AIBU to think 80s parenting was often hands-off and unsupervised?

[N3wUs3rNam3Again]

Is this familiar to anyone else ? I was born in the 80s, my Dad worked a physical job long hours, often away and seemed to mostly sleep when home. My Mum worked part time, mostly school hours, although not when we were little, but she wasn't really a present mum, definitely not child focussed. I don't remember her ever playing with us, although she did read and sing to us at night.

I am 1 of 3 children, so was lucky I had 2 siblings to play with and keep me occupied. In the summer we spent a lot of time outside playing with neighbouring kids, this was without adult supervision, kids ages would range from 5-12, we'd be booted out at 9am. Go in for lunch then back out until 5, we'd go on adventures, get chased by farmers, the big kids looked after the little kids. Were streets safer? There were definitely less cars and more kids, so safety in numbers perhaps.

At home we had a television and a commodore 64, although spent more time watching the commodore 64 load than we did playing it. But I watched Tele, loads of it, Lassie, black beauty, little house on the prairie, the Walton's , neighbours, home and away, blockbusters, why don't you, heart beat, grange hill, BykerGrove, button moon, playschool, T bag, Timmy Mallet, the list is endless and I watched it all without parent oversight.

My parents and their friends, mostly our mum's, drank a lot at weekends, I remember many gathering aged from 5-11 either at our house or friend's where our mum's would get drunk and in the summer we kids would roam outside. We didn't get in to trouble, though I think that's due to luck more than anything. In the winter we'd pile in to a bedroom playing hide and seek in the dark , telling ghost stories, calling up spirits, playing truth or dare and raps (card game).

Even at the beach the parents didn't seem to supervise us, all the kids would be in the sea, mums sunbathing / sleeping but the older kids looked after the younger ones. Again it was probably more luck than anything that we didn't get into trouble.

All sounds quite lovely really even with absent parents although my mum was definitely present if we misbehaved or made a fuss and would give us a smack across our legs for bad behaviour and from memory I think we must have been pretty bad and often!

I just wondered really if my childhood was so totally different to everyone else's as reading posts on here, it seems everyone used to do it so much better than the parents who are doing it today. Don't get me wrong I had a happy enough childhood and my basic needs were met but just because my parents didn't give me a handheld screen to watch doesn't mean they were present and doing it better than the parent today who does.

AIBU - that is not how it was in the 80s for you and your parents were way more present than parents are today.

Sounds very familiar. We were feral and wild. I’m not sure our parents did much parenting, I think my grandparents did most of that. But pretty much relate with what you have unwritten. The good old times eh, we learnt lessons quickly back then and we were street smart.

Most definitely. They really seem to live through their kids at the detriment of their own lives.
Can't be healthy surely?

there were so many things like this that happened in my 80s childhood to kids I knew. Personally I can remember all kinds of situations where I definitely did not feel safe and felt very vulnerable around older boys and would hear awful things from friends. Things I wish I’d told an adult about but I’m not even sure if much would have been done and we weren’t taught about things like consent or sexual abuse other than some ‘charlie says…’ stranger danger videos. I got in situations that luckily never turned out that bad but make my blood run cold imagining my kids doing now.

Early Eighties kid here! My mum had mega-anxiety so I had marginally less freedom - I could play out with friends but had to come home every half hour to prove I was still alive or if a friend said I could play at theirs, I had to run home and tell her who it was before returning to said friend’s house. But it’s still considerably more freedom than kids nowadays seem to have.

This is something I wrestle with now I have a daughter - I want her to have those freedoms when she’s older. Not to be a latchkey kid but certainly one that is confident going out, getting into scrapes and getting herself out of them. How to do that in today’s overprotective society, I’m not sure.

Absolutely not! I think you must have been unlucky. My upbringing was ’children first’ and that’s what I did. I had a p/t job and it meant a few sacrifices career wise, but I treasure the time I had with DS and DD and would do it all again. ’Me time’ is now I am retired, but I’d still rather have DGCs around.

Yep, that's pretty much my childhood. Better for the kids - and better for the parents. They knew that, yes, the kids mattered - but so did they. Nowadays parents arrange their entire lives around their kids and let them rule the roost and never put their own needs first - and then go on Mumsnet to complain about how stressed they are. Eighties kids knew the whole world didn't revolve around us, and we're better and more resilient people for it.

I grew up in the 60s and was an original 'latchkey kid'. During summer holidays I'd leave the house in the morning and not return till evening. My friends and I used to hang out at local parks, go on bus rides, or run up and down the escalators at the local shopping centre. My mum never knew where I was. As a parent in the 80s my children were never far from my side. I loved being with them and was always the sad mum in the playground when they had to go back to school after the holidays.

My 80s childhood was similar in ways - LOTS of freedom, summers outside, at the seashore or parks in big groups of kids alone. It was idyllic in many ways andm in my view, better than the organised childhoods of today. My parents didn't do lots with us exactly but they were always around and did read to us, and my dad would play darts, cards, subutteo (sp?) with us. They were quite health conscious people so no drunken gatherings or anything like that - we all did socialising separately due to interests/hobbies. I spent a LOT of time at my best friend's house and on her family gatherings too which nobody seemed to mind! Due to the freedom and also living in a 'safe' tiny, town, I was far more often out on my own and walked to school myself from my second day, aged 5. In many ways I think it was a preferable lifestyle than my children have had because there were more opportunities for learning independence but I was lucky where I grew up. My own children live in a large city with heavy traffic so it isn't really comparable.

Yes sorry 😅I meant my grandparents didn't have modern appliances so my parents were left to entertain themselves so probably expected us to as well.

It does worry me how dependent some young adults (in their 20’s) are, because their parents are so involved in their lives. Even my DD (20) has commented that sone of her friends can’t seem to do basic things like book their own tickets or take an Uber, for example. They’re legally adults, but their parents are still doing everything for them!

I think we’ve swung too far in the overprotective direction -perhaps our parents were too uninvolved, but we were expected to be develop some independence.

I was born in 1990 but my brothers and sister were born in the 80s. I wasn't allowed out and about as much on my own. I had a close friend nearby and we would play on her street with other kids sometimes but mostly we played at home. I got the bus into town with friends from the age of 13 and just hung around the shops all day and went to the cinema and pizza hut. I don't remember my mum playing with me as she was always busy with housework, always had stories at bed time though. I have toddler twins and have no idea what the new parenting style is as they haven't started nursery yet, we just go to stay and plays. Sounds like things have changed a lot. My mother recently admitted to putting us in the living room with the kids TV on after school so she could have a quiet sherry in the kitchen before cooking the tea 🤣

There's another thread at the moment where the OP is upset because her son doesn't want her there when he moves to University.

Young people are damned if they're too independent and damned if they're too dependant!

This is pretty much the same as my childhood. Weird really as my parents were woefully neglectful in some areas- cycle off for miles , out all day with no food/ drink/ money with no idea where I was or who I was with. Looking back I can see that I was actually quite annoying for friends families as I’d be there for hours all the time. Really not sure what my DM thought about that but wasn’t bothered. The best one was where they let me go off to a huge regional farm show on my own with a livery stable owner ( bachelor in 30s) where the pony I looked after was in a competition. Not only was that a massive safeguarding issue but they gave me little to no money or food, it was boiling hot and I was there in my own for hours . Couldn’t have been more than 12!!
Wonder how many of us over compensate with our DK now?!

Same but 70s/80s. I wasn’t told to go out but wasn’t entertained at all, no birthday parties, rare days out, wasn’t encouraged to do sports, music etc. They generally didn’t know what I was doing at school, when my exams were etc. It wasn’t a bad childhood, I just wasn’t a priority like my kids are.

Even back then we had some kids like that. They weren’t allowed out with us , or to be home alone or do various things. Or some were just lazy as fuck . I remember my uni bf complaining he was starving and his mum wasn’t yet home from work. He grew up the same as I did, he was just a lazy twat.

For reference, my 14 yo gets her own uber when needed.

They fuck you up, your mum & dad (borrowed from Philip Larkin.)

Parents weren't NEGLECTFUL, then, for Heaven's sake, it was just the parenting style then - ie the way life had always been before it changed for the worse..

Wow lots of responses. I think some people have misinterpreted my OP but I appreciate that's because I wasn't very clear, so I will try to be now. I had a happy childhood and whilst it may sound like I'm criticising my parents and I think they and parents similar to them, of that era, were lazy, that's not necessarily actually what I think. But I was trying to understand why parents today get so much grief. From this thread however it seems there is more negativity towards the full on helicopter style of parenting that currently entrenches life rather than the more hands off parenting, but really I was trying to figure out why parents today who have given their kids tablets are called lazy and how they differ to our own parents. (NB I'm not talking toddlers strapped in a highchair and left entirely with no interaction or other neglecful examples, but general use of tablets, technology.) Technology has moved on and I imagine the majority of parents gave their kids a tablet as a form of entertainment as that is how music and movies are accessed today, not necessarily any different to having TV, VHS and radio cassette players in the 80s, besides the content available of course. Which I totally understand if not monitored with safety measures in place is dangerous and neglectful. Someone mentioned kids are turning in to zombies and maybe I'm naive but I don't see these kids. I'm an older mum and still see Kids on the school run and they're engaging and navigating life pretty well. Maybe there is a cohort but surely it can't be the majority. But basically from this thread it seems that most of our parents weren't doing anything extraordinary with us, they pretty much left us to our own devices. So my take is those of us parenting today (besides the helicopter parents of course ;)) aren't necessarily any lazier, it's just we're doing it differently with what we have available and unfortunately in the main that's with less freedom, because that is how time has moved on.

I was an only child. Parents didn’t play with me - I remember they bought me board games for Christmas once and I had no fucker to play them with - what were they thinking 😂

I didn’t get bedtime stories or anything like that either. There was no real affection, no days out unless it was organised by aunties and uncles and absolutely zero interest in my education.

I suppose there were @EwwPeople , I’m just noticing now as my children are late teens/early 20’s…and a few of my friends are overprotective parents ( in my opinion). It’s weird, because they’re so different as friends, laid back and fun, but they stifle their young adult children, don’t let them have the freedoms that they themselves had, get paranoid about them walking home just a couple of streets- and these are 20/21-year-olds!

Most of the posters agree with you. I don’t know how watching tv with your family and playing outside with your friends is the same as a child sitting on their own with a tablet 🤦‍♀️

Do you remember a punishment was not being allowed out to play? They kept us in to punish us! It worked though because you were dying to get out to see your pals and could see them all having a ball while you forlornly watched through a window 🤣

You say that as though you think only families deserve bigger houses! A lot of families can't afford the mortgages for larger homes. I live in a detached house that I moved into two years ago, my partner and moved from our semi that we lived in for over 16 years because the road outside got noisier because of people's son's out boy racing, we had horribly noisy neighbours that moved in so we now live in a 4 bed detached house on a quiet cul-de-sac. One small bedroom is an office which was needed and one has a couple of bits of gym equipment in it. The family that lived here before had 3 kids and wanted a bigger house. Nobody is being deprived or has more right than anyone else to have a house like this, it's whatever people can afford.

How could it have been horrible or neglectful when kids turned out pretty well in them daye because we were raised properly! There was no boy racing in the 80's, no 12 / 13 year olds still wandering the streets at 10pm at night and causing trouble! We didn't have youth trying house and door constantly in the early hours of the morning back then! I could on and on about the parenting fails of today compared to when I was growing up in the 80"s! We were more trustworthy back then because that's how we were raised so we didn't need over bearing parenting.
Too many parents these days want their kids to have syndromes or anxious at school etc, it was a lot more no nonsense in those earlier generations also parents back then didn't try to take little kids to inappropriate places or drag so many tiny tots on flights, they accepted that little kids don't belong in certain places until the were a bit older.

Very true. I went for lunch today and there were several children screaming and running around with no supervision, ruining the day for others. That would have been very unusual in the 70s.

I agree with you on this, the teens on the estate I live in and quite awful and very intimidating. Not all of them but enough to put you off walking alone anywhere. Bikes, scooters and phones are robbed, often at knifepoint far too often. I don't remember any of that when I was growing up (born mid 70s). There were plenty of boy racers in the 80s though, I and a few friends found them very interesting, and cool I suppose when we were 13-15.