner on time and didn’t get into trouble, everybody was good.

Potentially very dangerous, we just played with it.

this was me in the late 1960s, only laying flat on the stack of hay bales going down the road, trying to hold the bales on the back of the pickup.

Dad would tell me to hold onto the baling wire on the outer bales with my hands and not let go!



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tools, work clothing. etc.

for stretches of time up to seven hours and who I was with. I still came home for dinner.

To go to pool across town by myself

Just bare foot with towel and shorts as was the elementary school kids in 1960 in South Arkansas town of about 35,000. At that time the home of Murphy Oil Corp, Lion Oil Corp etc. About the same for weekend and going to the movies downtown. Walk about 4-5 miles through the downtown traffic to get to the theaters. I do not think anyone thought about ever telling parents where we were. I do not remember my parents ever asking where I was going or where I went. I think they just expected us to show up for breakfast.

Playing red rover and dodge ball and skating on the sidewalks and in the streets with all the neighborhood kids. Staying out all day as long as we came home for lunch and dinner. Playing baseball in an open field with no adults around. That was the basic thing, we were trusted to be on our own and return safely.

You remember those lawn mowers whose blades never shut off unless you shut the engine off? And you never shut the engine off because you would never get it started again?

Living in a medium sized midwestern city I did most of the stuff described above. My favorite was staying up all night trying to pull in 50,000 watt radio stations from around the country or trying to pull in skip signals on the old B&W tis.

One night we even watched a tornado on the B&W tv. I can't imagine any parent letting their kids do something as dangerous as that these days. The tornado had to be within a short distance - I think it was 5 miles or less.

when I tell my kids and their spouses what we did they are amazed we are alive. Shot at 6 times, fortunately none hit

full of gigantic snapping turtles and who knows what else. Glad my terrible coordination never kicked in when I was there.

The kids were about 8 and 10, and their mom was available by phone any time, as she was secretary in a Realtor’s office. I was already very experienced and highly responsible.

I was saving up for a trip from O’ahu to SoCal, as I’d been invited by family friends, and my mom said if I saved up for my ticket I could go. The family budget didn’t include things like travel and I knew it.

Now, I was raised to believe this was character-building, but after a few scuffles at DU many years ago in which it was made abundantly clear that in some people’s minds it was totally illegal and possibly abusive — well, this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it since.

I did save up enough over that summer and thru the year, researched cheap flights (there was a non-scheduled charter outfit) and the summer I was 13 away I went. It was grand.