Does this type of childhood still exist

[Shushimwatchingemmerdale]

Sort of inspired by another thread.

I live abroad with toddler Dd, 3. We have a great lifestyle by the beach etc, but, it isn’t a British childhood, the way I remember it.
Growing up on a cul de sac, friends on tbe street or if not, very nearby. Walking to school and summers spent reading and playing on the street or going on bike rides.
Here it’s a drive to school, a drive to friends houses, play dates etc are organised around the cinema or shopping trips, all great, but just not the same.
Is this how childhood still is in the U.K.? Or am I not missing anything?

I know loads of kids from very young who play unsupervised on their street or estate. If you live in an area with loads of other families or you live near school, this is normal.

I grew up in the 1940s - early 1950s and it was much as you say. Kids played out unsupervised in mixed groups and most often in the street. Its fair to say there were far fewer private cars then to constitute a danger. There was an entire lore of children's street games that has been lost to later generations. Plus the ways which groups of children decided among themselves (called dipping) whose turn it was to be "man" in games like hide and seek, etc.

There were no"play dates" then. When you wanted to play with one of your friends you would knock the door and then politely ask whoever came if Tommy or Doris could play out. Groups of children walked to school together or got the bus. They were not ferried around like parcels making them fat and lazy. At weekends we visited the cinema, parks or played in one another's gardens,

Children learned to be self sufficient and resillient by making their own entertainment. They also learned social skills of fitting in with the group. There were generally older ones in each group who enforced standards of fairness, such as turn taking, and when you were "out".

I think it is such a pity that all this has been lost. Many children now are over parented and under disciplined which is why we have so many little entitled princes and princesses on our hands.

I still see it around here - younger DC have a parent awkwardly standing in a front garden supervising and older DC can play out/go for bike rides by themselves.

Yes, it was like that for my two older DC (12&17), cul de sac, inner city neighbourhood, a few nice parks nearby.
But i'm very sad for my 7yo. There are no kids his age left in the close proximity. Some families have moved away, replaced by childless couples. Other families have much older kids.
I let him play out, but there isn't much he can do all alone, and it will be maybe a year or two when i let him go to the park by himself.

We live in a village and I would say my kids have that kind of childhood. We live on a cul de sac & they play out with other kids (although I do watch them as my youngest is 5). Yesterday we went to the rec and they were both joined by various friends and played there for hours. I currently walk them to the rec but let my eldest play unsupervised once there. I think in the next year or so he’ll start walking there on his own (he is 9).

Mmmmm I think it depends where you live.
I grew up in Italy in the '80s and I had the childhood you describe. But I was from a small town and used to spend all afternoons/summers at my grandma's flat -there were many families with children my age in the building, and my school friends were all available at walking distance. We all played together until dinner time.

Where I live now (south of England, big town, cul-de-sac type of road, terrace houses) children play outside a lot, fairly unsupervised. They don't bike to town or go outside our road, but still they jump from doorstep to doorstep and spend a lot of time outdoors enjoying each other's company. I also see lots of them walking to school indipendently from roughly age 9-10?