Parenting in the 70s and 80s would it be considered abusive or neglectful today?

[CarolineKnappShappeyShipwright]

I'm interested in what people raised then think of how they were parented compared to what happens today. For example I was hit, not regularly and not particularly hard or anything but I wouldn't do the same to my own children. I wouldn't consider my parents to be abusive but I would report similar if I witnessed it today.

In terms of neglect - definitely all my needs were met in terms of food, clothing, activities but I look back and supervision wasn't a priority. I lived rurally and me and friends could easily wander and no one would have a clue where we were and no way of contacting us. That would have been from a fairly young age 7 or 8 often with smaller siblings we were looking after. Not a chance I would have let my kids do anything like that now. Was it neglect or just how things were then?

thing is i didnt stray far, in the fields behind the house, or the woods, there were less cars on the roads. i guess if they probably could find us if they needed to, someone might have seen where i went.!
we did sit in the car in the pub car park for long periods
at one point we slept in the back of the car
there was rarely any lifts anywhere
i had to make my own way if i wanted to go somewhere, they did buy a season ticket for the train but there were very few lifts given
only once when the college bus dropped me 2 miles from home at midnight unexpectedly, did i ring home for a lift.

In 39 years time it will probably seem like neglect we didn’t let our teens establish themselves and become big players in virtual reality.

I agree with this

You all think 70s to 80s parenting was awful and yet today's youngsters are nervous wrecks who cant cope with anything.

I have always thought of my childhood as being typical of the time - 1960s and 70s - and quite conventional but with some enlightened elements thrown in eg we were never hit, parents not concerned about us seeing them naked when dressing or in the bath, no conversation off limits. Most new parents try and reflect on their own childhood and adapt their own parenting style accordingly. I feel it's a real tribute to my parents that, despite turbulence caused by illness (theirs), there's so much I have been happy to repeat with my own DD and nothing I have outright rejected.

And in the 70s/80s there were more mums around in the day, generally just adults out because you had to shop and pay bills, get money in person then. Adults who at least had a vague idea which family you belonged to, or in an emergency could knock on their door.

Those adults just don’t exist now, many at work ir on a screen WFH getting shopping delivered and banking online

Think I got hit maybe once. Smack on the back of the legs. So not physically abusive.
Crying was not tolerated- and I was a crier.i felt things v deeply. But I kept a diary from 11 and learned to deal with it, which has made me a v resilient adult who, to be v honest, gets tired of everyone under 35 suffering with mental health and not being able to deal with pretty much anything in work, whilst the rest of us pick up the pieces.

Anyway. Different rant.
My parents were seen as more strict than others and to this day, I don't really know why they were more strict. But we're talking 80s/90s strict, so pubs and clubs were on the table from 15.

I think in some ways my mum was more attentive to our needs than I am to my dc, but certainly as little kids she wasn't planning her days around us. She just kept us occupied with tasks, so she could get on with other stuff. If she wasn't there and my dad was, we were ignored.

As a child ten and over I had to move to a large town from a village, my brothers were sent to live with my dad and my mum had a new job and a new boyfriend. I was left to my own devices and ended up wandering all over town and getting into friendships groups in the local park which led to SA on a regular basis. So to see my granddaughters aged 11 and 13 being restricted and cared for with a family that does most things together is a fantastic thing for me.

Not all 70s/80s parenting was awful, and modern parenting fights online influence daily.

You cannot compare, because shock not all modern parenting is awful and some 70s/80s parenting was dreadful.

I grew up in the late 60s /70s .I "played out" together with NDN DC (small close N London) We were expressly told by DM not to go to the Fair on the Marshes near our house.Also cared for by DGM and happy time playing in their huge garden .trips out . Never smacked and not allowed tons of sweets .We expected to eat Dinner and not another meal if we didnt like it .( save for a couple of things I really disliked!)

I was born in the 60s. The way my parents raised me wasn't neglectful. They themselves were raised in a time when the world was a lot safer, so allowing us out to play young and out of sight was normal. My family lived in a cul-de-sac and at age 5/6 it was normal to play just out of sight of the house window (but still within the close). Me and my brother would often go and play in the local quarry when we were about 10/12, about 20mins walk from home, and parents just knew we were 'out playing'. We didn't have mobile phones then, so no way to contact us either. It was simply "be back by the time the street lights go on".

It was a different world. We didn't have bicycle helmets, but didn't all die from brain injuries. Cars didn't always have seatbelts, or they weren't mandatory, and we survived, without having to sit in a car seat until we're 30, but then there was less traffic and people were not such mad drivers. We ate good, home cooked meals, rarely had takeaways, over processed food or junk food. We survived and were healthier for it. Our parents interacted with us, rather than being distracted by their mobile phones. Yes, we got the occasional light smack, but it didn't damage us and we respected our parents as the smack meant we'd gone too far. We were allowed to learn by assessing risks and making mistakes, as well as being instructed and taught life's lessons. We also didn't live in as sterile a world. We played in the mud and drank from the hosepipe, our parents didn't sanitise surfaces to death, so we built up a good resistance to germs. Best of all, we didn't have social media, with photoshop and unrealistic ideals of looks and body shape, or constantly being told what fashion/brand/logo we had to wear, so we grew up with confidence and much less anxiety than todays kids. We weren't neglected, we simply lived within the laws and constraints of that particular time.

Theres lots about today's world that's great, but I'm personally glad I grew up as a child of the 60s, and not the over-cautious, over-sterile, over-processed, over-woke world that we have now.

I think, overall, my dps made a better fist of parenting than I have.

They gave us the odd smack, but just a single tap, not a spanking or a beating. And they would have challenged that sort of thing. We were quite well supervised, allowed a bit more freedom than would be typical now, but it wasn’t free range roaming for us. We would be allowed go to the shop, or cycle to a friends house, expected to be back by a certain time. We were quite well educated on dangers to look out for, what to avoid, etc.

We were expected to defer to adult conversation and display good manners. Big feelings weren’t encouraged but they were approachable, helped us problem solve without trying to solve our problems, and took an interest in our thoughts. I felt loved, and knew I was important to them.

We didn’t have a lot of cultural experiences, and “travel” was a long car ride to see relatives in the countryside. But we were taken to the library every week and read all round us.

Children’s tv wasn’t available 24:7 which meant that other kids were likely to be outside playing at similar times. Food quality was better although I wasn’t fan of my mum’s cooking!

I think my dps were really excellent parents for their era and I don’t think my parenting is as good relative to the times.

Yes, it sounds quite normal for the 70s/80s.

I cannot remember what age I was when I would roam but I don't remember I time when I couldn't either. Occasional smacking normal to some extent.

My dad took that too far on occasion though (and for things that didn't warrant a smack let alone a kicking or strangling) - that was abusive. DH's mum could be a bit abusive - emotionally and physically (beyond a smack - slapping across face etc). His dad would stop at a fairly light smack but his mum (when no one else around) would scream and rant and go beyond smacking.

I wasn’t ever hit or punished. My emotional needs were largely attended to and I was appropriately supervised. I don’t see a huge difference between my own parenting and my mother’s to be honest.

The only difference is with the health and safety such as being unrestrained in cars or constant passive smoking.

It seems as if more children/young adults have mental health problems than they did in the past.

You could argue that in the past, their problems were not addressed, but I do think there was more resilience a couple of decades ago.

Many (not all) of today's parents appear to be totally preoccupied with their children. There are classes, swimming lessons, days out at weekends and play dates where an adult is always present.

The Internet must take some of the blame. In the past, parents were not judged as much as they are now. There were no groups showing off what other parents were doing, which can result in a kind of 'keeping up with the Joneses' in terms of parental involvement in children's activities and emotional well-being.

Very few children are left to play unsupervised today, which I can understand, as the roads are now jammed with traffic.

You can't compare today's parenting styles with those of the past, because the world is a different place today in many respects. Every generation will parent differently, and who's to say which method is best? Even the fact that this is being discussed would have baffled parents in the past.

There's a lot of talk about 'resilience' . Resilience can sometimes mean that a child has developed their own unhealthy way of coping. For example, a child who is regularly left alone and or shouted at and or verbally abused teaches themselves to cope by disassociating. Or a child who goes to boarding school teaches themselves to cope by building emotional walls.

Not everything that looks like resilience is healthy, because unfortunately that 'resilient' child has then taught themselves to cope in situations that they really should be walking away from.

That's an extreme example, and not what we mean. Not what I mean, anyway.

My partners niece is twenty one. Whenever she had an essay due at university, she travels the seventy miles home to be waited on hand and foot over the weekend. Her mum to make her meals and do her laundry and look after her while she had an essay to do.

That is ridiculous for a grown adult to be completely unable to write an essay and also cook themselves a meal at university is ridiculous and shows a complete lack of resilience.

How will they going to cope in the working world or living alone.

I don't think anyone is talking about tolerating abuse. They're talking about completely normal sets of life circumstances that youngsters can't cope with now.

We were fed well and did lots of exercise and left alone to make our own play, which all kids need to do.

However our emotional needs were entirely neglected, and bullying was ignored, other than to tell the one being bullied to just ignore it, you're too sensitive.

So actually while being left alone teaches kids independence, the emotional neglect doesn't breed confidence.

I don't know if it's just where we live, but it seems to me that schools require parents to be much more involved in their child's education than when I was at school in the 80s. Apart from the odd parent/teacher evenings and maybe a concert once a year, I don't ever remember my parents coming to the school. I think school and home life were much more separate.

I agree. I don't believe for one minute that the answer to teenage resilience is fairly shit, negligent 70's/80's style parenting.

Leaving your kids to wander around your town/village randomly doesn't make them resilient. The kids that hung around in the park when i was growing up at that time were the ones smoking and drinking at a young age. - and no i don't mean 15/16, that was 'normal' age. The ones who hung out in town were chasing random boys for attention and doing 'chicken scratches' a type of self harm. They weren't more resilient, they were just learning all the wrong ways to cope with things.

Resilience comes from feeling secure and that giving you the confidence to make mistakes knowing that it will be ok if it goes wrong. Both confidence and resilience have a genetic component.

Not sure what this post is looking to achieve.

Parenting skills today are severely lacking. Most kids 'parents' are their phones and the TV and strangers online. Kids have no coping skills and everyone has a MH diagnosis. No one has a father and, if anyone advocates for one, is seen as a misogynist who supports the patriarchy or some such nonsense.

Give me 70s/80s back any day, thanks.

I was born in 1971 and can't think of a single thing that would now be considered neglectful or abusive about how I was parented. Oh except that my parents smoked in the house and in the car 🤢

Based on the mental health of today’s young people versus the mental health of my generation as teens I think the older days just might have been better! Not hitting, that’s not right and my parents didn’t hit me, more the life skills to entertain yourself, freedom to roam etc

I completely agree. People will be horrified at how much time we allowed our children to spend on screens. How overweight we allowed them to become. And that we pathologised a whole range of normal negative emotions like anxiety, disappointment, sadness, loneliness, boredom so that children who weren't smiley and popular and entertained 100% of the time thought there was something wrong with them or expected the world to endlessly accommodate their trivial wants because they saw them as essential needs. A whole generation that lacked resilience and self-reliance.

It looks different to current parenting but then the context was also different. As far as parents in the 70s/80s were concerned, their kids were living in paradise - houses with wall to wall carpets, central heating, wallpaper and windows that fit. Most people had televisions so there was in home entertainment too. Children were vaccinated against the most awful diseases and there weren't food shortages/restrictions. I think those parents felt relieved that their children were so well provided for, compared to their own childhoods, if they were working class.

This is why parenting is so much more stressful today. We are so much more child centred and there is so much more pressure and judgement on parenting. Children seem to rule the roost which isn’t good for them and parents aren’t willing or able to correct them.

I spoke to the father of a girl who regularly goes missing recently who told me that once he had physically tried to prevent his daughter from leaving the house and social services and the police had visited which he then had to declare to his job so now he feels he has no option but to let her walk out of the house. The girl is 15 and at risk.

Years ago you could do the bare minimum and just congratulate yourself on keeping them alive.