How does your child’s childhood compare to yours?

[Atetoomanynachosagain]

An example is weekends

I’m an 80’s child, 90’s teen

Saturdays were either at the shopping centre with mum & sister, at the grandparents for the weekend, where we’d go the market, Asda and watch Brookside omnibus. At home we’d watch Saturday night tv and fall asleep during a James Bond film. Some Saturdays we’d walk with dad to the library, then get a treat iced finger from the cafe afterwards.
Sundays us kids might go on a bike ride (parents never came) watch Supergran (hated it) have a Sunday dinner around the table and be extremely bored. A few years later mum would take my sister and I swimming on a Sunday morning, sometimes we’d play Monopoly or chess at the table with dad

Last weekend-My 8 year old:

Saturday:
Breakfast pancakes out-coffee & croissants for us, horseriding lesson, birthday party in the afternoon, friend on the road came round to play, all made homemade pizzas & popcorn and had a movie night

Sunday:

Played in garden with Dd-made a falry garden then went on a falry hunt in the woods, Dh played football with Dd. Took Ddog for a walk near a large lake, stopped for a picnic lunch, looked around a castle and took Dd to playground and grass area.
Came home and another friend on the road came to play, made cupcakes with them and some Easter crafts
Dd did homework, tv, bath, stories & bed

i remember feeling so bored at weekends, especially Sundays. I didn’t see friends when in Primary or go to any clubs/classes. There were three of us kids though, Dd is an only so we’re always with friends. I saw friends from around 11 upwards, mostly independently-walking to theirs, buses etc…later getting into lots of trouble as a teen 13 upwards-parents had no idea

So different now, I don’t think my mum really made many plans aside from visiting grandparents once a month (mum and dad would go out in the evening and grandma would do all the cooking) or going clothes shopping-C&A and Tammy girl
She certainly never planned activities for us.
Not knocking her or my childhood at all, just so different

My weekends were boring as anything. My kids are so so lucky to have me as their mum!!

Similar age to you @Atetoomanynachosagain

I did dancing Saturday morning with some of my siblings, the others did something else. Difference was parents dropped and ran & we were not collected for 2.5/3 hours.

Rest of the day play with siblings, or neighbour friends pretty much always unsupervised.

Saturday night telly eg Gladiators

Sunday - church & then a fry up. More playing, Dinner wasn’t always a roast.

As I got older it would be trips to park with friends or cinema, homework etc.

My dc aren’t that different just far more time pressured and far more supervision.

I'm a 60s child/70s teen.

Weekends were largely with my grandparents where I had a pony and my gran would take me riding and shopping and bake with me and I'd much about on the farm, playing with the labourer's children: bikes, scooters, skates, go-karts. We always had mass on sunday morning and sunday lunch. It was fab - a real swallows and amazons childhood. As a teen it was young farmers, pony club and rotaract - lots of parties. As a child, partoes were occasional and at someones house.

My DC had more structure: tennis lessons, hockey, rugby, instrument, cubs, brownies, so many parties. They were London children so it was different but Museums were on the doorstep and I played with them far more and there was more park and more organised play dates. They also had an au-pair. Theor education had far more importance placed on it. I was a girl, 18 in 78 and expectation was still that girls woukd marry well and have a little job for a few years as a secretary, cooking exec lunches, perhaps a stint in PR, etc.

The biggest difference however was that my parents detested each other, I was an inconvenience and they divorced when Inwas 12. Our children were loved and wanted and secure in that.

Yes I feel the same 😂 today is a grey, slow day but we’ve still taken the dog in the rain in the puddles, made books, made strawberry cheesecake and Dd did gardening with Dh. She’s now playing at a friends. Even on chilled days at home I mainly sort of have a plan, we do of course have days where it’s just tv and computer most of the day
I remember being so excited when we went to look at carpets and there was a small ball pool, my Dd goes fairly frequently to huge play places during winter

Similar age to when you were a child/teen. The main difference is that I was always playing outside and at friends houses and going out on my bike.

Mine play less outside, more tech obviously than we had, I wouldn't particularly feel it safe to be cycling on the roads around here. The neighbourhood is different too. Growing up most of our neighbours were young families. Where I live now is mostly retired people and few younger families, so less opportunities for DC.

Growing up we would probably go the the city centre or town shopping on Saturdays, garden centre or nature reserve Sundays.

Weekends now we go out as a family. Saturdays I find shopping too busy but we often go on Sundays or various other places. Also things like bowling or trampoline park that I never used to do as a child, these can be expensive but the ones I'm thinking of weren't there until say the last 20 years.

I was never bored as a child but my parents never planned activities, my extended family did. I spent a lot of weekends with extended family, I would go swimming, blackberry picking, play cards and board games. When at my parents house I'd be making up dances either on my own or with friends who lived on my street, having bike races with my brother in the alley, playing basketball or football with brother and friends. I'd draw and read at home on the odd occasion no one wanted to play out.
My DC are teens now so go out with friends a lot at the weekend. When they were younger we lived on a street that was mainly older people with no children. We did a lot of days out, farms, theme parks, swimming, woodland walks etc. Visits to my grandparents and meals/trips out with them. Occasional baking and crafts at home but we would spend most of our time out together.

We played out on a Saturday on the common with all the other kids (also 80s child). DS didn’t have that which I think know a shame - he thought it was brilliant when we visited northern friends who still played out (they lived in a close).

But yes he had so many more opportunities and activités. I remember Sundays being as boring as hell. Luckily half the year I was at rehearsal for the scout gang show so got to hang out with friends on a Sunday.

My kids lives are very different to how mine was but I don't know if necessarily better. When I was a kid I was pretty much out the door as soon as I was up to play with friends and just came back to eat. My kids are with me all the time and go to arranged activities. They don't have the freedom I had but they are looked after better then I was.

70’s child

no one had heard of ‘child centered’ parenting, no one played with us or talked to us. We just played together, read books, went in the garden.

My kids. Had an amazing time, entertained with lots of activities but also had plenty of stillness/quiet to be bored. Very little computer games, tv screens only for family. No phones until 14+.

I'm 40 so mid 80s born, child and teen in the 90s.
Horrificly neglected. My mam was an alcoholic and I was walking myself to and from school from 6yrs old. Weekends we had to fend for ourselves. She was out friday and we didn't see her till monday afternoon (Tuesday if it was a bank holiday).
Never went on holiday
Never did anything with us.
Never allowed on school trips bc she would be to pissed to sign the forms
Only meal we had was our dinner at school.
Didn't come to any school plays
Never no clean uniform / clothes unless my grandma managed to come round and do a load.
We had to fend for ourselves from such young ages & it wasnt until I had my first of my 4 sons that i realised how wrong it was. Back then it was just my life, but when I held him & looked at him, so beautiful and innocent it dawned on me the level of neglect we all went through & how I would never treat him like she did us.

Also an 80s child and 90s teen. I played outside a lot at weekends as a child, with parents not having a clue where I was or what I was doing. We weren’t allowed to play in our garden as we would ‘ruin it’. If I was in the house, I was mainly in my bedroom reading or playing. If I was in the living room, I’d have to watch whatever my parents were watching, which wasn’t always appropriate. We occasionally visited relatives at weekends, but no other activities.
As a teen, I’d be out a lot but doing a lot of nothing, hanging around parks at night, sometimes drinking from 14/15. Clubbing from 16. Parents knew and didn’t care. From 16 I had a part time job so as long as it wasn’t costing them anything, they didn’t care. They didn’t have a clue about what we were doing at school. If I was home as a teen, I’d be in my room as parents weren’t interested in talking to me.
Friends were never allowed over.
Our parents just weren’t very interested, it was all about them.

My own children’s childhoods were/are very different in most ways. They did play outside a lot, but mostly on our own land so we knew where they were. We would sometimes join in with their games and they had lots of garden toys, trampoline, climbing frames, tree house etc. When in the house they played downstairs a lot and again we would get involved sometimes. They got to choose what was on TV if they were with us or we would at least watch something that wasn’t inappropriate for their age. We’d read to them, play board games, play on the Wii and later the switch with them. They had friends over often. We often took them to the park, museums, cinema, swimming out for meals etc. They also did activities like football, beavers, rainbows, swimming lessons, music lessons etc.
As teens we knew/know where they were. We let them drink at home from 15 ish, one drank sensibly at parties from 16 after GCSEs which we would pick them up from. We would never let them hang around parks drunk, it seems really shocking now that we were allowed to. Our children both kept up with their hobbies which we paid for. They both game a lot. We helped and were interested in schooling and revision for GCSEs. They talk to us a lot, we know them well and are interested in their lives. We do things together like bike rides, walk the dogs, days out, watch tv etc. We are close to our children, they like us and we like them!

Some of the contrast is down to financial differences which is understandable, but a lot were to do with my parents just not being interested and lack of effort on their part.

Mine have a stability I didn't. One house, one school so far compared to the 6 houses and 3 primary schools in 3 different countries I'd managed by the time I was same age as my eldest.

Other than that, probably quite similar. We always had holidays, my mum always cooked from scratch and we also did a lot of going out/extra curriculars etc.

A big part of my childhood was going around many many car boot sales or antiques fairs. Oh my god the boredom from me and my brother was palpable 😂😂

But I do look back fondly at our weekends. They were normal, lots of playing with our toys, or in the garden or eventually out in the street with friends and visiting grandparents.

My kids. I feel there is a lot of expectation from them to go out and "do" something. Not anything big or fancy but they get itchy if kept inside all day.

Mine isn't that differ.

Today mine went to music lessons in the morning, then home in the afternoon. We were out in the garden for a couple of hours, they played on swings & trampoline while I hung laundry and did some gardening. Dd helped with the garden tidy by washing all her mud kitchen pots, but that was as much water play.

I didn't do music lessons, but did go to a kids art & craft group on Saturday mornings, and my at home time would have looked similar (though mum would probably have stayed inside).

The main difference is what's avaliable and the level of supervision expected. As kids, the only 'softplay' near by was in a local hardware store & mum would book us in then walk round for an hour pretending to be intrested in drills. We also spent more time playing in the street, whereas mine are more garden kids, but overall similar games.

Forgot to add, like most kids mine do have screen time, but actually they probably spend no more time on tablets then I spent on my game boy

Not to be too glum but I grew up in poverty and with domestic violence so my childhood was terrifying and volatile. We never had money for anything but I did play outside with my friends a lot - they generally didn't have much money either. I had siblings and had my own bedroom for a while in one of the places we were housed so it wasn't all bad. I read a lot, and the library probably saved me, psychologically speaking.

My daughter's dad and I have worked hard to give her a calm, stable, balanced home with responsive, responsible, attentive parents and it's the thing I'm most proud of. Being able to take her to activities and treat her is secondary to the fact we have provided her with safety and a home where nobody is walking on eggshells. But it is nice to take her swimming in the morning and then for a walk out to the library and have a treat for dinner. She plays out with friends but less with each year which isn't her choice actually her friends' - they're less likely to want to go to the park now sadly. Kids seem to want to stay in younger now.

I’m a 90s child; my DC’s weekends are quite similar to mine.

Today DS had a swimming lesson then we all went to a large public garden where he can play and we walked, picnicked for hours, had an ice cream then DH popped to the supermarket before we had dinner.

Often DS will have a birthday party. Good weather usually means an outing to somewhere like a nearby National Trust garden and house/beach/library/bike ride nearby/strawberry picking/country walk/cinema or family friends will visit with their DCs or we’ll visit grandparents for the day.

Sunday is always church then a roast then a walk/bike ride/trip to the playground in the afternoon then homework, tea and a quick board game.

I didn’t “play out” as a child like my DM did in the 60s; we lived on a through-road and she was (rightly in my view) nervous of strange men. I wouldn’t let my DC play out now either.