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.

You'd think there'd be less given that children have less freedom. I feel like there were lots of high profile cases in the 90s and 00s.

I was a child in the late 70s and 80s. My parents didn't give me as much freedom as many of my friends but we were actively encouraged to go out to play and as long as we came home for meals no one really asked where we went to. I remember being about 8 years old and cycling round calling for friends and gathering a group of us who would then play at one of several parks/woods etc until at it went dark. If the weather was bad we'd sometimes end up in someone's house to play but no parents ever asked if our parents knew where we were etc. In the school holidays my older brother was often left in charge all day from when he was about 13 and I was about 8 (he was a nasty bully but that's another thread). Other than brownies, there were no adult organised clubs/activities.
But like OP, in other ways my parents were oddly restrictive.

My mum was at home. She cooked but that was about it really we were expected to amuse ourselves. The positives were that we had more freedom than kids currently. However we also had exposure to some very dark things. I got sexually assaulted twice. Once by a teacher and our school had a surprising amount of drugs and violence. I did not tell my mum about the assaults as I did not think I would be believed. Particularly with the teacher. He was quietly dismissed when I spoke to a female teacher who I trusted. I do not think I would go back to those times.

I agree I had lots of fun growing up and wouldn't necessarily change it. I posted as I was inspired by a thread about screen time and some of the comments on there. Personally I don't think it's great for kids under 5 to have unsupervised screen time but some of the comments were saying "it's lazy parenting", "parents give their kids a screen so they don't have to do anything with their kids". I was reflecting on my childhood and whilst I wasn't given a handheld device I was given free access to the television to keep me occupied and out from under mum's feet on cold wet days and encouraged out on warm dry days. Very few posters here recall their parents playing or doing much with them and whilst I appreciate the massive differences in unlimited/ unsupervised access of handheld screens for under 5s and going out playing with siblings and neighbours it seems from posts on this thread parents in the 60s, 70s and 80s were possibly just as lazy as the parents of today are. Apart from of course the helicopter parents who everyone judges for being far too involved.

I knew the internet was good for something!

My eldest was born 87.There was more of "it takes a village" around here anyway.We knew their friends and their parents and it was common for us to arrange to transport a few or watch a few on the understanding it would be paid back in time. They were unlikely to misbehave out of the house because they knew I would be told of any misdemeanour.
I still live in the house mine were raised in overlooking the park where mine and their friends played most days. There was an unwritten understanding that any of them could come here if needed and I would call their mum,give them a plaster, a drink, spare clothes much like if they went to a different area a different parent would do the same.

The park now is largely unused even during summer holidays. The football pitches are only used for Sunday League and the play equipment mostly abandoned.I find it pretty sad when I remember the swathes of children on there after school,at weekends and in school holidays
I read to mine but rarely played with them outside of board games but there was always siblings and friends about anyway.
With school there was the understanding that if they hadn't done the homework then they could take the consequences. Mine mostly did theirs without help or supervision and they wouldn't have complained to me if they had got into trouble over it.
I have a grandson now and I think I would likely have found it quite tedious and suffocating to parent how dd does. Grandson is always entertained, always has attention focussed on him where I quite enjoyed that they knew how to entertain themselves and were more independent of me.

70's and 80's me - my mum was a fab mum. She was kind, fair and caring and had a sense of humour and a sense of fun. Yes, we were allowed out a lot with friends but she always knew where we were and strict times to be home.

I think parents are more controlling now and also protective, but in some homes that's gone too far. Children that are allowed to fail, to solve problems, to accept that sometimes things are beyond their control means they grow up to be healthier adults when it comes to dealing with problems. I see it on here on MN, where parents go into meltdown if their child wasn't invited to a party. My mum would've just said that's life, but it's ok.

I so relate to this! Weirdly controlling about what to eat, wear, how to behave in front of other people they want to impress but the rest of the time- yeah just crack on without us, off you go and be back home by 7pm, we dont want to know what you've been up to the entire day on your own. You could be doing all sorts of horrific shenanigans but as long as you are wearing what we want you to wear and are eating what we say its all good.

Utterly bizarre!

And that’s why everyone is exhausted, stressed and anxious

I agree with you, but it does tickle me whenever someone talks about their adults children being "successful and in happy relationships, so I must have done something right".

My husband (who I love very much) is obese, in a six figure job that makes him anxious, has mental health issues, and although I love him, drives me batty. MIL would happily say that all the things she did as a parent "did no harm".

We none of us will every really know how good our parenting was.

Kids are not routinely abducted. Isn't there some stat that it's about one child a year who is abducted and killed by a stranger in this country, and it's been like that for years? Horrific, but in terms of the bad things that could befall your child, very unlikely.

My first child was born in 1983 and I also don't recognise the style of parenting described in the OP.
I had four children and I always knew where they were.
They weren't allowed to play in the street. I went to the park with them. I wouldn't have dreamt of sending them there on their own.

I recall sometimes cooking three different options for dinner, because they didn't all like the same things.

I rarely drank alcohol, and if I did, it was after they'd all gone to bed.

I drove them to activities.

I supervised their homework.
I read them stories when I put them to bed.

I worked as a midwife, usually part time when there was a baby or toddler in the mix. My husband looked after the children when I was at work. I worked at the weekends so that he could do this. He worked Mon - Fri.

I do not recognise what was going on in the OP at all - it sounds more like the 1960s, when I was growing up.

Even then, I wasn't allowed to play out.
And I definitely remember my mother cooking different foods for my sister, because she didn't like some of the things on offer.

YABU.

Yep sounds familiar. Most of the time my parents never knew where we were. We used to go out first thing and only go home for feeding and back out again. All the kids used to play outside together or go down the adventure playground for the whole day. Loved it down there. This was before health and safety regulations was strict, it was so much fun.
The mums used to take it in turns at the weekend sitting on each others front step getting pissed 😂

My childhood was the same but my mum never drank (still doesn't know). I think all parents were much more hands off than now. Not necessarily a bad thing in some respects though awful in others.

Very typical of childhoods in the 80s

On a sidenote, TV was more gentler paced and the bad guys got their just desserts. Unrealistic though it may have been, lol, it sent a better message.

I meant that as in good to get flashers off the streets, not good so I can be sent d**k pics .

The way your op describes it, it doesn't sound like you were very happy, almost comes across to me that you think your parents were a bit neglectful? Sorry if I've interpreted it wrong. I think kids and parents alike were happier in the old ways of upbringing. Nobody is happy anymore. Parents are stressed, teenagers are anxious and depressed, young kid glued to ipads.

I was born later, in the early 90s and this was my childhood too. No idea if this stemmed from the thread about screen time or not but I said something similar on there anyway. My brother and I watched lots of TV, he also had consoles so played on those a lot and when I was older we got a PC so I’d be on that constantly. On long car journeys we had personal TV/DVD things when they were invented. At the weekend my Mum went to the pub and we were forced to socialise with the other kids there. We never went to museums, art galleries, on walks, to the cinema, theatre, library etc. I was like Matilda and took myself to the library as soon as I could. The only time I went anywhere remotely cultured was with school. I didn’t go to an art gallery till I was an adult. I also did play out a lot, yes and my Mum had no idea where I was (nor did she care to be frank).

So my DC spend more time than ideal on screens but at least I know they are, they’re safe and they regularly go to museums and art galleries!

To put in perspective.. I was fortunate to be in Africa recently and the very knowledgeable guide told me that when they got home from school village mothers would kick them out and they would go and track lions !

I was 7 in 1980 and this sounds a lot like my childhood, except my parents weren't big drinkers and going outside was a choice. My mum read lots of stories and we went to the library every week - I grew up with a great love of books. I don't remember her reading to me once I could read myself, but I didn't want that anyway.
My mum was very present around us, but not usually playing with us. She'd be gardening or lying on a sunbed reading while we roamed around in the garden and the streets nearby. She spent longer doing household chores than I do, but we would often follow her about and chat to her. I didn't expect her to play - I had my sister for that, and the neighbourhood kids, and I was quite creative. We did play board games as a family though, and I loved that.
We spent a lot of time watching TV - there were no restrictions on that in our house. It could be quite bonding as a family because the whole family would watch the same evening shows at the time they were broadcast. We definitely spent more time in close proximity than my family today.
I liked the way my childhood was, with the 'benign neglect', and I always encouraged my children to go and play outside. Unfortunately the lure of computer games etc. meant that they were often desperate to come back inside though and so they ended up with less freedom than I gave them!

Does it? No I had a happy enough childhood, I loved the adventures with my friends and siblings, late nights, messing about, jumping waves, playing in the dingy, we had a lot of fun and I lived in a nice house and was well provided for. I was just questioning if my childhood was familiar to others experiences due to so many posts about parents today not doing anything with their children and being neglectful by giving them handheld devices. I view my parents parenting style as laxed parenting, not saying it's bad just no different to those labelled as lazy today. Times have changed and it's done differently now but other than doing the basics it doesn't seem parents back then were doing anything extraordinary with their kids that parents aren't doing today.

Pretty much the same. Born in 1967 so it was the 70s, but the experience sounds similar.

Both parents worked, so I spent a lot of time especially holidays with my gran. There was a burn or small river by her house so I spent a lot of time playing there. Rock pooling making dams, falling in.

Children at school always seem to have had stookies or plasters from fractures - we all wrote and cartoons on them. Scraped knees and bruises.

On holidays dad would take me fishing in his 12 foot boat - great fun.

Bicycle rides, tearing down the hill down to where we lived. Brakes aaaaasaaagh. A brother who enlisted my sindys into the parachute regiment with handkerchief parachutes. Mary Queen of Scots Barbie - remove head!

Yes I was absolutely inspired by the thread about screen time and from this thread it seems like parents have always been lazy at parenting, just it used to be easier because they could smack us and put the fear of god in to making us behave.

Sounds like my childhood and I was born in 96 lol

I'm a 60s child and my mother spent a lot of time doing things with me. I was an only child and would play outside a lot with my friends, but our parents always knew where we were, we didn't just wander off whenever we liked as children. We didn't have a TV for several years of my childhood, I remember watching it at my grandmother's house but not very much. I don't believe my parents, or my friends' parents, were lazy. They encouraged us to amuse ourselves, but also did things with us. I used to go to the library with my mother, and we would go for walks, visit her friends, go shopping together. My parents weren't drinkers though. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, which I loved to do.