Growing up in the 70s: what was it like for you?
I’m a Gen Xer, a child of the 70s, and oh, don’t I just love to tell young folk how much better it was when I was a kid. I’ve reached that age.
Me. Late 70s.
I came across an interview with Salon’s Heather Havrilesky. She’s just written a memoir, “Disaster Preparedness,” about being a child of the 70s and in an interview, when asked what her overall take on such experience is, she says this:
The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that you opened the door and let your dog run into the world and then you called it to come home and you pretty much did the same thing with your kids.
Ditto. My parents shoo’d us out of the house on weekends and left us to work out life on our own until the next meal time. Mum and Dad were vaguely interested in what we’d been up to. Mum paid no attention to scabs and cuts on Sunday evenings when she lined us up on the veranda and scrubbed our knees and cut our toenails ready for school. We had relative independence and took responsibility for injuries along the way.
I don’t think helicopter parents existed back then.
What comes to mind for you about growing up in the 70s/80s?
Oh golly – you’re so right. What has happened?
I remember riding my bike along tracks we had made through Mallee scrub and vacant blocks of land – probably riddled with snakes and spiders but meh, we were tough as! Hanging out with my little street buddies (that lived a few doors up) and when they were called in for lunch – I’d move onto the next buddy who was available.
Swimming in the pool ALL day long – never getting burnt – with the exception of burning eyes from having them open underwater all day long!
Oh and then there was the monkey in me that would come out to climb on trees, on the roof, next door – wherever we felt like. Nobody told us off, the next door neighbours would wave at us, and Mum would get excited that we had inherited her love of heights. Man, those were the days!
What I’m most jealous of is the carefree nature of my parents – I highly doubt I will be able to display the same level of this to my children, for two reasons – one, because our world isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago and two, will I look like I don’t love my children or care about them? Because that couldn’t be further from the truth. So disappointing when you make me think about it. I want to be a parent of the 70′s. It was much more simple.
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:17 pm
My mum sent us out into the forest near our house that was a huge national park on our horses and we would come home at dark. Swimming in dangerous rapids, cow patty fights. I have atwo year old daughter and I encourage her feral side!!! Which is different to naughtiness. I give her more freedom than other parents I have noticed because I remember that freedom so well.
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March 23rd, 2011 at 7:16 pm
My parents weren’t helicopter parents at ALL, but it’s only now that I’m older and thinking about becoming a parent myself that I realise how much freedom my siblings and I really had. We had a neighbourhood posse we’d do everything with, and the parents just … let us. We walked everywhere, explored everything, we’d cut ourselves to ribbons on lantana and wouldn’t care if it meant a shortcut to the beach. We could be gone all day and it was cool. We knew where all the local dogs were, and which ones snapped. My dad made us a billy-cart and we rode it down the steepest hill in Clareville, no breaks. We had a rope swing which ended in tears at least every day during summer and stitches at least once or twice I can remember (going ’round the world’ on a rope swing is very scary and when you’re too little to get the momentum you always end up slamming face first into the tree
)
We got hundreds of ticks, learned what funnel webs and redbacks looked like and why we should steer clear. I had so many near misses with snakes I lost count. When I got bored of the outdoors I’d cook up a storm on my own or with my neighbourhood sidekick Kris (and leave the mess for mum, whoops!). The only thing mum was scared of was sharks and at the beach she would watch us like a hawk to make sure we didn’t go past the breakers. Probably wise too considering our local beach was Avalon and there was recently a great white attack there!
My mum is always so hard on herself and what kind of parent she was, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing about my childhood. I just wish I could give the exact same childhood to my future kids. It was, in a word, wicked.
Great post Sarah, thanks so much. I’m feeling all warm’n'fuzzy now.
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Coming home from school, grabbing my BMX and riding around the streets ALL afternoon until it got dark. OR hanging with my next door neighbour and “spraying the bees” with an old spray and wipe bottle filled with water. SPRAY then RUN AWAY when the bees come after you. Ummmm – not smart. But never actually got stung? Pretty much everything we did was outdoors – I don’t really have any memories of doing stuff indoors – except maybe watching a video on Betamax sometimes – which I was ONLY allowed to do if I asked permission. Half the time the answer would be “no – go outside”. Sigh. No wonder the kiddies of today are battling weight problems.
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I’m reserving this spot, it’s going to take me all day to compile this repy.
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March 21st, 2011 at 10:40 am
Reserving a place in a blog? Mate, you just don’t do that. It gives the impression that you think your comments are more important than others.
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March 21st, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Thank Jason, that’s what I needed on a rainy Monday.
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Growing up in the 80′s? Well, I miss being able to be myself, by that I mean, as a kid growing up in the 80’s I got the impression that you could do anything and be proud of it. Happy-pants for example, had I given thought to what “impression” they had I would’ve opted out, but rather I was MC Cordner “Stop… Cordner time!”.
The 80′s, for me, was all about not caring about the finer details and nuances of a collective social opinion, the 70′s challenged status quo and in the we 80’s smashed it , there was no social media or new rules for being yourself on a social network, there was no blog or wiki for things that you should or shouldn’t do, it was all about celebrating you. Example; fashion was about “look at me!” whereas now its “look at me, but I don’t want to make it obvious”.
Being Tagged was the result of playing Tips.
So thank you Jason for pointing out my ignorance regarding blog etiquette , it made me think for a moment “what is the impression that others have of me?” and after I dried my man tears I thought about writing something hurtful back to you, but I don’t do that anymore(unless you work for the tax office).
Making an example of me in front of everyone didn’t make me feel very good, if that was your intention then you achieved it, and If we’re being open, I have had a bad couple of weeks (work is hard at the moment, I’m doubting my faith and I might be a bit depressed) and this topic, that Sarah has gracefully extended to us, got me really excited, so to express my enthusiasm I reserved a place. So your comment cut me down bro.
I miss the 80’s because it wasn’t as complex is it is today.I could peg a playing card to the fork of my BMX and ride down the street pretending I was on a motorbike or the speeders from Return of the Jedi during the forest fight on Endor, and maybe, expressing myself on a blog is like that.
So apologies to anyone who thought I was being a jerk by reserving (or dibs if we’re being nostalgic) a place, I’m new to blogs.
Everyones comments are important and my comments are important, to me.
Anyway, none of this is going to matter when I complete my time machine
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I didn’t think anything evil or jerky about someone reserving a place on a blog……guess I’m not up with blogging etiquette either! ha ha. Anyway, a great read……I still say hammer time when someone says stop, still say ‘dibs’, still eat wizz fizz and still use a long cardboard tube or stick like a Jedi at every opportunity…..
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:52 pm
WIZZ FIZZ!!!!!! yesssss!
Funny story. I wrote in and complained to the makers of Wizz Fizz when I was in high school, you see the spoon used to gunk up because it was like a small bucket and that would effect its ability to scoop sherbet out at the desired quantity because the spit to sherbet ratio was 2-1. So I took a spoon and sanded down the front so that it resembled a shovel allowing you to remove the spit effected sherbet with ease, I put it in a envelope with my complaint and weeks later I received a box of Wizz Fizz at school and a letter from some exec saying that they liked to spoon so much that they put it into production, and its still is! To this day thats the only thing I can boast about!
March 22nd, 2011 at 9:43 am
That Wizz Fizz shovel story is downright one of the coolest things I have ever heard haha!
March 21st, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I didnt think you were jerky. I thought it was funny. Plus I understood the sentiment of – “I have so many things to say and I dont know how to say them succinctly when I am so excited about the topic, so I would just like to give brief props to Sarah for awesomeness, then run away!” Except you said it better than me. Touche.
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March 21st, 2011 at 2:35 pm
I can’t stop laughing! I love the Wizz Fizz shovel, I just grabbed one to inspect more closely, wow you are famous!!! I’m sure I remember when they changed the design….I still tilt the packet on the diagonal to get maximum sherbet height on the shovel, and then very carefully move the shovel to my mouth…up and across…trying not spill the precious cargo……I always shake and spill some on my shirt, and end up just rubbing it off into the never never……………was it also your idea to add an extra shovel to the pack just in case one opened a Wizz Fizz only to find that the shovel was missing????????????????? ahaaahahhhaaahhaa….absolute gold!!!
March 21st, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I reckon Jason was joking.
I had cards attached with pegs to my bike. Actually it was bits of old cereal boxes.
What about the carcinogenic practice of shrinking Twistie packets in the oven to make earrings?
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March 21st, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Mine never worked right but I tried over and over with mum looking on. Don’t even start me on firecracker night….. What about the parachute ones, you broke legs to find them.
March 21st, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I found that ice cream container plastic was better for durability, I used to ride at warp speed. Yes! I used to shrink the Twistie packets! Thats what I used to ration out to my G.I Joe’s
March 21st, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Cordner,
Did you get huge royalties? Or will you take this to Slater and Gordon?
Sarah,
At primary school we had metal ‘grill’ heaters that you could almost burn yourself on if you leaned on them too long during winter. Shrinking chips packets wrapper bonsai-style was sooo cool.
March 21st, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Dude I did’nt, I had no clue about money back then, money is what you found and used to buy Ninja Turtle cards, but just the satisfaction of helping the human race is enough. I am however, laying claim to post-it-notes, that was my idea.
March 21st, 2011 at 3:26 pm
awesome whizz fizz story Adam.
i also remember chocolate cigarettes, those candy ‘fags’ (which eventually became fads), lolly necklaces, dummy lollies, sherbert cones, teeth lollies….. the list goes on. it was also the era of Australian Chinese cuisine (and really how Chinese is greasy rice with peas, eggs, and prawns?) every Friday nite or when mum had the shits and didn’t want to cook
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March 21st, 2011 at 3:38 pm
my sister has the complete set of ninja turtle cards, the hardest card to get was ‘Brain’…..does anyone remember the garbage pail kids/garbage gang?
March 21st, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I remember how cheap things were. The milk bar on the way home from school sold something like 5 lollies for ONE CENT. The ordinary choc-coated ice-creams were 20 cents. One day at about 7yo I wanted a Patch (kinda like a Gaytime) which was 10 cents more. Upon buying it I think I was ‘ambushed’ who had unexpectedly come to give us a ride home. The icecream melted completely in my schoolbag and after all my ‘subterfuge’ the evidence came out ‘in the wash’
March 21st, 2011 at 3:58 pm
ambushed by Mum…
March 21st, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Lauren. How much does your sister want for the Ninja Turtle Cards?
March 21st, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Fags were the best lollies, Sunny boys, grenades. It’s a knockout rocked and country practice was all over once Molly died.
When we lived on 30 acres of land, my folks had to have a ‘burning off’ of the grass fields, which would grow to 6ft tall. On the burning off day, they set fire to the grass. huge big fires. and we’d go tearing through the grass with the dogs, watching walls of fire right next to us.
I also love now that there was no internet. School holidays were so deadly boring. We’d get so so so bored that in the end we were forced to think up the BEST and most SILLIEST games. Like hanging the hose through the clothesline so that it poured on to the trampoline (nb this trampoline had no safety features) and pouring washing up detergent onto the trampoline so that when we jumped, bubbles would form and we’d also tip mums pegs onto the trampoline as well. you weren’t allowed to land on a peg, which was hard considering the surface was so slippery
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Or, the sprinkler under the trampoline!
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March 21st, 2011 at 2:40 pm
We had an incinerator and my brothers and I would make “stew” with a tin and stuff from the compost.
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March 21st, 2011 at 3:28 pm
eeeww! I made mum perfume from flower petals in a water jar, I’d let it soak (and rot) for a few weeks and get very excited about giving it to her. she never did splash it on
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Unfortunately I grew up in Australia during the 90s, which was okay until I moved to Serbia for 2 years when I was 10 and discovered what childhood should really be like!
It was very similar to the way you describe childhood in the 70s- I played with children in the neighbourhood all day and my parents only saw me for lunch and dinner! It was pure freedom! When I came back to Australia I was very depressed at my sudden loss of freedom and independence through constant adult supervision. Playing outside with dozens of kids, was replaced with playing with Sega Mega Drive, watching TV and going to the Movies.
I feel so sorry for kids growing up here (and other western countries) where helicopter parenting is seen as necessary. These kids are missing out on so much! There are heaps of kids living on my street but never play with each other since they are all confined to their backyards- very sad situation!
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Your experience sounds much the same as mine. I knew every kid in the neighbourhood, and we all played together, on the streets, in the vacant blocks, under big pepper trees, in each other’s backyard cubbies, but hardly ever inside.
We’d play til dark, come home and have a bath and dinner. And it was all the kids. little ones and big ones, all together.We were always worn out, and slept incredibly well.
Now those streets are quiet and empty. Children don’t “roam” like they used to.
It’s sad.
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You pretty much summed it up! I’m forty and I remember my parents in caftans having cocktail parties in the evenings with great music and interesting people (and us kids being invited in for a brief appearance if we were well-behaved). My dad was a veterinary surgeon and one time he actually stitched me up at the bathroom sink when I slashed my knee open by falling on glass outside, rather than take me to the hospital. I didn’t mind, and I healed up just fine. Could you imagine a parent getting away with that today? Uh no. Those were the good old days.
I remember learning to take responsibility for myself and also that I wasn’t the centre of the universe. Lessons that have served me well! (And, frankly, I thought the fashion was pretty cool back then. I had the greatest ponchos…)
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I grew up in the 80s (just scraping in as a Gen Xer – 1979) and remember cruising the streets all day and evening on bikes with my sister and cousins, communicating via walkie talkies and chalk messages on the footpaths and roads! The Atari was a treat, but I don’t recall ever being told to turn it off! We played down by the creek at Nan and Pop’s house, went yabbying all day long in the summer heat, disappeared into the bush for hours on fishing and camping trips….we seemed to find our way back without a TomTom…..
I love Jacinta’s comment about the trampoline…….I remember doing flips on the trampoline and getting my legs caught in the rusty springs….no doubt rusty because of the sprinkler placed underneath…and yes detergent!! Swinging on the clotheline, making a cubby, burning things (oh no!), 1c lollies…..aaawwww
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March 23rd, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Cubbies! I forgot cubbies!
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I can relate. Loads of freedom and from a pretty young age, too. My neighbourhood had tonnes of kids and we’d travel in packs, stealing cucumbers and plums from neighbour’s gardens, exploring that burned out shell of a house before it was torn down (!!), riding our bikes, unearthing salamanders, tobogganing. Sunburn, bug bites, scraped knees, burdocks stuck in your clothes, 20-kid games of tag. In the summertime the rule was when the street lights came on, it was time to go home. Every kid knew to listen for the faint sound of their mom yelling their name when it was time for supper. Kids today don’t know this freedom and it makes me sad and nostalgic.
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Hang Ten t-shirts, Tang, Tab cola, cocoanut oil, jc sandals, southerly busters.
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i used to love being allowed to just dig up parts of the garden and turn it into a mud making factory, because back then parents didn’t care about what the backyard looked like and only the uber rich or childfree people landscaped their yards
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Swinging on the hills hoist (my mum was not to pleased when we did this), building cubby houses out of sheets and old boxes, running under the sprinkler, putting detergent on the trampoline and slip-and-slid, going up to the local shops to buy icy poles,redskins and a bag of mixed lollies, putting on shows for a parents, having banana sandwichs and lemonade for lunch during the school holidays, picnics and camping trips in the backyard, spending all day at the local pools just jumping in and out of the water.
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I too grew up in the country in the 70′s. We rode off on our bikes and came home when we were hungry. We walked to Brownies/Girls Guides on our own and walked ourselves home after stacks on push bikes and fights with friends.
We formed secret clubs, climbed under the house, swam in rivers etc.
I have two girls now and it is different and I have to say I for one hate it – I want to let them roam the neighbourhood. Mostly because I am exhausted from filling in their hours with ‘things to do’. My mother never entertained me beyond mealtimes. We had a make our own fun. Why are we so scared? Is it really scarier? I have had neighbours stop me on the street when my girls have been outside for a minute or two without me and told be to get them indoors as their are undesirables about.
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The BMX is a common theme, bring em back!
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March 21st, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Or bikes, not just the BMX
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I was born in 1984, the era of “Dont play or ride your bike anywhere I cant see it from the front window!!!” I am incredibly jealous of all your freedom!
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March 21st, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Me too! Actually my grandfather was a policeman and the stories he would tell my mum about kids on bikes scared her so much that I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 12! I always hated that and would beg and beg to have a bike. It was also very embarassing at school when there was bike education days.
Other than that my parents were pretty cool we had boundaries where we could play and by today’s standards it was a hell of alot of freedom!
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March 22nd, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I was born in 1987 yet I had that freedom!
I spent countless hours climbing trees, or building cubby houses, or riding my bike to/from my friends houses and all over town.
The difference between me and a kid of the 70s is that I also spent plenty of time indoors watching videos or playing Sega or Nintendo ’64!
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We recently moved to a street where the kids play up and down the road and wander in and out of neighbours’ houses, just as I did when I was a kid growing up in England in the 70s. My daughter rides her bike and scooter for hours on end without me watching her and the various mums text each other to let each other know who is where. Though I do battle with worrying about her, I try my best to relax and let her go a little. This is in Sydney, by the way, in the eastern suburbs. Needless to say, we all love living here. It seems to me that more freedom is possible if enough people are on the same page.
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I remember at 7 (1979), maybe even 6 being allowed to walk the 2km to school UNACCOMPANIED. It was no big deal. I’m sure I’d be thinner if I’d kept that up. The silly thing is I don’t think I’d let even a son do this these days. I suspect the chances of kidnappers or paedophiles getting said son would be about the same but my, and society’s conscience, would prevent these ambulatory adventures.
When I got home it’d normally be footy or cricket outside with maybe Bugs Bunny or The Goodies as sedentary diversions. Do children still play outside?
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March 21st, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Peter G’day Russell Gday Clarke?
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March 21st, 2011 at 2:55 pm
There was that too, and there things like that 5 minute show of black and white slapstick that no one liked and Monkee.
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March 21st, 2011 at 3:00 pm
The Afternoon Show, Degrassi, Its a Knockout!, Sooty and Sweep, the cartoon of the guy who was a line on a page, Banana Splits, and ALF!
March 21st, 2011 at 4:06 pm
OMG…Sunday night Countdown!!!
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March 21st, 2011 at 4:08 pm
But of course!
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Pinching mum’s Aplines (thank god at 12 we didn’t know how to inhale!), rocket fuel made up of Chinzano, port, coolabah wine & bacadi, baby oil & 3rd degree burns, trips to the gold coast (family holidays should not include moody teenagers), photocopying birth certificates on a Friday afternoon in the school library so we could all hit the pubs on Saturday night, Cold Chisel, INXS, Hunters & Collecters, joy riding, teased hair
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In winter, making caramel out of a pierced condensed milk can in a saucepan of boiling water…then eating the whole can with a spoon!
Baked beans on toast watching the Goodies or the Young Ones!
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I’m not getting any work done with this blog post in existence. A Country Practice. Collecting Neighbours cards in packets of Ruffles. Mother & Son. Newspapers with sport on the back because sport isn’t news (not according to my mother). Satanic backward masked music (my mother was obsessed with not letting us have any of this much to our dismay). Christian rock bands (much to my dismay I got taken to these). Caramel Chew bars. Frozen Yoghurt and Chocolate Dairy Desserts @ the school canteen for 40c each… goodness, this is like looking into my retirement, I will be a rambling old lady
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March 21st, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Jacinta,
If you’d like to waste 4 more minutes you could listen to this song.
http://djlobsterdust.com/index.php/mashups/queen-vs-satan-lobsterdusts-satanic-reverses/
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March 21st, 2011 at 4:11 pm
LOL
My mother bought and made us read Pastor Gary Greenwald’s book Backward Masking Unmasked and she bought a video of him speaking. Sad but true.
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March 21st, 2011 at 4:25 pm
It never made sense. Often it’s hard to understand what people are saying, or singing, forwards let alone letting your subconscious remember what was said 3 seconds ago and somehow reversing it.
Oh everyone!! I feel all sentimental now reading these comments. Two of my boys were born in the early 70′s and a daughter in the late 60′s. I have loved reading all of these comments. So so many lovely memories for me as a mum. It is as though I reading about my sons. Yeah, I suppose we were into differenting parenting, but oh I just loved it all.
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I am actually going to print this out, and read the comments back to them, give them some nostalgia and laughs too
)
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I remember my boys with Pac Man, that’s how you spell if I remember correctly
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I am an early 80′s child and THANK GOODNESS I was! My mom suffers from severe anxiety and if I had grown up in today’s world, I would never have been allowed outside the house. It also helps that I grew up out in the country. We knew how far we could roam from home without permission, occasionally our mom would yell out the door for us, but for the most part our days were ours to do as we pleased. Looking back, it all seems so fairy-tale and idyllic.
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My brother and I grew up in the 90′s and had childhoods exactly described here! Lots of freedom to simply roam, eat dirt and scrape our knees. The day would fly by because your only grasp of time was when you got called in for dinner, or lunch (Sometimes at your friends houses around the area that you lived in!). I loved it and want my kids to enjoy the same freedom. I don’t think the world is a big bad place that you can’t let your kids roam free in, just as we all did. I think the media drums up a lot of negativity and I doubt in reality, much has changed since we were kids… kids/parents these days just see it on TV more than we did perhaps?
Plus I guess it depends on the area you’re living in too. I live in Whistler, Canada now and see plenty of kids being able to roam free – it’s great to see!
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I was a child in the 70′s, teenager in the 80′s and a parent in the 2000′s. Like the comments that have been shared I too walked to school from a young age, played in our cul-de-sac for hours on end with the neighbourhood kids wandered the swamplands with my brothers & sisters.
I do not understand the current need to put a label on everything. Now we have one for parenting styles, helicopter versus free range. All the parents I know including myself are just doing the best we can, a lot of the time with our fingers crossed hoping that the decisions we are making now will not result in lasting negative effects. It is not a job for the fainthearted
I could not help but to read this post through the filter of being a parent. I do my best to allow my children the same space to discover and experience as I did in this current time where after school activities are the norm, where we are over regulated with so many rules, bombarded with information on right and wrong and the best ways to do things and a quickness to attribute blame when things go wrong.
Who knows if our parents had their hearts in their mouth as they waved us off into the wide blue yonder or were checking the window for signs of us as darkness drew near….and maybe this is the best gift that they gave us freedom from their worries and concerns while we went off on our merry way.
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Cool mum clothes.
http://www.foxinflats.com.au/2011/03/motherhood-better-70s-80s-clothes/
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I am a child of the 70′s (about to turn 40!! arrgghhh!!!) and being a mum myself now I look back with amazement at the things we used to do. It is absolutely true that I would leave our house early Saturday morning on my pushie (helmet, sunscreen, bottle of water???? unheard off!) with the only requirement that I be back home for tea. We lived on a farm and my best friend lived 6kms away in a tiny town? hamlet? village? that had a pub, general store, school, public hall, some houses and that’s about it. My friend and I rode our bikes around ALL day, hung out at the primary school because riding our bikes on the concrete was a thrill, bought our mega bag of mixed lollies and coke from the general store, hung out at some old couples place because the old lady was really kind and they bred gorgeous rabbits. Years later we found out the old bloke was a suspected paedophile! Sheer luck we were never alone with the creep. We would also hang out on our farm – putting messages in bottles in the creek, swinging off hay bales on plaited ropes we made from hay band, visiting my nan who would give us fantales or maybe a tosca (my favourite chocolate bar, sadly no longer exists). We also went through a phase where we were intrigued with old abandonded farm houses and would make our way through them trying to imagine who once lived there, and where did they go? Our favourite derelict building was an old milk factory which had rickety narrow stairs leading to a second floor which was wall to wall possum shit and old glass test tubes. Virtually all the things we did as kids contained an element of risk but we never sufferred any thing more than minor scrapes from blackberry bushes or falling of our bikes because we misjudged a corner going to fast. These days such parenting would be considered neglect (maybe it was but all parents seemed to be like that back then) My parents were rarely interested in anything we did as long as we got home safely at the end of the day. I look back on that time with such nostalgia and probably with rose coloured glasses because the downside was my parents were not involved in the lives of their children nearly enough. Now I think as parents we worry too much. We need to find a middle ground that balances independance, risk taking, self reliance and adventure with love, nuturing, safety and emotional connectedness.
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I’m loving the nostalgia here and comments about how great is was growing up as a kid in the ’70′s. I have an 11-year-old daughter and try to let her have some freedom to ride her bike, go to the park etc, while I sit at home trying not to be paralysed by fear and my imagination running riot with all the “what if’s”. Sometimes I even pop down to the local shop to buy milk (a return journey of 5 minutes) while leaving her at home ALONE !! (I’m expect Child Protection Services to come knocking on my door any moment now).
I recently read Lenore Skenazy’s book, “Free Range Kids” which looks at parenting through the eyes of “America’s Worst Mom,” so dubbed because of (supposedly) scandalous independence lesson for her 9-year-old son: Letting him ride the NYC subway solo. It is so refreshing, and I applaud her for taking a stand. It provides a lot of very interesting and surprising statistics – particularly enlightening given that the book is based in American; the country where every second person is supposedly a paedophile, sociopath, or kidnapper ! I’d say the media is to blame for all this ridiculous helicopter parenting we are supposed to prescribe to. Unfortunately, most of the time we are too worried about what other parents will think of us, to actually loosen the reigns a little, which is a real shame
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This post and all the resulting comments have made me so nostalgic and even a little sad. As a child of the 80′s I think back to my childhood and a smile automatically appears on my face. The milk bar on the corner was my favourite place to be and I got there by riding my bike…along with half the neighbourhood! Ovaltinies, sunny boys, fags, wizz fiz (and my personal favourite cigarette-like chocolates in a packet resembling ‘camel’ ciggies.) I was never at home, despite the fact that I had an Atari. I look at my nieces and nephews today and notice just how different their life has been. I totally agree with Jovana, kids overseas have it so much better. My partner is from Poland and everytime we go it is one of the first things I notice – kids everywhere – playing soccer, running around. You look at the playgrounds here and there is no-one around. Another great post Sarah! You’re the reason I buy the Sunday Age.
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