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.

But that's just because there isn't a stigma attached to it. It certainly isn't all young people.

I posted this on another thread today which I found really interesting!
https://siliconcanals.com/d-research-says-the-1960s-and-70s-accidentally-produced-one-of-the-most-emotionally-durable-generations-in-modern-history-not-through-better-parenting-but-through-benign-neglect-that-forced-ch/

Personally, I think there's a huge difference. Back then, they knew we were out having fun with our friends, bonding with our siblings, playing in nature, riding bikes, being creative building dens, laughing, socialising, developing independence. Parents who hand their kids a tablet and leave them to it are knowingly causing damage to their kids, turning them into zombies, hindering their development. There is a massive difference. I wouldn't put them anywhere near in the same class as "lazy".

I'm actually quite bemused tbh that you think it's the same.

My mum was always busy. Busy decorating. Cooking. Sorting. Helping old people. Doing pt time work. Gardening.
We were encouraged to go out to play all the time, even though much of the time it was boring and the other kids were boring. But they were also more strict than other parents, so we weren't allowed as far as other kids- which made us he weird ones. Never saw my mum really drink. Rarely saw my dad at home after 7pm. I thought all dads preferred the pub. Blew my mind that other dads stayed in. I used to be very shy around them.

I think some of my parents' parenting was better than mine. I think some of mine is better than theirs.

Kids blame their parents for everything anyway.... until they become parents and grow up and realise that we can move on from our childhoods. Whatever mine did, they gave me the tools to become a competent and happy adult. If my kids manage that, I've done ok.

This is a lot like my upbringing in the 80s. My parents looked out for us, provided a good environment, and we did some family things together, dinner every night, bike rides on some weekends, we had some extracurricular activities. We were ready to before bed and usually went to see a play once a year.
But to they didn't play with us, (why would they?) we were quite free to go wherever wanted on our bikes, generally expected to figure out our own problems and friendships, if we took the bus somewhere and lost our way we had to find out own way home.
Overall, I think it was much better for kids than it is now.

The thing I would say about access to tv in that period is that it did not include 24 hours a day of children's tv. You had some set times, early morning, a bit at lunch, Saturday. Daytime tv if you were sick from school was cooking shows and soap operas. Evenings had adult sit come and dramas.
So if you wanted to watch tv with your parents in the evening you learned to enjoy adult tv. But often kids did something else rather than get mesmerised by 24 hour kids tv.

Are you saying that mental health in young people is no worse than it ever was, we're just recognising it more? I'm not sure that's generally accepted as being the main cause.

I don't think it's the same , I don't think I've said that anywhere, I agree there is a massive difference and I don't think under 5s should have access at all and I'm sure I said as much in my previous post to you. I'm not talking toddler's strapped into a highchair and being given a tablet for 6 hours everyday to occupy themselves with no other interactions, that's obviously child neglect and maybe I'm naive but I'm assuming that's an extreme rather than the norm and generally it's more parents giving toddlers a device whilst they're cooking, cleaning, dealing with an older child, making a phone call, taking a shower. But, and now I'm talking 5 +, because I don't really remember much before then, our parents would sit us in front of the Tele, leave us to our own devices, which besides content available really is not much different to kids on devices, the parent in the 80s wasn't doing anything outstanding there from a parenting perspective, they were catching a break getting on with jobs nothing there helped my development, but it wasn't frowned upon. In addition our parents sent us outside all day, don't get me wrong we went went willingly, but my siblings and I, say aged 6, 8 and 11, even younger, would go off with neighbouring kids across fields on adventures, according to this thread seems we weren't alone, we'd climb on hay bale stacks, play in rivers, some kids went to the beach completely on their own, anything could have happened, yeah sure an older kid would have done their best to protect a younger one, ran for help if needed but at the end of the day we were all kids. If a parent today sent their 5 years old kid out for the day with their 10 year old sibling they'd be reported to social services, the police for child neglect. Parents today don't have the same options as parents did in the 80s. What our parents did in the 80s, today is called neglect.

You literally said that the parents of the 70s/80s were just as lazy as the parents of today. I massively disagree. I think giving kids ipads as a way of not having to deal with them is lazy. I think the way we were raised was healthy.

But we are seeing it a generation who can't cope with the real world

Really interesting thanks for posting

My children were born in the 70s. I definitely didn’t drink alcohol but did have friends over for a cup of tea! My children didn’t go out to play either but would play in each others gardens (with us mums there). Food was much more limited and home cooked as ready made food was so much more expensive. It probably sounds boring now but didn’t feel like it at the time 😂.
They were happy days. I did not go to work and was able to stay at home with my children so was always around and I am sorry that so many mums today do not have that choice as finances are so much tighter now sadly.

I wonder, have rates of mental illness in young people really soared? Or do we just listen to young people now, take notice of their anxieties and problems, care how they feel, gather more data about them, and try our best to help/get help for them?

Yep, that all sounds familiar (apart from the drinking).
Playing outside for hours - in rivers, streams etc. Going for bike rides as far as we could go.
They just didn't seem to worry about things like drowning.

And somehow most of these children managed to become literate, independent adults!

There was just enough independence for their childhood to be interesting and stimulating, but enough adult involvement that they learnt to be responsible and independent

Yes i loved it is wasn't micromanagement nor did my parents get hysterical if I ate a packet of crisps or didnt go to my school all guns blazing because I wasn't lead in the school play or interfer in friendship dramas

Parents back then just got on with things and dodnt have endless guilt or a need to control

Your childhood sounds very similar to mine albeit I don’t think I had a lack of supervision or anything, but completely similar in terms of what we would get up to, and the TV programmes I watched (albeit I definitely was supervised in that respect as I was only allowed to watch “one lot of Australian rubbish” as my mum called it and had to choose between Neighbours and Home and Away! (I don’t think she meant any offence to Australians, more the fact that it was a soap).

My parents did do plenty with us, but I don’t think in the sort of needing to entertain us / schedule activities / supervise all day every day that I feel is now the norm. It was more in the sense that (I) they really supervised and checked my homework in the evening and did educational things with us and occasionally at the weekend if I wanted to do some art that was a bit more than just drawing (dad was an artist in his spare time so eg he might do some screen printing or something with us as a fun thing to do) but also we would do stuff as a family sometimes as the weekend with their friends who also had children - lots of family friends coming to stay for visits because we lived in a pretty bit of countryside so then the inevitable long country walks etc. Supervising us didn’t dominate their lives as in a full time thing, often it was a case of doing something with us fitted in around other things they had to do, and also sometimes it was doing stuff that was fun for all of us with family friends. There were quite a lot of dinner parties at their friends houses or at ours. Generally speaking a normal weekend would be mealtimes together, and in between, playing by ourselves or taking ourselves off out and about with friends, because mum and dad would be busy cooking / cleaning / gardening / dad would prob be doing some DIY or something. I do remember the sort of freedom you described and playing out all day at weekends / the holidays - no limits in terms of how far we were allowed to roam that I remember. It was a big change though in that I lived in London until age 6 so couldn’t go anywhere at all on my own, then we moved to a small rural village and suddenly it was just you could go and call on a friend in the village by yourself and go out and about in the fields and woods as far as we felt like.

I was a latch key kid from the age of 12, late 70’s as my single mother had to work, I also don’t remember her being very motherly at all and reading me stories etc, grew up in a large council estate so there were loads of kids all ages and we were out until it was getting dark, also don’t remember her ever asking where I’d been but the neighbours were always watching what you were up to and god help you if you annoyed any of them, also the fear of the police was very real in those days so we never got into trouble 😂

Yes, this. Also micro managed "play dates."
You just played with your friends! Not who you mum had wangled a "date" with at the school gate. 😍

You've just described my 1980s childhood. I was only talking about this yesterday. Every thing is extremely child focused these days and there's constant pressure on parents to be entertaining their kids with activities and days out etc. It's a world away from my 80s childhood where I was just left to entertain myself exactly as you described. I'd be out of the door each morning to play with the neighbourhood kids. tbh I had the best of times. A day out was an extremely rare occasion I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of days out and holidays I had throughout my entire childhood. And there were definitely no after school activities. Mum or dad never played with us or entertained us in anyway. It sounds neglectful by today's standards but I was happy, it made me streetwise and I developed great social skills which I think many kids are lacking these days.
I've done way more with my own dc than my parents ever did with me but must admit ive found the pressure and anxiety to be constantly entertaining them with days out and experiences, because that's what's everyone does and is expected these days to be extremely stressful and I wish it was more like it was in the 80s.

I think this is what makes parenting so hard these days, society expects you to supervise at all times.

I was born in 76 and from age 7 I was allowed to go out and play and found some friends in a nearby avenue. I was never home, which suited me as my mum had some mental health issues and her and my dad were always arguing and bringing us into it. It wasn’t a safe haven, far from it. None of my 3 kids (all 18 plus) went out to play. Times have changed, parents are much more involved than they were in the 80’s.

That’s how I feel - i enjoyed going out to play, I feel that my kids have missed out on a lot compared to how I grew up. I think back of those days playing with friends fondly.

Sounds like my childhood OP!

Same. I actually wish I'd have raised my own dc in the era I grew up in. I'd have done more with my dc than my parents did with me but overall I feel it was a much better era without that constant pressure to be entertaining kids and it was more acceptable to leave them to explore the world for themselves.
My own dc now teens have no clue how to navigate the streets in our local area like I did as a child and they lack the confidence I had simply because kids don't play out and explore these days. I've been more than happy to let my kids Play out but it's difficult when there's no other kids to play out with. The streets are like ghost towns these days and we never see kids playing even on hot summers days. they are either out with parents on days out or indoors on a screen.