My childhood summers versus my DD’s

[Waitingforseptembernow]

I was born late 70’s, young childhood in the 80’s, teenager in the 90’s
During summer, us kids were left to our own devices, I can’t remember my mum taking us to the park/playground much (very occasionally on a Sunday with my dad)
She never set up activities, did crafts, only baking at Christmas when I helped her make mince pies. Dinner was only made from scratch on a Sunday maybe-roast, lasagna…during the week it was Findus crispy pancakes, chips & beans, salads in summer. My mum didn’t work, I remember she cleaned more than I do (I have a cleaner as hate cleaning and want to spend my time with Dd)
This is not a slagging off my mum post as she is lovely, just a comparison in the effort maybe in parenting then versus now, does anyone feel the same?
I arrange play dates for Dd, we go to the playgrounds, beach, parks, picnics, I do crafts, baking, days out, I’m not complaining, it’s my choice and I enjoy it (I’m very tired though!) just wondering why it’s so different now to then? Did mum’s generally not think or want to do all these things?
I want to be an 80’s mum!

I was born around the same time. I was the youngest of 8. My parents always worked. I think childcare was sorted out between the older siblings.

I remember going abroad 3/4 times in my childhood and also butlins type places.

I used to walk the dog every evening with my dad . On a Sunday he would take a couple of us to the park with the dog.

We used to play in the streets with friends/neighbours. We would have our BMX bikes and make ramps out of milk crates and wood. We used to go over to the sports club on our bikes get chased of by the groundsman . We would hide from him under the weeping willows. Climb tress. Etc
Play out till it was getting dark.

I can't recall actually spending time with my mum. She was there but I can't recall me and her times.

Born in the 70s, child in the 80s and teenager in the 90s.

I remember going to knock for my friends on a Saturday (usually after we had all been dragged around Sainsbury's) and then spending most of the day outdoors, on our bikes or making our own perfume with rose petals or butter. You always knew which house we were at because all the bikes were on the front lawn.

I remember watching rugby with my Dad, or listening to his old Rock n Roll records and being taught how to dance when it was raining. I used to bake on a Saturday as well, leaving the mess for my mum to clean up😂. Occasionally we'd go out shopping or to the boat shop. But we were very much left to our own devices.

In the summer holidays we'd have the odd trip into London for one of the museums, and the main camping week away, followed by a week visiting my grandparents in Scotland.

My mum always cooked from scratch, so Saturday would be homemade pizza with the leftover bread dough or lasagne, roast on Sunday. I still think of pizza as a Saturday meal.

I grew up in the 70s, my mum worked part time and housework was much more labour intensive and there were no ready meals and we never had a take away apart from the occasional fish and chips, so generally she was busy at home.
I spent all the Summer holidays calling for friends and playing outside. If it was raining we'd maybe watch Some children's telly, like the Monkees or Why don't You? But generally I was left to make my own fun.
We'd often catch the bus (it cost 2p) to the end of the line and then catch it back home again, so the days weren't entirely fun packed all the time. We'd take picnics, sometimes to the local cemetery () and ride bikes and generally while away the hours until teatime but I loved those long lazy days.
My children were born in the early 2000s and their Summers were very similar to mine. They had obsessions like tennis and skateboarding and one summer printing t shirts! But they were outside hanging out with their friends and occasionally bored but still making their own fun and winding down and relaxing.
I still adore Summer and feel sorry for children that don't have the same freedom to relax and chill out before school starts up again.

Born in the suburbs late 70’s too. My mum worked as a teacher but didn’t work that much until we were at school. I remember we played out a lot more during the summer holidays with our neighbours & friends from up the road. We’d ride our bikes around, walk to the local stream & sweet shop. It was all very wholesome looking back! My mum did take us out but we never really went to playgrounds, I remember hanging out in pub gardens, the local town & having picnics in the countryside. My mum cooked but we had a fair amount of convenience food too like fish in a bag, pizza, oven chips etc.
I think there was less information about how to parent back then, less of an idea about aspiring to be any particular way. It was just expected that you’d have a couple of kids & get on with it! I’d like my DD to have elements of my childhood mixed with some more modern approaches.

I was born in the 70s, school age for whole of the 80s. There was a lot less "entertaining" of children. My parents expected us to fit in with their life. Not neglectful, we were well cared for but I don't remember my mum ever playing with us or doing crafts with us. There was some boredom - our mum worked part time mainly from home and in the holidays we were supposed to stay upstairs and keep quiet. But it wasn't that bad. My sister was only 2 years younger and we played a lot together- Barbies and imaginative made up games. We also read a lot which we really loved. Weren't allowed to "play out" in the street as mum thought that was common but oddly we were allowed to go to the beach (at the end of the road) and walk the dogs in our own from quite a young age.

We did a couple of extra curricular activities (swimming, brownies/guides etc) but in the holidays we would go for one day out in the summer and it was a big event. The rest of the time we visited family or stayed home and were expected to entertain ourselves. I didn't feel hard done by I have to say.

My kids have many more organised activities and go to holiday club when I work. I do a lot more stuff with them than my mum did like the park and baking. Cinema is a few times a year not once in a blue moon. They are prone to moaning about being bored if I don't lay on enough entertainment which is annoying and i tell them so. Neither of them enjoy reading like I did which is a real shame.

I don't think I'm doing it "wrong". It's what's the norm and I would look a bit neglectful in contrast with their friends parents if I parented like my mum. Plus I work full time and feel like I need to "make the time count". Also my kids are 9 years apart and no hope in hell they would play Barbies together!

As a kid (in the 70s) I used to spend every summer holidays with my GPs in mainland Europe. Started going from around 2yrs old and my parents always stayed home. GPs would fly over to collect me etc. So it makes me laugh sometimes when I see posts about people not wanting to be away from their young child for 1 night!

My grandfather still worked full time so it was me and my grandmother during the week. She mainly got on with her routine as normal. Sometimes we'd stop at the park after shopping or play a board game in the afternoon. But mostly I was expected to amuse myself. Usually we'd all go somewhere on the Saturday but Sundays was church and home.

I brought up my kids in the 90s in a similar way. "Big" days out weren't frequent. They had friends they hung out with or played in the garden or in their rooms. I'd do activities or take them to the park some days but it definitely wasn't a daily thing. I think that it used to be the way that kids needed to fit into the adults lives. Whereas now it seems more the adults lives revolve around the kids.

70 s 80s here mum dis not work as Dad worked in the Merchant navy.
We were in and out of friends houses once a week would go further afield as a family. Dad would try and time his holidays to spend time with us theme parks the beech often meeting our neighbours children on these random days out.
My area had a sports hut where we could borrow play equinent. Plus there was an adventure playground locally. The local church ran a holiday club .
Our uncle and Grandparents would take us out a few times. Lots of baking.
Dad blunt a massive padding pool and sandpit in the garden.
My school allowed us to use the tennis courts and long jump.
Other neighbours had different play equipment. Six weeks were never long enough

My Mother worked FT in the 1970’s as a manager in a UK branch of a Global company, she was the first woman manager in the country at this business and had about 30 staff. We ran wild and free, those jokey Gen x posts about drinking out of hoses and out all hours, our lives were like that, I did come close to drowning once but overall it was great. DS got sent to holiday clubs and also did some playing out at the park from 11 but no roaming for miles from 8 like me and our little band. My best mates Mums were both FT nurses, no idea what other kids parents did.

She taught me how to cook, manage money, knit and sew and she was great fun. A very quick witted woman but short of time, we had to help round the house a lot.

I grew up in the 90s in a London suburb.

Summers were easy breezy. A couple of weeks away in a holiday cottage with the family, either in the UK or France. The rest of the summer, was a mix of being taken out by mum, usually with another mum and their kids, to a local country park or swimming pool, going out with mum and dad on the weekend to a National Trust or a sports event or grandparents, having friends over to ours or going to a friends', going on long bike rides with my siblings or friends, lying in the garden reading, and so on. I was very happy and have great memories of my childhood summers. I don't remember my mum making a huge amount of effort to organise activities and we never played together - my siblings and I are all close in age and we had plenty of friends on our street, so we occupied ourselves very happily, running in and out of everyone's gardens and going down to the park together. Mum's presence was only required if we wanted a competition judging, wanted to complain about one of our siblings being mean, or wanted feeding!

My mum always says the difference between parenting now and then is that when we were kids, we were expected to fit in around what she was doing, and now it's the opposite way round. For example, on a Saturday, my mum had to do the big shop at Sainsbury's and sort my grandparents out with their food for the week. That was non negotiable. She wasn't going to be mucking about with dropping me off with friends or sorting out pickups or whatever - she wanted to be at Sainsbury's by 10am so that she could be with my grandparents by lunchtime to sort them out, before we got home for our lunch. I either tagged along with her day, or if I wanted to go out with friends, I had to get myself there.

When I see my sister contorting herself into knots to get her kids to loads of different places on a Saturday and organising her entire life around making sure they're all doing their different activities when they want and are permanently occupied, with no time to do anything for herself, I think my mum's generation of parents had their priorities right to be honest.

I don’t disagree with you but why do you think it’s ‘not possible now’? What has changed?

I had a similar childhood to what you describe. The children I know nowadays broadly fall into 2 camps. The ones that do lots of activities, eg sports training several times a week and other hobbies, and have friends through there, and ones that mostly stay at home with their own family, save the odd playdate/ sleepover.

Both of those types of families would have been regarded a bit unusual in my day, when certain kids weren’t allowed to be a part of our large and fluid friendship group, especially in the summers, we would all puzzledy asking our parents why and if they were ok, why weren’t they allowed friends etc 🙈 Funny how times have changed!

I’m older than you. When I was a young child, my mother was a SAHM. She played games with my siblings and me, baked with us, read to us. We also spent a lot of time playing on our own or with friends in the neighbourhood. Looking back, I think it was a good balance. At the time my parents were considered to be slightly overprotective. Now they would probably be seen as wildly irresponsible! 😂 They absolutely weren’t, but expectations for supervision of children have become extreme.

When I reached primary school age, I did a few activities (ballet, Brownies, horse riding at various times in my childhood) but my free time was not packed with organised activities. I watched TV but we only had one TV in the house (and only a handful of channels). I rode my bike, read and wrote a lot, played with friends. I invited friends over to my house and visited them, but we made all the arrangements ourselves. I don’t think the concept of a “play date” existed back then.

To be honest, I think my childhood was better in many ways than the experience that children tend to have now. They are often overly supervised and their time is scheduled with adult-facilitated activities. They have little freedom and few opportunities to develop independence and self confidence. Far too much time is spent in front of a screen. Childhood has changed radically in the past few decades for many children in the UK (and elsewhere). For the most part, these changes have not been positive IMO.

You really wouldn’t want to be an eighties mum, OP! Children were more independent, they were expected to entertain themselves more, they would play with local friends - just call for friends rather than play dates but… it was an era when many women returned to work after having DC, albeit often part time or term time, there was very little childcare (eg after school clubs, full time nurseries for childcare rather than education), you might have a “job” but it was harder to juggle a “career” with DC. Despite working, women usually did all or most of the childcare, shopping, cooking and cleaning. There was only a few hours of kids TV a day, no online shopping, no robot hoovers, many households didn’t have things like microwaves, dishwashers, tumble dryers, large fridge freezers, maybe only 1 car for the household, possibly a top loading washing machine with a separate “spin dryer” etc, housework took a lot longer. The more time the DC are at home, the more mess…

Eighties mums may have done less structured activities with their DC but that was because they had less time. I’d rather go on a play date or make crafts with my DC than endless hours of chores. Probably not a bad era to be a dad though.

I was born in 1979 and this sounds exactly like my childhood except my Mum would never have made a lasagne! Sundays were toast dinner days, the rest was something from the freezer, crispy pancakes and chip fryer chips featured heavily!

We were never taken on days out, sometimes I'd have a friend over but that was only if I asked and then I had to phone them or go knock on their door. It was up to me to sort out my own entertainment and if I didn't then I'd hang around d at home, I must have been so bored when I was really young!

That’s a very good observation. Through the year I would do what mum did, not the other way around. Children were mini adults a lot of the time in the sense of being exposed to adult world, sitting at dinner table at adult birthday parties and chatting to everyone. Or off doing our own thing.

It does seem like everyone has now completely changed their lives to work around the kids’ schedules. When we were training several times a week as girls, we’d get ourselves there, train, get ourselves back. Around that time there were a couple of parents that would attend training sessions and competitions. We thought that was really unusual. Over 5-6 years my mum probably came to one of my competitions with some other mums that were similar! We’re talking early teens.

@frecklejuice i never had lasagne either!
lots of shepherds pie.
yes, very similar, I think my mum worked part time. My dad was a teacher so presumably was around but I don’t really remember that.
i would play with my sister and local friends, we would climb up haystacks, swim in ponds, climb trees and go for epic hikes - all unsupervised. Then I would come home, have tea (shepherds pie), go for a walk or bike ride with my mum/dad, watch one programme on tv (tomorrows world) then go to bed and read.
weekends were same as above or we’d go to the seaside or the woods etc for a walk.

Grew up in the 90's was the same. Loved my childhood. Being able to go out and play with friends and explore my neighborhood and ransack the veg pat g in our garden. We learnt a lot. Our parents wpupd take us out once or twice a week. We would go abroad once every 2 years.

My Mum worked full time plus full time at home all home cooked meals amd cleaning. We got involved as we got older as should be done. It shouldnt be all fun activities kids need real life responsibilities more and more as they get older.

From age 7 I would vacuum the house and reaponsibpe for my room. By 10 I was ironing and dusting the house. And once a month me and Mum would do a deep clean.
I would help out my dad with the garden dieonf the spring / summer. 90foot garden with fruit trees and veggie patch and feuit bushes etc. Was amazing. Loved it and learnt a lot of skills.

Sundays was always roast dinner. In the week was a mix of english food or Moroccan food.

I plan to do the same with pur DC. Independent play, exploring, helping at home and some family outings.
I loved my childhood the best years of my life. And my DM was a super mum I look up to and admire so much.

Are you actually remembering correctly, OP? If I ask.my (now adult) dc what they remember about their childhood school holidays and weekends I bet they'd remember playing with their friends, building "camps" etc, and not me spending ages doing crafts etc with them.

You aren't necessarily comparing like with like though
I was born in 1965, I have an older brother and a younger one born in 1971. We also have an uncle very close in age do my mum frequently had 4 children under 10.
My father did nothing in the way of childcare or housework.
No labour saving devices, we went to the laundrette or handwashed. No disposable nappies- I have vivid memories of nappies steaming over a rack in front of the gad fire. No freezer. No one stop supermarket so my mum had to go to multiple shops several times a week.
She always worked part time- washed up in hotel kitchens, shop work, dinner lady. When I was 15 she went to college and trained as a nursery nurse
.We just didnt have all the facilities for children that we do now, those that were available were out of reach for working class families with 4 kids.
We had very few random days out, my grandad used to take us on the ferry to New Brighton on Sundays, my mum would take us occasionally. When we were little we would go to park and feed the ducks. There was a playground and I remember some events for a few days in the summer. We did go to the pictures occasionally.
We did have a holiday in Wales every year.
On Saturdays we watched TV, Casey Jones, Folly Foot, Black Beauty, later on Tiswas, Multi Coloured swap shop
Our street didn't have gardens so we played out in the street. There was always at least one mum around keeping an eye out, all the adults were known an auntie and uncle and you knew you could knock at any door if you needed to.
I remember my mum would appear at some point with a mug of tea and sit on the step with Auntie Shirley from next door for a natter.
So we were left to our own devices a lot, I wouldn't call it neglect, my mum wasnt sitting around or off getting her nails done, there was always an adult around. It was just different

Child of the 60s here. We had so much freedom, with a few fields, some woodland and a disused quarry to play in. There were a lot of children locally, we would roam around together with the older ones looking after the younger ones. As the younger ones grew up a bit they looked after the new small ones.

The mums were busy doing housework but paid enough attention so we weren't really neglected. I remember huge picnics in various gardens, presumably the mums coordinated this as there was always a lot of food.

My parents did also take us out, to further afield countryside or the beach, or to something educational like a museum. Art and craft was encouraged, as was building dens and camping on the lawn on warm nights.

Friday nights my Dad finished early and would take my brother and me out, swimming or to the park where there were rowing boats to hire.

All very idyllic really, nothing like the fixed activities my DC tended to do. They certainly wouldn't have been allowed to build bonfires in a disused quarry and bake potatoes in the ashes with no adult in sight!

I agree OP and my childhood was the 90s. Friends and I common on this change a lot. Expectations are huge now. Constant supervision, structured activities and entertainment at all times. We were outside playing and mum in the kitchen “pottering”. We, as kids, had more freedom and wanted to be outside though with friends and having fun etc. No way would it happen now for a whole host of reasons. The findus pancakes made me laugh - as remember them too but again would never give to my own kids!

Definitely this. I was born in the early 80's and remember a lot of going with my mum to see her friends and playing with the friend's children. Sometimes the friend didn't have children and we had to bring a book and sit quietly. We used to go and do the food shop and if we were good we could get a doughnut or choose some crisps. Sometimes we went into town and if we walked we could spend the bus fare on sweets from Woolworths.

There was definitely less mum guilt. Children would mostly go to their nearest school. Parents would usually do whatever they were told by the Dr or the school, there was no "doing your own research" or arguing with a professional.

I remember a couple of children in my year group at school dying and one being left brain damaged, from meningitis I think. Nobody died in the year above mine which was seen as quite unusual. There was a car accident but they all had their seat belts on so they all survived.

One thing I find was really weird is that children with special needs mostly went to special needs schools and parents had to fight to get their dc into mainstream. Now it's the other way around.

I'm glad children are actually seen as human beings these days rather than all of us having your miserable attitude towards them. If I ever have the misfortune to bump into you on a bus, I'll be instructing my daughter to stay firmly seated.

'70s childhood and I can remember the day trips our mum took us on very clearly as there were so few of them.We had no car, went anywhere we went by bus or train and mum was busy with housework so my brother and I hung around the house, played and roamed with friends and local kids, read books and sometimes went to the local play park but never alone.

When I was growing up there just wasn't the spare money for trips or days out. My parents were desperately struggling to buy their house on my dad's British Rail wages, until my mum went back to work in the late seventies we were hard up. But I still remember the paddling pool in the garden very fondly.

My 80s childhood summers were very different to my DC. But DM was very focused on the Uk summer seaside holiday. That week, or two if lucky was idyllic. They saved like mad so we had ice creams, pub meals, crazy golf, fairgrounds, pop all night etc. the rest of the summer was pretty dull. I loved watching Why Don’t You, The Monkees, Stingray and all the kids summer tv in the morning and from around 10 years old playing out all afternoon! From aged 13 summers got a little spicier as we all started drinking, experimenting with soft drugs and snogging! Lots of fun though.

My DC had an abroad holiday plus days out at soft play, cinema, museums, parks, zoos plus lots of activities organised at home and with friends. Much more structured, even as young teens tbh.

I don't even remember what I did in the summer holidays and I was a 90s kid.