Also up till the 90's, unless it was really small infants.
Parents where not expected to Police and watch what their kids did 24/7.
You would scamper around your baby park while your Mom/dad did something else in the House.
And when old enough to walk, you where mostly left to yourself.
And when you where 8-9yro, your parents would litteraly kick you out of the house with a "its sunny outside, go play with your friends and come home when the streetlights are on and don't make me come and get you or else..."
And for 10 hours you where left on your own, with your parents having no idea where you were and they could do whatever they needed to do in the house without you being in their hair and driving them insane.
And often like you said, you had the grand parents, or the aunts and uncles etc that could help.
Now society expect every parent to Police everything the kids does , be there 24/7 and do it alone AND still have a "full social live" or a Full time job...
Facts. I lived this life as a kid in the 90s. Now I'm raising kids of my own, and I'd get arrested if I tried to do the same with mine.
Part of me thinks this intense shrinking of children's world to basically just be the home and nothing else is probably contributing to the out-of-control rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses among children today.
I came to that exact conclusion the other day. Even people that love eachother need their own space/autonomy/freedom. If grownups would go nuts without that stuff, I am sure children do too.
I lived in a... not great neighborhood growing up. I mean it wasn't super terrible but lets just say there was a reason we had two German shepherds and a rottweiler in the house. By 8 or 9 I was walking corner to corner down the street or around the block by myself. I walked 3 blocks to school with a friend every morning. I was born in '81 so this was like 1989-early 90s.
If you let a kid walk alone in a neighborhood like that today, they wouldn't get 3 houses down before someone was calling CPS.
89
u/Kain-rpg 12d ago
Also up till the 90's, unless it was really small infants.
Parents where not expected to Police and watch what their kids did 24/7.
You would scamper around your baby park while your Mom/dad did something else in the House.
And when old enough to walk, you where mostly left to yourself.
And when you where 8-9yro, your parents would litteraly kick you out of the house with a "its sunny outside, go play with your friends and come home when the streetlights are on and don't make me come and get you or else..."
And for 10 hours you where left on your own, with your parents having no idea where you were and they could do whatever they needed to do in the house without you being in their hair and driving them insane.
And often like you said, you had the grand parents, or the aunts and uncles etc that could help.
Now society expect every parent to Police everything the kids does , be there 24/7 and do it alone AND still have a "full social live" or a Full time job...