Was childhood it better back in the day or was it insanely dangerous?

[FleetFootedJanet]

I grew up in the 80s. My group of friends were the boys and girls who lived on our street and surrounding street. We went out for hours, with those friends with no adult supervision, and played in the streets or gardens. We also, when slightly older, went further afield.

I distinctly remember one occasion when we played on a building site close to our house, when they were building an extension to the estate where we lived. We also used to “sail” on the old canal using whatever we could find, and played on a bit of disused land next to an old car park.

I don’t know, but I sense that kids don’t do stuff like that now. DD is quite young but the idea she’d play in the canal or on a building site seems mad, even though I did it and have fond memories of exploring and doing all that stuff. I’m still friends with a good proportion of those kids who I played with back then.

So was it better? Or was it insanely dangerous, and I’m lucky to have made it to adulthood? Did it give us something kids now don’t have - are they missing out? Or am I just getting old and nostalgic?

Well there is a huge gap between better and insanely dangerous

children do get killed on building sites and in open water

lack of physical activity also kills, although slower

and children need to learn to gauge risk also

but I don’t think I’d like a child playing on a building site ( even though I also did that)

It was both, simultaneously. My dad's friend lost a foot playing on farm machinery, I was rescued by the Lifeboat service twice as a child, my sister met a flasher and I knew about 6 kids who were hit by cars. All lived to tell the tale though. My DC have never met a flasher or had to be rescued by any service, but they also haven't had the freedom I had.

It was different, in ways that are good and bad. But I'll happily take DS having a more sedentary, indoor lifestyle in exchange for the grinding poverty of my own childhood. Though, obviously, there is no correlation between the two things.

I was sexually abused aged ten in a situation that would not happen now. Safeguarding is better.

Both lol!

I grew up in the 70s and I think it was both - better and more dangerous!

I say that, but of course I don't really know what childhood is like in 2025, so a comparison is a bit pointless. I grew up in the country and yes, me and my friends really did go out after breakfast and mess about until we were hungry and then wander back home. We built dens, climbed trees, dammed streams, even built a raft from old pallets and polystyrene once, made fires and cooked horrible stews over them etc etc.

I'm not making this up - it was a bit Enid Blyton. We were lucky. The worst we suffered were cuts and bruises but it could have been a lot worse, My mum was quite happy for a gang of 7 of us to go swimming unsupervised in little river nearby - which no parent would ever countenance nowadays.At one birthday party, the dad fitted all 8 of us into a family saloon car by having us sitting on each other's knees and letting 2 girls curl up in the boot!!! We were 12 years old. To be fair, I don't think my parents would have been happy with that!

I think we were more innocent, though. We were all unaware of some of the nastier aspects of life because we didn't have the internet, and we played very much in the real, rather than the virtual, world.

Also - and sorry to introduce a very grim subject - but child abductions were more common in those days, partly because parents were a bit less watchful sometimes but mainly because the existence of CCTV and mobile phones has made it much more difficult for would-be abductors to get away with it.

The dangers are different now for sure.

It was different.

There was a programme on tv called ‘That’s Life’. As well as numerous stories (wonky veg, talking dogs), they did campaigns such as ensuring playgrounds had safe surfaces. Previously, if you fell, you fell on hard concrete.

The same programme also resulted in the creation of Childline. Before then, I don’t think children’s voices were really heard.

I think we do live in a safer society today, but due to social media, it’s not perceived that way.

I grew up in the 70s and remember my mum saying she had more freedom as a child than I did. That was traffic related though. She used to cycle off to a seaside town 20 miles away for the day with her friends. She wouldn't allow us to do that because of the traffic even though our street only had anout 6 cars parked on it in old photos.
I think the Moors Murderers and the relatively detailed way their crimes were reported may have started parents being more cautious for other reasons.

I think it was more dangerous, yes.

But the benefits were lower anxiety and better risk assessment, greater independence, probably better mental health too. And less stressed parents (because they didn’t have the pressure of entertaining / paying for childcare)

There was a more cavalier attitude to supervision, but the wider community supervised more.

Now we all have firmer boundaries and are more risk averse. Positives and negatives to both ways of living.

Better in many ways, definitely more dangerous in others. I was a child of the 70s and early 80s and could be out all day,in the holidays. My Mum wasn't neglectful in the slightest but trusted me to play out with my friends. And for sure some of the stuff we did was downright dangerous (used to go in the storm drain tunnels for miles until the sweetshop man told us we could drown!) Played in farmers' fields, rode miles on bikes (no helmets) cooked random foods on home made stoves!
But we also learned our limits and learned personal responsibility. I was assaulted once as a child, and flashed out twice, but don't recall being more than momentarily shaken. I do think that we more robust.
But there was also more of a community mentality... the local policeman WOULD bollock you and march you home if he caught you doing something stupid, a neighbour would keep an eye on you.

My children had slightly less freedom but still lots (partly as we lived in Forces quarters) and were teens before social media really took off. They still swam in the river and made dens.

I worry for my little grandchildren. I want them to experience true playing out... I'm no more scared of the bad men out there than I was for my children, but of social media, cyber bullying and also of them being so dependent now that as adults they will struggle. I think the odd broken limb from playing beats never having freedom!

I was in primary school in the 70’s. As a parent now I’m utterly horrified at the things that were entirely normal during my childhood. For example:

At age 8, walking alone to my friends house on the other side of town to knock on her door.

same age, making sandwiches and walking 2 miles to the local beach, mooching about on said beach and walking home.

Massive slides in the play park set into concrete - I saw a boy fall off the top and go splat at the bottom. See also complicated tall climbing frames on concrete.

Enjoying being pushed high on the swings by adult men who hung around talking to us. When they started asking if we wanted an ice cream, running away because the last thing your mum always said to you as you left the house was “don’t talk to strangers”.

Being sent to buy cigarettes at the corner shop with a note to say who they were for.

Generally wandering about the town centre on a Saturday because you knew you’d bump into someone you knew

Being dropped off at the swimming pool and collected later even when you were still in arm bands.

Happy innocent times!

Child of the 70s. I don't think at the time we thought it was dangerous, we were just having an awful lot of fun! But it build resilience, social skills and fitness. I'm very glad I was a child then and not now. I think social media is far more damaging mentally and kids seem so unhappy these days.

At 79, I'm an aged crone, but I used to do things that now might be considered "insanely dangerous".
We lived in the depths of the countryside and had a mixed stock farm. I used to ride my small, rather temperamental pony for miles to stay with school friends. This was well before the age of mobile phones. We had land lines, and I'm sure that if I hadn't turned up when expected my friends' mothers would have been in touch if I hadn't arrived when expected. I had a small leather school satchel on my back with my name, address, home telephone number and medical details in it. Fortunately, I never needed it.
On one occasion, I was up a tree in our little spinney and a flasher waved his appendage at me. It was a horse chestnut tree, and I threw the spiny fruit at him. He soon scarpered!

Child of the 90s

used to play among stacked hay bales in local farm. No one knew. Could easily have toppled on us and they were stacked 5 or 6 high and we climbed them all.

used to go to clubs aged 16 sometimes in lingerie and black out drunk.

used to get drunk and black out in rural fields at parties aged 15. Would walk home 25 mins across fields gate the party at 3am

used to wander around the village aged 7-8 for at least 2-3 hours without any adults. Sometimes playing by the marina. No fear of talking to strangers.

halloween trick of treating without grown ups aged 11-12. Walking around in the dark by ourselves

all shit I would never let my children do now!!!

Better, and a different kind of danger.I do believe childhood is safer in terms of stranger danger/injury. However, the danger now is to physical health especially in the long run and mental health.

So probably better back in the day for those that survived but obviously worse outcomes for a few.

Thing is those of us who lived to tell the tale remember how exciting it could be, but some didn’t live to tell the tale, or at least got badly hurt. I remember a boy in my class who fell off a railway bridge onto live tracks. I remember a girl who got hit by a car and lost her leg, getting flashed at was considered par for the course, I knew two girls who were seriously sexually assaulted by strangers. Playing chicken on the rail tracks at a level crossing was an every day game, see also mucking around on the hard shoulder of the motorway.

I look back and shudder. It wasn’t all great.

I do remember playing outside in the local neighbourhood with other kids and little or no adult supervision. Also, we were in and out of each others' houses and gardens - there weren't many official "play dates". I remember climbing trees and messing about in a stream.

When I was young (80s), seatbelts were only compulsory in the front seats of a car, so sometimes there would be a load of us squashed into the back without restraint.

As far as I know, we were all fine, but I get the impression that a number of children died in unnecessary farm accidents and road accidents in the 70s/80s.

I was there, it was not better. The things we got up to were dangerous, and not good for us. The lack of parental involvement/care/interest has affected me way more than any perceived benefit from doing riskier things than kids do today.

In any event, it’s a moot point as we are living in 2025 and there is no world where we would ever go back to that.

Thanks everyone! I agree there are good and bad points about both.

I remember that one of the walks we used to regularly do involved walking across a railway line (after crawling under the fence). We looked both ways and ran across but even so, it just seems mad.

I’m lucky that I don’t recall ever being flashed at or being bothered by any strangers but that must surely have been a big risk.

Despite sounding like feral rule breakers we had a lot of respect of adults. If we ever got a bollocking from the local policeman or another adult, we would apologise and stop doing whatever it was.

It also occurs to me all these stories of messing about in rivers and fields is very much still the case in many rural areas. Childhood in larger towns and cities was different for kids in the 80s and far from the rural idyll the rosy spectacle crowd want to paint.

You are confusing respect and fear.

I feared adults. I didn’t respect them. In contrast, my daughter has way more respect for the adults who are in her life, but doesn’t fear them.

Swings and roundabouts...

You'll let people queuing up on here to tell you it was better because it was more free play, less screen time, "more time to be bored" (?) and play out and entertain yourself. That's partially true.

But I think childhoods in the 70s and 80s (my era) were characterised by a fairly shocking amount of neglect. What's now painted as "benign neglect" wasn't all that benign. Safeguarding was non-existent and a huge amount of borderline sexual abuse was passed off. Bullying was dismissed as "a joke". It was much harder if you were gay or neurodiverse or just didn't fit in. Alcohol played a huge role in people's lives and was normalised in social circles which has led to a lot of substance abuse problems in my generation.

There were certainly benefits to having more unsupervised play and to kids not being on phones all the time, but it irritates me when people talk about it like some Elysian paradise of childhood. There are a lot of reasons to be grateful that we're not living in that era.

I know. I find it really annoying when people assume that everyone was tramping through fields or on their bikes in their backyards in their childhood. A huge proportion of children have lived in cities for generations. Which has good and bad points, but the way people talk about it its as if the entire population moved to London overnight.

I agree that the past wasn't ideal, but personally, I think we've gone too far in the other direction. Not every European country is as overprotective of kids as we are now.

I let my seven-year-old play on a communal green area outside the house with minimal supervision. This area is overlooked by multiple houses, so she and the other local kids are unlikely to be abducted.

I also think it's absurd that I'm still expected to walk my child to her classroom door every morning, even though it's on the other side of the building to the school gate we use. She knows the school building well by now, so why isn't she trusted to walk along a corridor to her classroom? When I was six, I was occasionally dropped off at the school gate, so not even into the building.

I do agree with picking children up from the classroom door, though. In the old days, when we used to run around the playground until we were collected, we'd hear of the occasional incident of a dodgy bloke trying to collect a child by pretending to be a friend of the parents.