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.

Yep 80s kid also. My mam never played with us, my child won’t give me a minute demanding I play with her. My dad played sports with us in the summer and on holiday but yeah mainly we were out playing all the time or spent days on end glued to the zx spectrum - which did me no harm whatsoever. Pretty happy though my child won’t be rolling around in a field drunk at 14 tho like I was ha!

I'm not convinced that the 80s were halcyon days. There were definitely boy racers and definitely teenagers getting pissed down town at night. There was constant vandalism of the parks and other places and all the usual excuses "There's nothing for kids to do. "

Many of the kids who were shit when I was a kid now have kids who are shits. They're usually the ones complaining about the school and about bullies on fb.

Oh , yay look! More rose tinted glasses!

Police say they are uncovering a hidden “epidemic” of paedophile abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, with thousands of allegations leading to convictions against people who abused their power to attack children.
New figures seen by the Guardian show that 4,024 allegations led to guilty verdicts at court after police investigations since 2014 into decades-old child sex offences.

The good old days, eh?

This doesn't suprise me at all. A girl from primary schools parents (step father and mother) sexually abused kids at her birthday parties/playdates. Someone up thread said something about sexual abuse being amongst the working classes back then, but besides that family, the other adults from my childhood who were done for sexual offences against children were a doctor and 2 teachers.

I've seen maybe 1 post where a poster's mentioned watching TV with family. I think you're reading and referencing another thread.

Come on knock out ginger was one of the main games we played.

My experience as well.

I had a wonderful childhood in many ways - very free, independent and trusted from a young age. Also spent a lot of time with my grandparents (I’d just take myself there on public transport whenever I felt like it from age 6 or so).

Downside of total freedom was a sense that my parents didn’t care at all where I was or what I was doing, which was making me feel worthless as a kid (I always thought other kids were more loved and cared about by their parents), and to be honest has stayed with me a bit as an adult in all my relationships.

What bugs me about it is the complete dismissal of everyone that wasn’t fine. Some people were great , and their peers were great and nothing bad ever happened and everything was sunshine and roses. Great for them! To claim it was the same for everyone and choose to ignore all the abuse and neglect that went on , is fucking infuriating.

Sorry I quoted you rather than the poster you were responding to. I agree, I've said previously my childhood was happy enough but that was with minimum input from our parents, looking back at classmates it is pretty clear now that some of those kids were experiencing DV , SA , serious neglect but actually a lot of us were more or less exposed and it's luck more than anything that some us walked away unscathed. I mean let's not even get started on being a teen in 90s.

You would be wrong in that assumption.

Please can you tell me what it was parents were doing in the 80s (based on my OP) that parents aren't doing today, to help me understand why today's parents are lazier.

I think it depends on the age of the parents. I was born in 85. My my was 18. She was always present and doing things with us.

My husband was born in 84, his parents are about 10 years older. He was definitely dragged up and just left to do whatever he wanted. Didn’t do well in school (we now know he’s dyslexic) parents did nothing to help or seem like they cared.

That’s awful! I remember always being told not to talk to strangers, especially men. There was a safety video at school where a man in a car tries to entice a young girl to go & see puppies (IIRC). The girl refuses and chalks the car registration number on the pavement & tells the shop assistant. The child murderer Robert Black was active in the 80s & child abduction wasn’t rarer than it is now.

I don’t know. I became a parent in the 90s. I think that the assumption of parents being lazier is because of the use of phones and tablets to entertain children.

My particular thing about it is it’s a solo thing rather than a social thing.

Don’t know how to articulate it, but there are good and not so good and seriously bad parents in every era.

Im sure we both agree that seeing a child in a buggy with one of those things that hold a tablet in front of their faces isn’t a good thing?

Yes my childhood was similar to this (born early 80s). I was out and about playing out with friends on the estate and not in the house much as a child. My mum would send me to my grandparents for a weekend if she wanted a break. I had alot more independence than my kids have had.

Feeding, sheltering and keeping you alive used generally to be considered good enough as parent. Anything else was cherries on top.

My DC were born in the early 2000s & kids just didn’t play outside the way we did. I used to suggest they go out to play &
they would complain there was noone to play with. They would sometimes go to a friend’s house after school (organised in advance) but were usually indoors playing on a games console. I resisted games consoles/tablets but all their friends had them! Many of their peers had mobile phones at 8/9 too but mine weren’t allowed one till age 12.
I took them out a lot as I felt I had to entertain them due to other kids never being available to play with. Don’t regret taking them on days out but I do wish they had more opportunity for independent play etc.

At least kids were able to grow up in those days, learn to deal with conflict and difficult situations without being able to run to their parents for help. It was certainly a lot better than today's helicopter parents raising snowflake kids who can't cope with the adult world.

Define conflict and difficult situations.

I was born late 70s I also never had a birthday party I cant even ever remember having a birthday cake. i think I was about 40 before I had my first ever birthday cake. Birthdays just weren't important in my family but I didn't know any different. It wasn't until quite recently when I was talking to a friend about our childhoods compared to our own dc's childhoods that friend said how sad it was that my birthdays weren't celebrated. Id never thought about it before but I now agree that it was actually quite sad.
I did grow up with quite low self esteem in my younger days and I now think the fact I was never celebrated or made to feel loved or important in anyway is probably why I had such low self esteem.

When I was a teenager in the late 80s there were boys stealing cars & joy riding. Most teens I knew drank alcohol underage at some point, many regularly. There was plenty of antisocial behaviour, possibly more than now as definitely more freedom to roam the streets.

Yep I agree, I don't think it's good at all but I honestly can't say I've seen it that much. I live pretty rurally, surrounded by market towns and only very occasionally I've seen a toddler in a buggy with a tablet in their hands, more often or not I've noticed it with younger kids when we're waiting for something, like to be seen at MIU, or if they're watching an older sibling swimming. However I can't judge the parent as being lazy based on that snapshot and I can't say as a child I sat patiently watching my siblings swim and made no fuss because of the stellar job my parents did, my mum did have a wooden spoon though (so she didn't hurt her hand) and even though it really hurt on my bare skin , it doesn't mean I only ever felt it once.

Same, I didn’t feel important and that has affected me. I was really well behaved which is lucky as there were no boundaries (out until 3am in parks with friends (innocently) - before mobile phones) but also not really any expectations - I always excelled at school and my mum always seemed surprised 🤷‍♀️. She expected me to fail my driving test - no, passed first time. I’ve also had very low self esteem all my life. I have much older siblings who also made me feel pretty crap at times. We all have issues of some sort don’t we?! I knew I was loved but there wasn’t any effort. I’ve done the opposite with my kids, always birthday parties/trips away/out, lots of presents, homemade (not that it matters!) cakes.. they know they are loved, important and appreciated and I support them in every way I can. I do think it’s mainly generational, I don’t think my parents were aware of how it affected me and it wasn’t on purpose. I’m sure their parents were the same or even more uninvolved as they had to work so hard and had to get through the war.

What really bugged me was the complete lack of interest and effort coupled with high expectations! Because obviously I was supposed to magically know everything and do it just right. High grades, but god forbid I asked for help. Active interests, but never had a bike, they kept promising a tennis club that never materialised , I did join a karate club but only had one lesson because I had forgotten to do one piece of homework. After getting myself up, ready , bag for school, walked to school, was at school, came home, fed myself, did homework in a rush, got changed for club and got myself there. Plenty other examples.

Even now she goes “breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”. She never made me breakfast. Not once.

Pick a fucking lane.